Five Towns Jewish Home - 12-21-17

December 21, 2017

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

Your Favorite Five Towns Family Newspaper

What Tax Reform Means for You

See page 7

Around the

Community

44 pg

Celebrating Chanukah around Town

92

Childstones Dr. Eli Adler’s App is Geared Towards Healthy Child Development

60

pg

Lighting up the Night at the Freedom Tower

Hands-On Chessed Around Town

As we go to press...

Mazal Tov! President Trump Commutes Sholom Rubashkin’s Sentence

72

Passover Vacation GUIDE

See pages 100 – 117 – See page 3

SEASONS LAWRENCE

330 Central Avenue, Lawrence, NY 11559

106

Page 73

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

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Yosef looke d at his pare 8:50. It was nts, perp lexed. ‘‘No. at 8:30. I know becau The explo make sure sion was I had enou se I had not just looke gh time to and still d at my watc at be at choir get off the pract h to train to buy would not a cup be alive now.’ ice on time. If I had not gotte / 11 of coffee ’ Now his n off the Tell father looke Time Will train I explosion d confused. happened ‘‘But we hear at 8:50.’’ d on the news Yosef looke d at his watc that the still said h. He could 8:30. He not reali belie would not zed that ve his eyes. if he had have The watc known it him, by maki left the train. He h had been unde ng his watc 8:50, he h stop work rstood that Hash em had saved ing.

Later that day, he visite miraculou d his Rav, s story. He Rabbi Farh was overj ‘‘Take a pictu i, and told oyed. him this re of this watch now,’ ever want ’ Rabbi Farh to be sure i told that Hash at the pictu em runs this Yosef. ‘‘If you re of your world, just watch. Then you will reme look mber.’’

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The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

Dear Readers,

T

his page should be blank. It should be blank because there are no words.

There are no words because there is too much pain.

On the sixth night of Chanukah, the Azan family stood around the menorah. Perhaps they sang the brachos out loud together; perhaps they danced in a circle as they sang Maoz Tzur. For weeks their children looked forward to Chanukah. They prepared projects in school and learned about the story of Chanukah. The boys pretended to be Maccabim, holding shields, fighting off the Greek army. The girls wondered what their school chagigah would be like. And for five days of Chanukah there was the usual Chanukah-frenzy – plates of doughnuts and keftes de prasas, mounds of presents, and Chanukah parties. For five days they were like every other family.

And now, they are torn apart.

Every one of our hearts ripped when we heard of the four pure, sweet, young neshamos that were torn from this world. Our lips quivered at the news; our eyes filled with tears.

When a tragedy of this magnitude hits our community we see, we feel, that we are one entity. As it is said, “When it hurts, you cry out.” And we are all hurting, we are all reeling from the horror. And we are all crying out.

The pain we feel is visceral, instinctive, intense. We try to understand, try to find

a glimpse of meaning from the tragedy but there are so many questions, and we don’t know the answers.

This is not the first time we have been hit by intense horror. Sadly, it was just a few years ago when another fire ravaged another Jewish home. But as Jews, time and time again, we have faced tragedies that seemed to be unendurable. And yet, we have been able to emerge from the abyss. We have been able to maintain our belief and emunah despite our questions. We have been able to connect more deeply in our intense pain.

And we do not come away unchanged.

Every time we are exposed to the horrors of golus we focus on becoming better people.

We strengthen ourselves in our beliefs, in our Torah, and in our mitzvos. We vow to remove the barriers that may have separated us from one another. We use our pain to become a more perfect nation.

As this Chanukah slips away, the darkness of golus envelops us even more intensely. We feel its gloom more acutely, and it reminds us that we so desperately need this golus to end. Soon there will be a time when klal Yisroel will no longer feel pain and when the answers that now elude us will be resolved. That time cannot come soon enough.

Wishing you a wonderful week, Shoshana

Yitzy Halpern PUBLISHER

publisher@fivetownsjewishhome.com

Yosef Feinerman MANAGING EDITOR

ads@fivetownsjewishhome.com

Shoshana Soroka EDITOR

editor@fivetownsjewishhome.com

Nate Davis Editorial Assistant Nechama Wein Copy Editor Berish Edelman Mati Jacobovits Design & Production Gabe Solomon Distribution & Logistics P.O. BOX 266 Lawrence, NY 11559 Phone | 516-734-0858 Fax | 516-734-0857 Classifieds: Deadline Mondays 5PM classifieds@fivetownsjewishhome.com text 443-929-4003 The Jewish Home is an independent weekly magazine.

Opinions expressed by writers are not neces­ sarily the opinions of the publisher or editor. The Jewish Home is not responsible for typographical errors, or for the kashrus of any product or business advertised within. The Jewish Home contains words of Torah. Please treat accordingly.

Shabbos Zemanim

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

Contents LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

8

COMMUNITY Readers’ Poll

8

Community Happenings

44

Chanukah Photos around Town

126

NEWS

120

Global

13

National

28

Odd-but-True Stories

42

What Tax Reform Means for You

92

ISRAEL Israel News

20

World Builders

90

Dear Editor, What an inspirational article published in this week’s issue, “The Smile of Success” by Rafi Sackville. Uri seems like a wonderful person who is perpetually happy – a great Jew living in the Holy Land. I know that everyone who lives in Israel has a story – how they got there, how their parents got there, their army experience, their stamina when going through hardships, their joy for Yiddishkeit...

Perhaps you’d be able to feature more articles about “regular” people living in the Holy Land. Each piece would prove to be inspirational.

Sincerely, Reuven Haber

PEOPLE Burning Bridges by Avi Heiligman

122

PARSHA Rabbi Wein

82

The Test of Poverty, the Test of Wealth by Rav Moshe Weinberger

84

JEWISH THOUGHT Foresight in 20/20 by Eytan Kobre

86

Mail and Female by Rabbi Jonathan Gewirtz

88

What’s Your One Sentence? by Rabbi Dr. Naphtali Hoff

120

HEALTH & FITNESS Six Ways to Climb out of the Pit by Dr. Deb Hirschhorn 98 Chanukah Detox by Cindy Weinberger 102 MS, RD, CDN

102

It’s All about the Flu – Again by Dr. Hylton I. Lightman 104 Childstones – This Could Be Your Most Important App Ever 106

Dear Editor, My family enjoys your newspaper every Shabbat; it is well-written and entertaining. I must, however, register my objection to the cover of the December 15 issue.

The cover features an illustration of a man, presumably a zeide, surrounded by his grandsons, lighting the Chanukah menorah. Absent from the picture are his wife, his daughters and his granddaughters.

While it is a pretty illustration, it seems to reflect a growing trend of some Brooklyn-based newspapers to avoid any images of women. Forget the fact that women are obligated to light Chanukah candles. Since when is a photograph, let alone an illustration, of a woman or a girl fulfilling a

mitzvah considered inappropriate? I hope this is not the path of the Five Towns Jewish Home. I do not take into my home papers that ban women.

Yitzchak Moskowitz Dear Editor, I was away this past Shabbos and didn’t get a chance to sit down with the paper until this morning. Always a pleasure, informative, fun, and all around great. Some of you know me and some of you don’t but as I started to read the centerfold I felt that I can’t keep my mouth shut. The topic of red necks and the detail to which it was spelled out was quite disturbing to me. True or not true, and much of it is true, funny or not funny, of which most was funny...totally not the quality of TJH. Probably a few violations in the area of lashon hara and motzi shem ra, etc. but I’m no rabbi. A lot of emphasis on the beer while we battle alcohol issues in the Five Towns on a daily basis.

We have had a couple of “red necks” within our Far Rockaway frum community over the years, proud yet different good frum Jews.

You have a really quality paper. A publication that all of you and our community are very proud of. Keep it up and skip on the nonsense.

Please.

Have a happy Chanukah!

Friend of Frum Red Neck Continued on page 12

FOOD & LEISURE The Aussie Gourmet: Chicken Noodle Bowl

110

LIFESTYLES Dating Dialogue, Moderated by Jennifer Mann, LCSW

94

Your Money

124

Slipping Ahead to Better Things by Rivki D. Rosenwald Esq., CLC, SDS

134

HUMOR Centerfold

80

POLITICAL CROSSFIRE Notable Quotes

112

Yellen’s Legacy by Robert J. Samuelson

119

CLASSIFIEDS

130

Do you prefer dark chocolate or milk chocolate?

18

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The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

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avi Weinstock

campaign chairman

shlomo Yehuda rechnitz national chairman

Dovi safier

alumni campaign chairman ronald lowinger President lloyd keilson . Motty klein chairmen, board of Trustees

national Tribute committee

elisha brecher Hershey Friedman rabbi avrohom Fruchthandler berish Fuchs Yitzchok ganger Mark karasick Dovie karfunkel ben lowinger adam Mirzoeff

Yussie ostreicher Yaakov rajchenbach Dovid scharf eli schron Harry skydell aron solomon gary Torgow shlomo Werdiger aaron Wolfson

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

A Night of

Heartfelt Hakoras Hatov, Inspiration, Music and Memories Sunday EvEning

‫אור לכ׳׳ח טבת תשע׳׳ח‬

Reserve

your seat today

p 718.868.2300 x237 e dinner@darchei.org w darchei.org/dinner

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Dear Friends,

chei dinners, this ar D t n ce re e lik n U uring a formal, at fe e b ill w er n in Testimonial D ram. an inspiring prog ith w er n in d ” n w o “sit-d ake erative that you m It is therefore imp as seating requests) d n (a s n io at rv se re are that we can prep so — le ib ss o p as soon e an hat promises to b accordingly for w toric event. enjoyable and his

11

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

Continued from page 8

You can help her budding home...

Dedicated in loving memory of Rabbi and Mrs. Zev and Chashie Weiss ‫ע”ה‬ ‫זאב זעליג בן ר' יונה זצ"ל ורעיתו חשא ע”ה בת ר’ צבי זצ”ל‬

Dear Editor, After a tragedy like the one that occurred this week in Brooklyn in which four young, untainted neshamos perished in a fire, I think it would behoove all of us to take on something in their name. It could be something small – everything makes a difference. Saying Shema from a siddur, greeting people with a smile, having more patience when doing homework with your children, sending over soup to the lonely person down the block, giving up your seat in shul.... These are small things

can will bring klal Yisroel even closer and engender ahavas Yisroel towards one another. In times like these we need to become even closer. We need to connect towards each other and become united. We need to show Hashem that we care for each other – at all times.

May the Azan family have a complete recovery and may Hashem bring them strength to continue with their lives in peaceful way. May klal Yisroel know no more tragedies and be able to share in each other’s simchos.

Chana E.

Views expressed on the Letters to the Editor page do not necessarily reflect the views of The Jewish Home.

Please send all correspondence to editor@fivetownsjewishhome.com.

lB ossom!

Please join us at Chasdei Chashie L’Kallah’s

Five Towns Event Tuesday, January 2nd

at the home of Mrs. Anat Hartman 74 Lawrence Avenue 7:00 pm Live Prizes Exclusive to Event Salad Bar & Delicious Buffet 14

In 2017, Chasdei Chashie L’Kallah delivered furniture to approximately 500 Kallahs’ homes many from the Five Towns.

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13

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

Meet Chile’s New President

On Sunday, Chileans elected billionaire Sebastián Piñera president.

The runoff election followed a first round on November 19 for both the executive and legislative branches.

Piñera, of the right-leaning National Renovation party, represents the conservative Let’s Go Chile coalition.

The president-elect defeated center-left candidate Alejandro Guillier, of the ruling New Majority coalition, by 9 points, turning the current government out of office. This will be Piñera’s second term in office. He governed Chile between 2009 and 2014.

Turnout increased between the first and second round, but initial data suggests the growth heavily favored the right. While a large share of left voters who participated in November stayed home on Sunday, conservative voters who abstained in the first round showed up at much higher rates. During Piñera’s acceptance speech, supporters could be heard singing, “Chile has been saved.”

Piñera, a businessman turned statesman, is ranked one of the world’s wealthiest politicians. He once owned the television channel Chilevision, a large share of Lan Chile airlines, and the Colo-Colo soccer team. Earlier this year, the billionaire was criticized in the media for his offshore holdings and use of tax havens.

The 67-year-old will succeed Socialist President Michelle Bachelet, whose New Majority coalition came to power in 2014 on a platform promising sweeping change.

Bachelet began reforming Chile’s constitution, submitting a bill to the congress earlier this year that would allow for a constitutional convention.

Her second term, though, was clouded by accusations of corruption.

Piñera’s victory is unlikely to produce a shift in public policy. His coalition controls only 73 of the 155 seats in the lower house. The composition of congress means that the president will need support from the opposition to pass legislation. As the center vanishes, such support will be hard to find and governing may prove difficult.

Piñera’s first term in office continued the previous government’s economic and social policies, and on Sunday he called for national unity, dialogue and compromise. While he has promised to reform tax and education policies, it is unlikely that the president will find support for radical change outside of his own coalition. This may reinforce the electorate’s perception that Chile is “stuck,” generating further discontent.

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Shabbos Light Reinvented

On Thursday, the United States attempted to make the case to the UN that Iran had violated the terms of its international agreements with regards to providing weapons to other countries.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley addressed the UN, presenting weapons and technology that Iran has provided to other powers in the Mideast, leading to regional instability. These included guided Qiam-1 missiles and drones. Prominently displayed was the missile launched by Houthis rebels in Yemen against an airport in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. Ambassador Haley said that these weapons are proof that Iran is not abiding by its agreements and is continuing to threaten the Middle East with its belligerent behavior.

Critics claimed that Haley did not provide any hard evidence of Iran violating specific statutes. They said that weapons could have been transferred from Iran before the Security

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

Council regulations forbidding weapons transaction had been enacted.

The drone was presented without its warhead or guidance system, making its destructive potential hard to gauge. Additionally, none of the missiles presented have the capacity to carry nuclear warheads.

Critics of the address included Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who tweeted pictures of Haley’s address alongside photos of Colin Powell’s address before the UN in 2003, when Powell laid out the U.S. case for invading Iraq. Zarif made the claim that the new accusations against Iranian weaponry mirror the U.S.’s mistaken accusations about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction from a decade ago.

Should Some Italians Get Austrian Passports?

A proposal by Austria’s new government to offer passports to German-speaking residents of an Ital-

ian town was denounced by Italians politicians earlier this week. The idea was included in a 180-page coalition program signed on Saturday after weeks of negotiations by Austria’s anti-immigration Freedom Party and the conservative People’s Party.

The Italians are living in the province of Alto Adige, an autonomous area also known as the South Tyrol. The area was ceded to Italy

by Austria after World War I. Despite moves by Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini to settle thousands of ethnic Italians there in the 1920s, German speakers still outnumber Italians by around two to one. Italians and Germans have their own schools and largely frequent different bars and restaurants. But the region

enjoys enormous autonomy and generous handouts from Rome, which have helped dampen secessionist sentiments in the province.

The new Austrian government portrayed its plan to offer citizenship to Alto Adige residents whose first language is German as a pro-European gesture to promote “an ever-closer union of citizens of member states.”

Not everyone was happy with the proposal.

“Get your hands off Italy,” said Giorgia Meloni, the head of the rightwing Brothers of Italy party, which is part of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right opposition bloc. “Brothers of Italy will raise the barricades in Alto Adige, in parliament and in every institution, and will ask President (Sergio) Mattarella to stop this undignified insult.”

Benedetto Della Vedova, a junior foreign minister in Rome, said the offer was couched in a “velvet glove of Europeanism” but bore the “scent of the ethno-nationalist iron fist.”

Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano admitted that the issue was not simple. “It will be a conversation that requires enormous delicacy,” he was quoted as saying.

World’s Most Expensive Home

Want to know who owns the world’s most expensive home? The vast property west of Paris was purchased for $300 million by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman two years ago. Ironically, the acquisition is just one in a string of extravagant purchases by the powerful prince, who has recently been waging a sweeping anti-corruption campaign.

The newly-built chateau was sold to a mystery buyer in 2015, and though its ownership is concealed through shell companies, advisors to the royal family have confirmed the prince is its ultimate owner.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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On Sunday, President Juan Orlando Hernandez was declared the winner of Honduras’ recent elections. But victory was not easy; the elections took place three weeks ago and since then uncertainty and unrest led to the death of at least 17 people who died in protests amid the opposition’s allegations of vote fraud.

Electoral court president David Matamoros made the announcement on Sunday, saying, “We have fulfilled our obligation (and) we wish for there to be peace in our country.”

According to the court’s official count, Hernandez won with 42.95 percent to 41.42 for runner-up Sal-

vador Nasralla, who well before the announcement had challenged the result and said he would not recognize it.

There were reports of nighttime demonstrations on main boulevards in Tegucigalpa, the capital, and other cities, and Nasralla’s party called for more protests on Monday.

There was no immediate public comment by Hernandez, whose sister, Hilda Hernandez, a Cabinet minister, died on Saturday in a helicopter crash.

Earlier in the day Nasralla traveled to Washington to present what he called “numerous” examples of evidence of alleged fraud. He said he planned to meet with officials from the Organization of American States, the U.S. State Department and human rights groups.

Interviewed by UneTV during a layover at the Miami airport, Nasralla called Hernandez’s re-election illegitimate and said he would ask the OAS to invoke its democratic charter against Honduras.

“The declaration by the court is a mockery because it tramples the will of the people,” Nasralla said. He added that he was “very optimistic” because “the people do not endorse fraud.”

Former President Manuel Zelaya, a Nasralla ally, called for civil disobedience from the population and for the armed forces to recognize Nasralla.“May G-d take us having made our confessions because today the people will defend in the streets the victory that it obtained at the ballot box,” Zelaya said.

The first results reported by the electoral court before dawn the day after the November 26 election showed Nasralla with a significant lead over Hernandez with nearly 60 percent of the vote counted. Then public updates of the count mysteriously stopped for more than a day, and when they resumed, that lead steadily eroded and ultimately reversed in Hernandez’s favor.

The electoral court recently conducted a recount of ballot boxes that presented irregularities and said there was virtually no change to its count. Since then it had been considering challenges filed by candidates.

Hernandez, a 49-year-old businessman and former lawmaker, took office in January 2014 and built support largely on a drop in violence in this impoverished Central American country.

According to Honduras’ Nation-

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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reached as far inside the kingdom as Riyadh.

The Yemeni rebels said they launched a ballistic missile to target Yamama Palace in Riyadh, where King Salman chairs weekly government meetings and receives dignitaries and heads of state from around the world.

al Autonomous University, the nation’s homicide rate has plummeted from a dizzying high of 91.6 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2011 to 59 per 100,000 — though Honduras remains among the deadliest places in the world. But corruption and drug trafficking allegations cast a shadow over Hernandez’s government, and his re-election bid fueled charges that his National Party was seeking to entrench itself in power by getting

a court ruling allowing him to seek a second term.

Hernandez’s government recently accused Zelaya and Nasralla of ordering “gangs” to block streets and commit violent acts amid the protests, which have seen burning barricades and clashes between rock-throwing demonstrators and police and soldiers responding with tear gas.

Saudis Intercept Houthis Missile After Yemen’s Shiite rebels fired a missile targeting the Saudi royal palace on Tuesday, the Saudi-led coalition fighting the rebels intercepted it before it could reach the palace.

It was the second time in as many months that a rebel projectile had

Residents of Riyadh posted videos on social media showing a small cloud of smoke in the sky after hearing a loud explosion over their homes and while driving.

In the almost three years that the Saudi-led coalition has waged war with Yemen’s rebels, dozens of other missiles have been fired by the Houthis across the border into Saudi Arabia, reaching as far as some border towns. There have been casualties among local residents in those attacks.

Earlier this month, the Houthis claimed they fired a missile at an under-construction nuclear plant in the United Arab Emirates, which is part of the Saudi coalition battling the militant group in Yemen. The UAE, however, denied that a missile had been fired.

The Saudi-led coalition has been at war with the Houthis since March 2015. The Houthis, who are allied with Saudi Arabia’s rival, Iran, have forced into exile the Saudi-backed and internationally recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Despite a fierce air campaign against the Houthis, the rebels still largely control the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north along the border with Saudi Arabia.

Earlier this month, the Houthis killed Yemen’s former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, after he switched alliances and struck deals with the Saudi-led coalition.

Yemen’s war has killed more than 10,000 civilians and driven millions to the brink of famine.

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N Korea behind WannaCry Attack

This week, the Trump administration publicly acknowledged that North Korea was behind the WannaCry computer worm that affected more than 230,000 computers in over 150 countries earlier this year.

North Korea was widely suspected to have created the virus, which was paired with ransomware that encrypted data on victims’ computers and demanded money to restore access. Until now, the U.S. government had not publicly stated as such.

In June, The Washington Post reported that the National Security Agency had linked North Korea to the creation of the worm. In October, the British government declared that it believed North Korea was the

culprit. The following month, the CIA issued a similar classified assessment, which had not been previously reported.

As a result of the acknowledgment that North Korea was responsible for the widespread attack, the U.S. administration will be calling on “all responsible states” to counter North Korea’s ability to conduct cyberattacks and to implement all “relevant” United Nations Security Council sanctions, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.

“The [WannaCry] attack was widespread and cost billions, and North Korea is directly responsible,” Thomas P. Bossert, Trump’s homeland security advisor, said in an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on Monday. “We do not make this allegation lightly. It is based on evidence. We are not alone with our findings, either.”

The U.S. official noted that the U.S. government has released technical details of North Korean cyber-tools and operational infrastructure and has worked with other countries to lessen North Korea’s ability to conduct further tests or generate illicit funding.

The May 12 global cyberattack

affected critical sectors, including health care, “potentially putting lives at risk,” said the official.

In November 2014, North Korea hacked Sony Pictures networks, disrupting computer systems, stealing and releasing corporate emails, and demanding that the studio cancel the release of a satirical movie depicting Kim’s assassination. The attack led the Obama administration to impose economic sanctions.

The Security Council sanctions on North Korea focus on its activities to develop a nuclear weapon.

The U.S. administration, however, seems to be linking North Korea’s general pattern of bad behavior, including in cyberspace, to the call to implement all sanctions.

Peruvian Pres Pressured to Resign

Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, president of Peru, is encountering pressure to step down under the growing shadow of corruption related to his relationship with Odebrecht, a large Brazilian conglomerate. The scandal has cost Kuczynski the support of several key members of his cabinet, according to some reports.

Odebrecht, a major firm with holdings in construction, engineering, chemicals, and petrochemicals, has faced investigations in recent years for corrupt dealings across South America. The company says that while Kuczynski was economy minister and head of cabinet they paid him almost $5 million in bribes, charges that Kuczynski denies.

The U.S. levied a record high $3.5 billion fine against Odebrecht in 2016 as punishment for its wide-ranging history of bribery. According to the charges against Odebrecht, the company would often shroud bribes by calling them “ad-

visory fees” when they transferred them to government officials.

Testimony about Kuczynski’s relationship with Odebrecht comes from former company president Marcelo Odebrecht. Odebrecht is currently serving a 19-year prison sentence in Brazil and is cooperating with authorities in exchange for leniency. He says that the company began its partnership with Kuczynski ten years ago, when Odebrecht hired him as a consultant. Over the years, the company has paid $29 million in bribes to Kuczynski and other Peruvian officials.

Initially, Kuczynski claimed that he had never received any money from Odebrecht. As scrutiny has increased, he has admitted to working for the firm as an advisor, but not to accepting illicit funds. Kuczynski has pledged to testify about his actions before a commission on Odebrecht malfeasance later this month.

Political pressure has increased as the legal case grows against the Peruvian president. Calls for impeachment have come from the Popular Force party, a right-wing opposition group that controls Peru’s congress. Popular Force says that the weight of evidence in the corruption case is enough to prove Kuczynski’s guilt and that they will begin impeachment proceedings if the president does not resign this week.

U.S. Vetoes UN Resolution Regarding Jerusalem

On Monday the United States was the sole member of the United Nations Security Council to veto an

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

Egyptian-drafted resolution which called for President Trump’s declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel to be withdrawn. The other 14 council members voted in favor of the resolution.

The resolution did not specifically mention the United States or Trump but expressed “deep regret at recent decisions concerning the status of Jerusalem.” Even so, it was an obvious dig at the United States.

“What we witnessed here in the Security Council is an insult. It won’t be forgotten,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said after the vote.

It was the first veto cast by the United States in the Security Council in more than six years, Haley said.

“We do it with no joy, but we do it with no reluctance,” she said. “The fact that this veto is being done in defense of American sovereignty and in defense of America’s role in the Middle East peace process is not a source of embarrassment for us; it should be an embarrassment to the remainder of the Security Council.”

The UN draft resolution affirmed “that any decisions and actions which purport to have altered the character, status or demographic composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void and must be rescinded in compliance with relevant resolutions of the Security Council.”

Trump reversed decades of U.S. policy this month when he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, generating outrage from Palestinians and the Arab world. The president also plans to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

The UN draft resolution had also called upon all countries to refrain from establishing diplomatic missions in Jerusalem.

“The United States has a sovereign right to determine where and whether we establish an embassy,” Haley said. “I suspect very few member states would welcome Security Council pronouncements about their sovereign decisions.”

After the U.S.’s veto, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said the U.S. administration “showed its lack of compliance with international resolutions by its provocative and unwise decision to recognize Al-Quds as the capital of the Zionist occupying regime.”

He added that Washington’s veto despite the rest of the council sup-

porting the resolution “proved that it seeks a compromise by trampling on the legal rights of all Palestinians.”

Israel considers Jerusalem its eternal and indivisible capital and wants all embassies based there.

Palestinians want the capital of an independent Palestinian state to be in the city’s eastern sector, which Israel won in the Six Day War.

Israeli Teen Finds WhatsApp Bug

Yuval Sprintz is just 17-years-old but don’t let his age fool you. The Israeli high schooler is from the northern moshav of Tzurit. He recently discovered a security breach in WhatsApp, reported it to Facebook, and was then awarded a $1,250 prize.

Sprintz is in his last year of school but is simultaneously studying towards a computer science degree at Haifa University. He has also participated in the Davidson Institute of Science Education’s Alpha Program, geared towards gifted young men and women. The Davidson Institute is the educational arm of the Weizmann Institute of Science.

“I began showing an interest in information security at a very young age, and learned about it myself through the internet,” Sprintz said.

A few months ago, Yuval was working on preparing a software tool able to merge two WhatsApp groups. As part of work on the project, he delved deep into the code of WhatsApp Web, the app’s browser-based platform. He realized that a security breach allowed him to add “fake” phone numbers to a WhatsApp group that don’t represent any real accounts. Theoretically, users other than the administrator could then add new users, even ones that were previously blocked from the group. A user could also add an exceptionally long phone number, which may lead to the app crashing.

Sprintz contacted Facebook us-

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ing the social network’s “Bug Bounty” program at the end of September.

The program allows independent information security specialists to report security breaches to Facebook for a monetary reward. Facebook ultimately fixed the breach and thanked Yuval, notifying him of his reward.

Asked what he plans to do with the money, Sprintz responded: “I recently bought a powerful new computer, so the reward can go a long way towards that.”

Palestinians Continue to Riot

A week after President Trump declared Jerusalem to be the capital

of Israel Palestinians continued to riot.

Israel’s Army Radio reported that 3,500 Gazans demonstrated at nine locations along the fence around the Hamas-run enclave, lighting fires and throwing rocks on Friday.

Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in 2007, has urged a new intifada to liberate Jerusalem in the wake of Trump’s December 6 declaration that the U.S. recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. In the West Bank on Friday, some 2,500 Palestinians took part in violent protests, the IDF said, thousands less than in the week before.

Following noon-time prayers, riots were reported in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron, Qalqilya, Tulkarem and Nablus. Demonstrators burned tires and threw petrol bombs and rocks at Israeli troops, who fired back at them with tear gas and rubber bullets.

“IDF soldiers are responding with riot dispersal means in the main locations,” the army said.

Four Palestinians died on Friday afternoon after being shot in clashes with Israeli security forces during protests in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials said. One

Palestinian stabbed an Israeli Border Police officer in the chest before being shot. Another stabbed a soldier and was then seen wearing a suicide belt. He was killed when soldiers feared he would detonate it.

In Jerusalem, around 30,000 Muslims prayed at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount, mostly without incident. Following relative calm in the capital last week, police did not to impose any age restrictions on Muslim worshipers praying on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. At times of expected violence, Israeli authorities sometimes limit access to the site for young men, who are more likely to clash with police.

Teva Lays off Thousands Pharmaceutical giant Teva has long been synonymous with the State of Israel. But what happens when its decline leads to thousands of Israelis losing their jobs?

The bad news came on Thursday of last week when 1,700 workers – a

quarter of Teva’s Israeli workforce – were terminated.

In a story about the massive layoff Yedioth Ahronoth noted that it was a “hard day for the economy in general and especially for the company’s workers.”

On Sunday, hundreds of thousands of Israelis went on a half-day strike in protest of the huge layoffs.

Offices and plants across the country were shuttered until noon, including government ministries, local authorities, the judiciary and the State Prosecutor’s Office, the stock exchange, banks, utilities, health clinics, ports in Ashdod and Haifa, and other sites. Morning flights scheduled at Ben-Gurion Airport were either delayed or canceled.

With the firings at Teva, including 12,000 more laid off overseas, Teva hopes to save approximately

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$3 billion in two years, helping it slightly draw down its $40 billion debt.

Not everyone is optimistic that the layoffs are the answer to Teva’s seemingly insurmountable problems.

“One day, managerial schools will teach the Teva case study and it will be looked at from every possible angle: business, management, strategy, consumerism and social aspects. But the most interesting and critical angle will be the point that they made the terrible decision to buy Actavis, which was supposed to be a poison pill that would keep the company from being taken over and ended up being the pill that poisoned the firm,” Sami Peretz wrote in Haaretz, referring to the UK drug-maker Teva bought last year, putting it $40 billion in the hole.

“The fundamental problems with Teva don’t come from having too many workers or inflated salaries. Teva’s problems are the responsibility of only upper management,” Sever Plotzker of Yedioth wrote.

“Teva took on a strategy that was at its heart purchasing and merging, and more purchasing and more merging. The idea that offense is the best defense pushed management to buy competitors as a way of stopping them from possibly taking them over. It quickly galloped into being the largest generics maker, funded by heavy debt.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon met with Teva CEO Kare Schultz on Tuesday afternoon to see how they could soften the blow to the country’s workforce. A key request by Israeli leaders was to keep the Jerusalem production plants open. But Teva rejected the request made by the prime minister although it pledged to keep its global headquarters in the Jewish state and work closely with an Israeli team to help dismissed workers find alternative employment.

Terrorist Sentenced to 15 Years Murad Rajabi, a terrorist from East Jerusalem, was sentenced this week to 15 years in jail for carrying out a terror attack last year in Jerusalem that injured two Israelis.

The Silwan resident, who was 20-years-old at the time of the attack, was sentenced in the Jerusalem District Court after confessing to carrying out the combined car-ramming and stabbing attack on October 19, 2016. He had taken a 4-inch kitchen knife with him, intending to kill Jews. While he was riding his motorcycle on Hebron Road in Jerusalem he saw two religious-looking Jewish men, Vadim Balkitzky and Yaakov Lomega.

Rajabi then accelerated, drove up on the sidewalk and hit Lomega from behind with his motorbike.

He then removed his helmet and attacked Balkitzky, who fought with him, causing the knife to fall from his hand. Rajabi hit Balkitzky in the face three times with his helmet.

Along with another friend who was nearby, Balkitzky was able to push Rajabi to the ground and subdue him.

Thankfully, both men did not die.

Lomega suffered broken bones and lacerations to his head; Balkitzky was injured on his face.

Before the attack Rajabi had worked as a cleaner in Jerusalem’s Cinema City movie theater and lived with his parents in Silwan.

Rajabi was convicted of attempted murder, aggravated injury, and possession of a knife with nationalistic motives. In addition to the 15 year jail sentence, he was ordered to pay a total of NIS 30,000 ($8,500) to the two Israelis injured in the attack.

=

Turkey to Open Embassy in East Jerusalem

On Sunday, President Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey announced that his country will be opening an embassy in East Jerusalem, days after leading calls at a summit of Muslim leaders for the world to recognize East Jeru-

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salem as the capital of Palestine.

It was not clear how he would carry out the move, as Israel controls all of Jerusalem and calls the city its indivisible capital. Palestinians want the capital of a future state they seek to be in East Jerusalem, which Israel won in the Six Day War. The Muslim nation summit was a response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s December 6 decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Erdogan said in a speech to members of his AK Party in the southern province of Karaman that Turkey’s consulate general in Jerusalem was already represented by an ambassador. “G-d willing, the day is close when officially, with G-d’s permission, we will open our embassy there,” Erdogan said.

Foreign embassies in Israel, including Turkey’s, are now located in Tel Aviv. Trump has said that construction of a new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem will now commence.

A communique issued after Wednesday’s summit of more than 50 Muslim countries said they considered Trump’s move to be a declaration that Washington was withdrawing from its role “as sponsor of peace” in the Middle East.

Israel’s New Military Liaison

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Brig. Gen. (res.) Kamil Abu Rokon, who currently leads the Defense Ministry’s Border Crossing Authority, has been picked to be Israel’s next military liaison to the Palestinians.

Abu Rokon is expected to take over the liaison position, officially known as the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), from Maj. Gen. Yoav “Poli” Mordechai sometime in late April, the ministry said.

He will also be promoted to the rank of major general.

Abu Rokon will be the second Druze military liaison to the Palestinians and the second-ever Druze major general, following Yousef Mishleb,

who served in the position from 2003 to 2008.

“Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman made the decision following consultation with the IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot,” the ministry said in its statement.

In the announcement, Liberman lauded Abu Rokon as “one of the leading experts in Israel on the Palestinian arena. I am very impressed by his knowledge and experience in managing large networks in his current position as head of the Defense Ministry’s Crossing Authority.”

Abu Rokon, from the Druze village of Usefiya in the Galilee, has long been in the running to lead the Defense Ministry’s COGAT unit. He served as the deputy commander of the unit in 2001 and was reportedly considered for the leadership post in 2011 by then-IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi, but was passed over in favor of Maj. Gen. (res) Eitan Dangot.

Mordechai, who is seen as widely respected both in Israel and in the Arab world, will be ending a nearly 40-year career in the Israeli security forces, having served in intelligence units and as spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces. He took over as head of COGAT in October 2013.

“Poli is a strategic asset for the State of Israel. Even after he finishes his position, I am sure that the State of Israel will continue to take advantage of his special skills,” Liberman said.

Under Mordechai, the role of COGAT expanded to include working with the international community on Palestinian issues and cooperating with Palestinians on issues beyond military coordination.

In November, Communications Minister Ayoub Kara – Israel’s first Druze minister – accidentally prematurely announced Abu Rokon’s appointment, tweeting, “I am proud of you, love you and wish you success for the IDF and the State of Israel.” He later deleted the tweet.

Thousands Celebrate Founding of Hamas At least 100,000 Palestinians gathered in Gaza City to mark the 30th anniversary of the founding of Hamas, the Islamic terror group that rules the territory, last week.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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Buses brought in men, women and children brandishing Hamas’ green flags or sporting green scarves to the al-Katiba Square for Thursday’s rally. The huge sea of Gazans was joined by the head of Hamas’s political bureau Ismail Haniyeh and the group’s leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar while the Hamas military wing choir sang on stage to the adoring crowds.

Despite the celebration, the gathering comes at a low point for Hamas, with the terror organization isolated

by Egypt and being targeted by Israeli airstrikes launched in response to rocket attacks against Israel’s population. It has also been compelled to make nice with Fatah, just a few years after seizing Gaza by force.

Hamas blames an Israeli-Egyptian border blockade, lack of support from Arab and Islamic nations, and Abbas’ alleged attempts to undermine the group for its hardships in Gaza. This includes 43 percent unemployment and major blackouts.

4 Pure Souls Perish in Fire

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On Monday night, the streets of Brooklyn were choked with people as they came out to be me’lave the four niftarim of the Azan family. Thousands of people slowly followed the cars containing the bodies of Mrs.

Aliza Azan, a”h, who was 39-yearsold when she died. They were also me’lave the three bodies of her pure children who lost their lives in the tragic fire the night before, Moshe, a”h, 11; Yitzchak, a”h, 7; and Henrietta, a”h, who was just 3-years-old when she perished.

Tehillim was said at the levaya, followed by kaddish. There were no hespedim. The community shed copious tears and heart wrenching sobs were heard during the funeral. The niftarim were flown to Eretz Yisroel for the levaya and kevura.

The fire that raged through the Azan home was reported around 2:30a.m. on the sixth night of Chanukah. Sadly, by the time firefighters came to help, the fire was already out of control. Aliza and her three children were found in a bedroom on the second floor. Yosef, the father of the family, had run back into the home to rescue his children. He was able to save two of his children, Shilat, 16, and Daniel, 15, who are in critical condition, before trying to go into the house again. Yosef is in now in critical condition. Another one of the couple’s children was able to make it out alive. A cousin was in the house as well and also survived.

Firefighters said that the fire was started by a lit menorah.

The Jewish community, reeling from the devastation and horror of the tragedy, are being urged to say Tehillim for the three survivors who are in critical condition. Please keep Yosef ben Ahuva Masuda, Shilat bas Louza Aliza, and Daniel ben Louza Aliza in your tefillos. Hashem should grant them a complete, speedy recovery, and they should know no more tzaar.

Trump Promises “America First” in National Security Policy President Trump outlined a new grand strategy for U.S. foreign policy in an address given on Monday.

Administrations periodically prepare a national security document outlining the major national security concerns of the U.S. and how the administration plans to deal with them.

The speech laid out the contents of the document, which is delivered to Congress.

In a break with his predecessors,

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

‫ונשמרתם מאד‬ .‫לנפשתיכם‬ Guard your health carefully.

Devarim 4:15

Bone Pain

Easy Bruising

Nose Bleeds

Fatigue

Gaucher disease can feel like this.

It’s no mitzvah to ignore your symptoms.

In the Ashkenazi community, approximately 1 in 15 men and women are carriers for Gaucher disease, an inherited genetic condition that causes fatty lipid deposits to build up in certain organs and bones. Symptoms can mimic other diseases, many people are misdiagnosed or assume they were tested. Treatment options are available, including oral treatment.

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President Trump stressed “America first” during the 20 minutes speech, given at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington.

“Our leaders engaged in nation building abroad while they failed to build up and replenish our nation at home,” Trump said. He also called out former presidents and said that they “forgot whose voices they were to respect and whose interests they were supposed to defend.” President Trump declared, “America is coming back, and America is coming back strong.”

President Trump’s national security strategy directly takes on China and Russia. The document states that China and Russia “are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence.”

In another break with his predecessor, Trump took a lighter tone on climate change. In his last strategy document in 2015, President Obama declared that climate change is an “urgent and growing threat to our national security.” President Trump’s strategy document makes no such designation. Rather, it states that “the United States will remain a global leader in reducing pollution, as well as greenhouse gases, while growing its economy.” America will do that, notes the document, through “innovation, technology and breakthroughs...not from onerous regulation.”

The president made it clear that the United States will stand up for itself even if it means alienating others on issues such as trade, climate change and immigration. “America is in the game and America is going to win,” the president reiterated.

He also declared, “With every decision and every action we are now putting America first. We are rebuilding our nation and our confidence and our standing in the world.”

Sports Host Mike Francesa Leaves WFAN

After 30 years on the air at sports station 660 WFAN in New York, sports host Mike Francesa left the station known as “The Fan.” His “not-retirement” was announced two years ago, leaving plenty of time for callers – “even first-time-in-a-longtime” callers – to bid him farewell from his drive-time show, which aired weekdays from 1PM to 6:30PM. Francesa, 63, declared that he wanted to leave his show while “on top,” but he is not retiring...“ah’kay.”

Over his thirty year career he has always had the “numba one”-rated show, as he often reminded his audience. The brash-styled host with an encyclopedic knowledge of “spawrts” promises that he will continue his career in another format, to be announced in several months.

Francesa, who grew up in Long Beach, started his career as a researcher for CBS in 1982. When WFAN started as the first-ever allsports station in 1987, Francesa applied for a job as a sports host but was rejected. Rather than quit, he persisted and was eventually hired by the station as a weekend host. In 1989, with the fledgling sports station bleeding money and on the verge of bankruptcy, Francesa was paired with Chris Russo, affectionately nicknamed “Mad Dog.” At first Francesa and Russo rejected their pairing. But they were both told that they either do the show together or they would be fired. Within a few months, “Mike and the Mad Dog” became required listening for sports fans.

The show, featuring the know-itall Francesa with the baritone voice, and the hyper Russo with the highpitched raspy voice, lasted for 19 years and resulted in copy-cat shows throughout the country. But none gained the prestige that Mike and the Mad Dog had. The duo split when their egos became too large to occupy

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

‫ישיבה דרך איתן‬

Sefer Zikaron

‫ע”ש מרן רבי‬ ‫אברהם יפה'ן זצ”ל‬

Y E S H I VA O F FA R R O C K AWAY YAAKOV AND ILANA MELOHN CAMPUS

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to the memory of Rabbi Brafman ZT”L, is being planned in conjunction with the dinner. Talmidim, chaveirim, mispallelim, and family members are invited to submit divrei Torah, articles, memoirs, vignettes, and photos. Submissions may be sent via email to zikaron@ yofr.org or mailed to the Yeshiva before January 22nd.

Please note: space constraints

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may limit us from including some submissions. Originals may not be returned.

Aaron Brafman

Rabbi Avrohom Boruch Brafman Dinner Chairman

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Mr. Benjamin Brafman Guest of Honor

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the same studio. Russo went to Sirius XM, and Mike stayed on WFAN where he hosted his own show, “Mike’s On,” for the past eleven years.

Francesa, who was often combative with callers and is seen by many as arrogant, ended his last show by thanking the audience. His final words were: “I want to thank you guys, the listeners, the audience.

Because without you, we don’t last a week; we don’t last a month. So, what I’d like to say is, I will miss you. I thank you. And, from the bottom of my heart, I love you. Goodbye.”

So, basically, the story is: “Francesa left da’ Fan, ah’kay. Francesa is no longa at the Fan because he left, ah’kay... He retired from da’ Fan because he left, ah’kay. Goodbye.”

Power Outage Grounds 1,000 Flights More than 1,000 flights in and out of the world’s busiest airport were cancelled earlier this week when power was lost at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International airport

over the weekend. Finally, after nearly eleven hours in the dark, the lights flickered on right before midnight on Sunday night, illuminating the dark terminals and runways for 30,000 passengers.

Shortly after power came back, some passengers lined up at security screening, hoping to beat the crowds as the TSA checkpoints re-opened at 3:30 a.m.

The outage, which affected all airport operations, started with a fire in a Georgia Power underground electrical facility, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said. The electrical fire’s intensity damaged two substations serving the airport, including the airport’s “redundant system” that should have provided backup power.

The blackout left passengers sitting in planes on the tarmac for

hours. At one point there were 92 planes sitting on the tarmac. Passengers began to stress as food and water started to diminish. Shuttle services to the Georgia International Convention Center were offered to passengers in the terminal who needed a place to stay for the night. Some passengers used their cellphones to illuminate the terminal so they could leave; they scanned the internet for information as airport personnel were not updating passengers.

Atlanta is the heart of the U.S. air transport system, and the disruption led to 1,180 flight cancellations to and from the airport on Sunday. Hartsfield-Jackson airport serves 150 destinations in the U.S. and over 75 destinations in 50 countries worldwide.

Bombshell Report: Obama Protected Hezbollah In an explosive expose titled, “The Secret Backstory of How Obama Let Hezbollah off the Hook,”

the normally very pro-Obama Politico news site detailed how President Barack Obama’s administration “derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States.”

According to Politico, in 2008 the Drug Enforcement Administration gathered evidence that Hezbollah was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking and other criminal activities. Over the next eight years, the DEA monitored and discovered how Hezbollah operated and they tracked Hezbollah’s drug and weapons trafficking all the way up to its state sponsors in Iran.

But, as the investigation “reached

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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higher into the hierarchy of the conspiracy, Obama administration officials threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way,” noted Politico, which interviewed dozens of participants in the investigation.

David Asher, who helped oversee the operation, known as Project Cassandra, told Politico, “They serially ripped apart this entire effort...and it was done from the top down.”

As a result, noted Politico, multitons of cocaine entered the United States, and hundreds of millions of dollars went to a terrorist organization.

Ironically, Politico reported that one top Hezbollah operative, who reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin and who was involved in arms shipments to Syria, was arrested in Prague in 2014. That operative had been indicted in the United States on charges of conspiracy to murder U.S. officials, providing material support to terrorist organizations and other charges. Putin lobbied heavily against his extradition to the United States and the Obama administration declined to pressure the Czech government to extradite him to the United States. Today, that operative is back in business in Beirut and has close collaboration with Russia, according to Politico.

As to why the Obama administration would engage in such egregious actions which seem to put the interests of terrorists over the citizens of the United States Politico posited that it was Obama’s determination to negotiate a settlement to Iran’s nuclear program, regardless of consequences.

Within months of the Iran deal being implemented on January 17, 2016, Project Cassandra was pretty much shut down. Those who led the task force were transferred to other assignments. “The derailment of Project Cassandra also has undermined U.S. efforts to determine how much cocaine from the various Hezbollah-affiliated networks is coming into the United States,” noted Politico.

How ironic: President Obama allowed a terrorist organization to flood our streets with drugs, netting them billions of dollars to use in their terrorist operations against us – killing us twice – and it is President Trump whose foreign policy is excoriated by the media because they don’t like his tweets. Go figure.

Fatal Amtrak Derailment

An Amtrak train derailed in Washington State on Monday on an inaugural run from Seattle to Portland, Oregon. The new route was supposed to be faster for commuters but when the crash occurred, passenger cards tumbled from a bridge onto a major highway, killing at least three riders and injuring dozens of others. According to the black box recovered at the scene, the train was hurtling on the tracks at 80 mph in a 30 mph zone at the time of the crash.

Thirteen of the train’s 14 cars jumped the tracks, and five vehicles plus two semi-trailer trucks were involved in the accident, Washington State Patrol spokeswoman Brooke Bova said. About 78 passengers and five crew members were aboard the train.

In desperation, some people escaped by kicking out windows.

“All of a sudden, we felt this rocking and creaking noise, and it felt like we were heading down a hill,” Chris Karnes, a passenger on the train, recalled. “The next thing we know, we’re being slammed into the front of our seats, windows are breaking, we stop, and there’s water gushing out of the train. People were screaming.”

The derailment occurred on the first day Amtrak trains began using the new inland route between the Washington cities of Tacoma and Olympia, part of a project to reduce travel time. The rerouting takes trains along I-5, eliminating a major choke point for passenger trains in Tacoma and letting trains reach speeds of 79 miles per hour.

Monday’s southbound train, which was scheduled to depart Seattle at 6 a.m. for Portland, was the first to run along the new route, which uses tracks owned by a local

commuter line.

The derailment was Amtrak’s second in Washington State this year. On July 2, a southbound train with more than 250 people aboard derailed in the town of Steilacoom, just a few miles north of Monday’s crash site. No serious injuries were reported. In May 2015, an Amtrak train derailed in Philadelphia, killing eight people and injuring more than 200. The NTSB concluded the driver became distracted by radio transmissions and lost track of where he was in that incident.

ESPN President Resigns ESPN President John Skipper abruptly resigned from the sports network on Monday, citing “substance abuse.” Skipper’s contract was renewed last month for another three years.

In a statement, Skipper said, “I have struggled for many years with a substance addiction. I have decided that the most important thing I can do right now is take care of my problem.” He added, “I come to this public disclosure with embarrassment, trepidation and a feeling of having let others I care about down.”

In today’s climate, the abruptness of Skipper’s resignation begs the question of what the real reason for his resignation really is.

This is the latest blow to ESPN, which in the last six years has lost more than 13 million subscribers. In 2015 ESPN laid off 300 employees, and just last month 150 additional employees, including on-air talent, were laid off.

George Bodenheimer, ESPN’s president from 1998 to 2011 and its executive chairman until May 2014, will take over as the acting chairman of the company for the next 90 days.

Disney Acquires Fox

In a merger that shook the media world, 21st Century Fox has been acquired by the Walt Disney Company in a $52.4 billion, all-stock deal. The deal includes the historic studio as well as other sports and entertainment assets from Rupert Murdoch’s empire. In a rapidly changing media landscape, this union of Hollywood heavyweights represents a concerted effort by Disney to stay competitive.

The deal values 21st Century Fox assets in the transaction at $66.1 billion, including $13.7 billion in 21st Century Fox debt, or $28 a share. The enterprise value of the deal is $69 billion.

Bob Iger, Disney chairman-CEO, will stay on with the company for another two years, extending his contract so that he can oversee the merger.

Many see the merger as a boon for Disney. Some have hailed the move by Iger as the strongest counter-attack yet by a traditional media company in the FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google) age.

It adds enormously to Disney’s library of films and TV series, which makes a future successful streaming operation more likely. It gives them a more strategic role in film and TV production, including the Fox television studio and the 20th Century Fox film studio. It also gives them some strong cable channels, including National Geographic. And Disney now has greater international reach, with Sky in Europe (including BSkyB in Britain) and Star in Asia, especially with its strong position in India.

Not everything will be included in the sale. Exempt from the deal are the Fox network and Fox News, to be called the New Fox, that is projected to have revenue of $10 billion and earnings of about $2.8 billion.

Disney projects that within two years of the deal closing it will see $2 billion in cost savings resulting from combining Disney and Fox’s overlapping businesses.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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The End of Net Neutrality

On Thursday, the FCC repealed net neutrality laws adopted in 2015.

The 3-2 vote by the FCC ended regulations that prevented internet service providers from dealing differently with types of content on the internet.

Many of us shrugged our shoulders when we heard that net neutrality ended. After all, how many of us know what net neutrality is? So here’s a brief definition: net neutrality is the principle that ISPs need to treat all content equally and not give preference to some digital content providers. That means that the con-

sumer can load every website, app, or video equally, regardless of where the content is hosted. For example, an ISP may not charge more for sites that stream movies or promote a specific agenda. This is also referred to as the open internet.

Net neutrality came to be in February 2015 under President Obama after the FCC voted to classify consumer broadband service as a public utility under Title II Order of the 1934 Communications Act. Under that law, the FCC adopted no-blocking, no-throttling and no-paid-prioritization rules. Under this order, the internet is deemed a common carrier or public utility, so ISPs are regulated. Other public utilities include electricity and phone service companies.

In an op-ed for The Week, Matthew Walther stated that he was happy to see net neutrality go, partially because of what he saw as an overreaction on the part of millennial internet users. He called the hysterical tenor of the conversation around net neutrality “the largest group temper tantrum thrown by non-toddlers in recent American history.”

Trump Team: Mueller Playing Dirty

President Trump’s transition team lawyer, Kory Langhofer, is crying foul over Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller obtaining tens of thousands of emails unlawfully.

The emails were from the transition period after Trump won the presidency and before he took the oath of office. During that time, the transition team used the facilities of the General Services Administration (GSA) and its emails were stored on the GSA server.

The transition emails include sensitive exchanges on matters which include appointments, policy planning and strategy. A transition official told Axios News that “Mueller is using the

emails to confirm things and get new leads.”

Mueller obtained the emails by requesting that the GSA provide emails, laptops, cellphones and other material used by the transition team.

The GSA complied with that request and provided the items, resulting in a treasure trove of information.

The request to the GSA was made in August and many of the emails given to Mueller were used during his interviews with Trump officials.

However, it was only last week that Trump’s team became aware of how Mueller obtained those records.

According to Langhofer, Special Prosecutor Mueller was well aware that the GSA did not own or control those records and items and it was backhanded and improper for Mueller to obtain the emails that way. In addition, many of the emails contained legally privileged information which Mueller is not entitled to.

Langhofer has sent a complaint to two congressional committees.

According to a GSA official who spoke with Buzzfeed, transition officials were made aware that there can be no expectation of privacy for emails sent over the GSA’s server.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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When asked about the emails on Sunday, President Trump responded, “Not looking good. It’s not looking good. It’s quite sad to see that.

My people are very upset about it.

I can’t imagine there’s anything on them, frankly, because as we said, there’s no collusion. There’s no collusion whatsoever.”

These questionable emails come as Mueller has been facing mounting criticism from Republicans who say that his team seems biased against Trump.

In a recently disclosed text exchange, which took place during the 2016 campaign between FBI agent Peter Strzok – who was on Mueller’s team until his severe anti-Trump bias was uncovered – and another agent, Strzok wrote, “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office that there is no was he gets elected – but I’m afraid we can’t take the risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40...”

It remains unknown what the “insurance policy” they are referring to is, but it sounds quite Deep State-ish.

Perhaps they are playing prevent-defense, but some noted Democrats and journalists have been spreading a rumor that President Trump is going to fire Mueller. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) said in a recent TV interview that the rumor among her colleagues is that when Congress is out of town on the holiday weekend, Trump will fire Mueller.

When asked if he plans on firing Mueller, President Trump was clear, “No, I’m not.”

do not have access to regular forms of identification. Emanuel says this will help undocumented people and “those on the sidelines” participate in city life like all other Chicagoans: “If you want somebody who’s undocumented to feel comfortable to be able to drive their child to school and all the benefits, they have to be part of the city.”

City Keys will be accepted on public transit, at libraries, and may eventually be used to open bank accounts.

Critics of the City Key program say it will provide a way for people who are illegally in the country to secure a fake ID. This could present serious law enforcement and national security risks. Local politicians have warned that the new program is easily exploitable by those securing fake IDs for themselves, although the mayor’s office has assured the public that the ID program will require a stringent application process and will include hidden security features. This has not convinced many in the Chicago area, who see the City Key program as a transparent ploy to appease Latino voters. By debuting a new program that addresses an issue of concern for their community, Emanuel may be courting votes for his next mayoral campaign, which will take place in February 2019.

Trump’s Reaching for the Moon

ploration and use. This time we will not only plant our flag and leave our footprint — we will establish a foundation for an eventual mission to Mars and perhaps someday to many worlds beyond.”

According to deputy White House Press Secretary Hogan Gidley, the president’s directives came after considering recommendations sent to his office by the National Space Council.

The new instructions come as no surprise, as both President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have been vocal in their support of expanding NASA’s scope of operations. While on the campaign trail in Florida, Trump promised the state that he would bring back the glory days of space exploration to a state strongly associated with NASA. NASA recently announced that for human astronauts the path to Mars will include a stop at the moon, where the agency may build a facility currently being called the Deep Space Gateway. That structure could serve as a kind of way station between the Earth and the Red Planet.

The concept for this particular lunar way station has been around for at least five years.

The president’s pick for NASA Administrator, Jim Bridenstine, has yet to be confirmed. His main critic has been Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, who has harshly criticized Bridenstine. It seems unlikely, however, that this opposition will keep Trump from reaching for the stars.

Ruff Research

dogs’ lives. Researchers hope that the study will yield insights into the causes of cancers and other diseases common to Goldens Retrievers, other dogs, and possibly humans.

All the dogs were enrolled in the Golden Retriever Lifetime Study before they turned two, and all will be closely tracked for their entire lives. The researchers from Colorado State University and the Morris Animal Foundation are not just analyzing biological matter. They’re also compiling exhaustive data, documented and reported each year by the dogs’ owners, on every aspect of the animal’s experience: what they eat, where they sleep, whether their lawns are treated with pesticides, whether their teeth get brushed, and more. This mass of information will be analyzed to see what kind of results it shows.

Conducting a study in real time is an effective research method, as it often uncovers information that would not have come out in an ordinary study. This sort of program is called longitudinal research, which in the past has uncovered a wider variety of causes and effects than other research programs. The Golden Retriever study is the first and largest lifetime longitudinal study of pets, and researchers hope it will illuminate links between Golden Retrievers’ health and their genetics, diets, environments and lifestyles.

Rounding up the Buffalo

Chicago Introduces City ID Program

In a move designed to make life in the USA easier for illegal immigrants, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel rolled out the new “City Key” initiative last week. Under the new program, IDs are issued to those who

Last week President Trump announced his plan to send American astronauts back to the moon for the first time since 1972. He also stated his goal to see the U.S. as the first county to put a human being on Mars.

“The directive I am signing today will refocus America’s space program on human exploration and discovery,” Trump said. “It marks an important step in returning American astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972 for long-term ex-

Ever study your dog as he lays down to sleep? Wonder why he loves a certain ball and not the other?

Now dogs are being the subject of a huge study, and scientists hope to find out more about these lovable companions.

A wide-ranging study of Golden Retrievers is being conducted to gather information about the dogs.

Three-thousand dogs are participating in the $32 million study.

Their owners provide information about almost every aspect of the

Custer State Park in South Dakota is known for an annual festival where spectators come to watch intrepid park rangers round up herds of buffalo. In the wake of recent fires that have damaged the park, the rangers have decided to conduct an unscheduled roundup during which they can take stock of all the buffalo and give them needed immunizations. Park officials have said that most animals have been found unharmed after the blaze but have add-

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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ed that it is unlikely that there were no buffalo casualties resulting from the forest fire.

The wildfire started last Monday, and will go down in history books as the third-largest recorded in the Black Hills. Thankfully there were no injuries to any humans or damage to park buildings. However, there has been an outpouring of concern for both firefighters and the park’s bison.

Buffalo have long been an American icon, the seeming avatar of an ancient America untouched by European colonization. Back in the day, gigantic herd of buffalo used to stampede and sashay across the great plains of the continent, busting their way down from Winnepeg to the Rio Grande. In that halcyon era, the buffalo population in America was 10 million strong. Unfortunately, this once proud animal community was depleted by a century-long slaughter, fueled by America’s love for buffalo pelts. By the end of the 1800’s the buffalo population was fewer than a thousand. In the years since buffalo have had a resurgence. Today there are nearly 400,000 bison in North America, mostly on farms and private ranches, according to the National Bison Association. Executive Director Dave Carter said there are as many as 20,000 buffalo in public herds, with Custer State Park’s ranking among the larger ones in the U.S.

Lost Inheritance

Heard the story of the couple whose inheritance got lost in the mail? It really happened.

A few months ago, in February, Lorette Taylor sent her brother,

Louis Paul Herbert, a bank check containing part of his inheritance after dividing their father’s will amongst the siblings. Herbert went to the UPS store to pick up his package – but the check, written out to $846,000 – never arrived.

“I’m waiting at the UPS store, around 3 p.m. because that’s when they said the guys came in – nothing shows up,” Herbert says. “I came back in the evening. Nothing shows up...and I’m wondering, ‘What’s happened to my inheritance?’”

Taylor said she sent the check from TD Bank through UPS so her brother would not have to travel 270 miles to pick it up. Taylor said the bank guaranteed the draft would get to Herbert safely, a vow that helped convince her to use UPS’s services.

The bank also pledged to Taylor and her husband, John, that it would replace the money if the draft got lost.

“They said a bank draft was more appropriate,” Taylor said. “Never in my wildest imagination did I think something like this would happen.”

Things got sticky when UPS couldn’t locate the package. After endeavoring to find the envelope, UPS sent an apology letter to the family and offered to refund the $32 shipping fee. Unfortunately, $32 wasn’t going to cut it. Herbert still didn’t have his cash, and the bank would only issue a new bank check if Lorette would sign that she would pay the bank back if someone cashes the lost draft.

“It also said that if something happened to me, for example, my children and my heirs and my spouse and my executor would have to pay this debt,” she said. “Well, I didn’t really want to sign this.” Even after signing, the bank put a lien on her home in case the lost check was ever cashed. They still didn’t give them any funds.

Finally, just last week, months after the saga began to unravel, the bank released $846,000 to the family and issued an apology.

“We understand that we’ve reached a resolution with our customer,” Cheryl Ficker, a spokeswoman for TD Canada Trust, said. “It’s clear to us we didn’t get this right along the way and that there was more we could have done to come to a resolution faster.”

It seems that when shipping a will, the words “the check is in the mail” is not a very comforting phrase to hear.

Like Grandmother, Like Granddaughter

Last week, two members of one family wore graduation gowns as they received their college diplomas.

The joy in the family spanned generations as grandmother and granddaughter both graduated from Chicago State University.

Belinda Berry, 62, received her degree in business administration.

Granddaughter Karea Berry, 25, majored in criminal justice. Belinda raise Karea in her apartment since Karea was just two-years-old. She always preached the value of hard work and of higher education.

“We didn’t know we were going to finish together because I was fulltime and she was part-time. And it actually just worked out that way.

I just say it was G-d’s will,” Karea said.

Grandmother Belinda was joyful. “I am very honored to be a role model. And I hope I am an inspiration to the young as well as the old, because it’s never too late to pursue an education,” she said.

The two inspirational women plan on continuing their pursuit of higher education. They both will enroll in graduate programs next year.

“That education is the key to success. That’s her motto of life,” Karea said of her grandmother. “She just always said you have to persevere through all of your challenges and you will receive what you need to receive. And that’s what’s happening to us today.”

A Dog’s Life We wish this story was not true but sometimes truth is stranger

than fiction.

Helena Mueller, a 38-year-old mother from the UK, loves her little Lola. She brings her everywhere and takes hundreds of pictures of her frolicking in the snow. Just a few weeks ago the two of them went to the movies together. And Helena has pampered her with spa sessions and showered her with 68 presents for the holidays.

There’s just one twist to the overthe-top spoiling of Lola. Lola has never expressed her gratitude to Helena. You see, Lola is two-yearsold. And more than that, Lola is a dog.

“She’s changed my life so much, we got her because I have an only child, Harry, who was four at the time,” Helena said.

But now Lola gets more presents than six-year-old Harry, who is a delightful, sweet boy. Helena spent more than $1,350 on presents for Lola just this season.

“Lola never moans about homework, and she never complains about what’s for dinner...” Helena said. Perhaps because Lola has yet to utter a word.

Even more peculiar is the “pecking order” in the Mueller home.

Apparently, Lola comes first, then Harry, and then Helena’s husband.

Ouch!

The dog has her own separate bank account and an allowance of $130 a month for anything she might need. How she accesses the funds is anyone’s guess.

A few days ago, Helena shared a Facebook post asking for help wrapping all of Lola’s presents. Apparently her friends weren’t too interested, instead asking her to stop posting about her dog’s gifts because “[their] dog will want the same things.”

Seems like the world is turning upside dog.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

Around the

Community Chanukah Celebrations at YCQ

L

ast week at Yeshiva of Central Queens the students enjoyed a variety of entertaining events in honor of the festival of Chanukah. In the preschool, UPK children enjoyed Chanukah workshops and the kindergarteners performed their Chanukah plays for their families, teachers and morot. After lunch, all students enjoyed doughnuts to help celebrate. Rabbi Nat, musician and rebbe at YCQ, performed a Chanukah concert. He brought up students to perform alongside him and his band with students joining in for dancing to the lively music. Mrs. Jessica Miles created a puppet show to tell the Chanukah story, and Morah Etty Borochoff made sufganiyot from scratch with their third graders.

To help students understand that Chanukah is really more about being thankful for the miracles and for giving rather than receiving, the fifth grade students met with a representative from Chai Lifeline to learn about the organization and chessed opportunities. They then took a trip to Amazing Savings to purchase gifts with their own money for the YCQ annual Chanukah Toy drive benefitting the children through Chai Lifeline.

On Friday, Azamra DJ set up in the gym for music and dancing. To highlight the week of activities the YCQ student body and faculty members were treated to a performance

by The Extreme Magic of Eric Wilzig, magician, illusionist, special effects artist and contestant on America’s Got Talent. Michael Levy, grade 8, said, “He was very entertaining and

interesting.� He wowed the students and the staff with an unforgettable magical performance.

To get the students in the spirit for Shabbos Chanukah, Rabbi Rib-

alt, elementary Judaic AP, invited all of the lower elementary school students to join him in lighting the chanukiah and singing Chanukah songs.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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JCCRP Chanukah Toy Drive: Community Coming Together

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he lights, the dazzle, the singing and good cheer...for most people, Chanukah is an exciting holiday, filled with family and friends, dreidels, great food, vacation, and of course, toys! However, there are families in our very own community, maybe on your block, in your kids’ schools, who don’t share the same enthusiasm. Many families find themselves unable to buy gifts for their children, and that is disheartening.

Presents aren’t the point of Chanukah, but it makes a difference in a child’s life knowing that someone is thinking of him or her. The local families that we pass every day need as much love and help as we can give them, and the community came together to support their fellow brothers.

With just days before Chanukah, the Jewish Community Council of Rockaway Peninsula (JCCRP) had its toy drive in full swing. Last Motzei Shabbos, kids and adults joined together to volunteer at the toy drive, preparing toy packages for over 500 children! “Packing up toys at the JCCRP was a great teaching moment for my kids. I wanted them to see firsthand how important it is to help out other children who don’t have as much as them,” commented Michelle, a parent volunteer.

The Chanukah Toy Drive was the creation of Rochel Baron, a”h. Rochel was battling cancer and received many toys for her kids. However, while she suffered with her illness she still had the compassion to wonder why the children of sick moms were the ones to get the toys, and not the children of moms who couldn’t afford

to buy any gifts for their kids. Rochel passed away erev Rosh Hashana in 2012, but not before creating the Chanukah Toy Drive, giving to over 80 families and allowing over 200 kids to feel the joy of Chanukah. Five years later, the toy drive has grown to 150 families and over 500 kids!

This year’s toy drive was dedicated b’zechus refuah shelaimah for the Gruen girls. After a tragic accident, Jews from all over the world band together in tefillah and chessed for these two courageous girls, and baruch Hashem they are recovering nicely.

Please continue to daven and do acts of chessed in the merit of Leah Hadassa bas Michal Chana and Chava bas Michal Chana.

Moshe Brandsdorfer, the JCCRP’s executive director, expressed, “The toy drive is very special, as it shows

the tremendous achdus in our community. People from all walks of life and different backgrounds were on the giving and receiving end of the Toy Drive, truly capturing the uniqueness of our community.”

The JCCRP wishes to thank all the participating schools, shuls and businesses for collecting toys: Bais Yaakov Ateres Miriam, HAFTR, BBY, DRS, Shulamith, YKLI, YOSS, Gural JCC Early Childhood, YILC, Gourmet Glatt, Seasons, Frankels, and Preminger Pediatric Dentistry.

None of this would have been possible without the hard work of the toy drive committee: Sara Austein, Sharon Friedman, Rahely Fruchter, Lara Klein, Daphna Mishaan, Fraidy Osina, Devorah Pelman, Rebecca Richman, Tamar Samuels, Yael Schertz, Tamar Sharf, Rocky Stern

and Lily Weichholz. They ran around during their busy days to set up drop off locations, collect toys and organize sponsors. Their outstanding work led to yet another amazing toy drive!

At the pickup, Rivkie*, a single mother of four, tearfully expressed, “You had to see the smile on my kids’ faces when I told them that I would be giving them presents this Chanukah. I can’t thank you enough; you guys are awesome.”

For those who couldn’t make it to the stores, please contribute online at www.jccrp.org, 100% of donations goes toward the toy drive. For more information or to volunteer for future projects, please email info@jccrp.org or call (718) 327-7755 x6113. *name changed for privacy.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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Around the Community

Harav Yerucham Olshin, shlita, speaking at Mesivta Shaarei Chaim in Far Rockaway on the second night of Chanukah

Chanukah at the White Shul

C

hanukah is a time of smiles, fun, lights, gifts, family, and doughnuts!

We are so happy that over 200 kids came out to the White Shul last week, and launched Chanukah this

year with a bang!

There was a delicious smorgasbord of latkes, ziti, bagels, and, believe it or not...a salad bar. The kids could not get enough of it! The world-renown Simon Sez had all the kids

vying for first place...he really was a hoot! Something we will not soon forget. The grand finale was hundreds of prizes, doughnuts, chocolate coins... and there were only seven more days to go!

We thank the White Shul Youth Department for an amazing event, showing children how important it is to participate in our shul by Learning, Davening, Growing...and eating doughnuts!

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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‫בס"ד‬

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community

Pre-Chanukah Fun at Central

A

t Central, the Chanukah spirit is alive! Well before the holiday started, teachers and students started getting in gear, as they brainstormed and contributed over fifty items to the Chanukah Chinese auction, signed up for Mystery Maccabee, and, last Motzei Shabbat, kicked off the festive spirit with an amazing Cultural Arts performance! The offerings for the Chinese auction now adorn the cafeteria walls, and teachers and students have already been seen sneaking around, quietly dropping off little presents on each other’s desks. If you see something, don’t say something!

The real fun began Tuesday, erev Chanukah, with Faculty Color War and a pre-Chanukah Program. The senior class spent many hours designing Color War for faculty with teams, challenges, and games. Though it was planned in jest, Ellie Berger, ‘18 said, “The faculty ended up taking it so seriously, dressed up, and played all our games! We had a great time.” The pre-Chanukah program at the end of the day on Tuesday encouraged stu-

dents to take a deeper look at the tefillot of Chanukah, and then broke into fun and games. Students from different grades competed in “Find the Gelt in the Olive Oil,” and “Make a Play

Dough Menorah.” The event ended with the entire school lighting the first Chanukah candle together.

But the fun was only just beginning. On Wednesday morning, students were treated to a presentation and performance by Ilan Swartz-Brownstein, a Yeshiva University student, self-taught beat boxer, and former contestant on America’s Got Talent! Swartz-Brownstein was entertaining and engaging as he shared his journey to Orthodoxy and his talent. He explained how anyone can use his talent to spread light, as he has been able to spread happiness by performing for Jewish crowds all over the world. He spoke about how meaningful it was for him to be able to participate in America’s Got Talent as an Orthodox Jew, and make a kiddush Hashem both on stage and behind the scenes, as the

first Jew most of the contestants had ever met. Sprinkled into his story were quick beat boxing lessons for the entire student body, capped with an amazing freestyle performance as the bell rang! Avigayil Winokur, ‘18, said, “He was one of the best speaker I have ever heard! I loved his message that anyone can use their talent for good.”

After school on Wednesday, the three older grades proceeded to their grade Chanukah parties at faculty and student homes, while the freshmen remained in school for a paint-night filled with fun, Torah, and treats.

Thank you to Mrs. Miriam Chopp, the Goykadosh family, and Ms. Leah Moskovich for hosting! Stay tuned for the rest of the Chanukah festivities!

Before the holiday is over, there will yet be a Chanukah chagigah, musical hallel, menorah wars, and more!

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The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

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Chanukah at Anshei Shalom Children banged to the Chanukah beat at the Drum Circle by Musical IQ at the Shaaray Tefila Chanukah mesibah this week

Adam Kalter, Rabbi Elon Soniker, Senator Todd Kaminsky holding his son Rafe, Avi Meir and Greg Milstein a member of the National Circus Project

M

ore than 150 people joined together at the Anshei Shalom Youth Department Chanukah Party featuring the National Circus Project. Special thanks to New York State Senator Todd Kaminsky and family for joining in the festivities. An amazing time was had by everyone who enjoyed a spectacular circus performance and workshop and Rabbi Pearl’s famous latkes and doughnuts.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

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Rav Yaakov Bender, Rosh HaYeshiva of Yeshiva Darchei Torah, delivering divrei hisorirus to the talmidim of its elementary school last Tuesday about the life of Maran Rav Aharon Leib Shteinman, zt”l

St. John’s Celebrates Chanukah

O

n Thursday, December 14, St. John’s Episcopal Hospital celebrated the start of Chanukah with a menorah lighting ceremony. Staff members, as well as members of the community were invited to attend and participate.

The hospital will have a small menorah lighting ceremony for each day of Hanukkah. The public is invited and encouraged to attend all of these ceremonies, and special guests are chosen each day to light the menorah. At this event, Rabbi Avra-

ham Klein and students from a local Hebrew academy lit the menorah alongside members of the St. John’s Episcopal Hospital Pastoral Care Department and Dr. Nancy Schaffer.

Kosher doughnuts were also given as treats to the students.

“Hanukkah is the perfect time of year to remember the importance of family, friends, and community,” said CEO Gerard Walsh. “We are excited to celebrate with our friends in the Rockaways.”

While everyone else is chasing the puck, I go where the puck is going to be.

-Wayne Gretzky

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The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community

HASC Center: Lighting Up the Darkness

By Roni Beer

T

he theme of Chanukah is to express our gratitude to Hashem for the miracles that took place on the Chanukah of long ago and to generalize this feeling of appreciation to all the “miracles” that constitute our lives today. This sentiment of appreciation was certainly felt on the first night of Chanukah when the annual HASC Center Chanukah mesibah took place in the

were the traditional culinary delights, a dvar Torah delivered by the manhig ruchani of HASC Center, Rabbi Mendy Salgo, singing, dancing and a featured performance

by Yanky Hertz together with the amazing dancing and ruach provided by The Tanzers.

On the other hand, it was extraordinary and truly elicited an expression of tov l’hodos la’Shem. What one witnessed was several hundred individuals, some with developmental disabilities, others

Simcha Felder, Shmiel Kahn, and Abe Eisner

heart of Boro Park. In some respects, it was no different than the hundreds of mesibos that took place throughout Chanukah in shuls, batei medrashim, yeshivos and at family gatherings. There

with physical handicaps, and yet others on the autism spectrum, all joined together with administrators, managers, coordinators and counselors in a traditional celebration of Chanukah. Upon deeper

introspection, the reason for gratitude can be attributed to the exceptional programs and homes that have clearly enhanced and advanced the lives of so many who would otherwise be neglected and dismissed from the festivities of Chanukah. Instead, it was clearly evident that light has been brought to places where darkness existed and the potential of one day’s oil lasting for eight days is a reality that can be seen through the realization of the potential that exists within each special needs child and individual.

Following the theme of gratitude, the beautiful event was immeasurably enhanced by employees of Junees, who had representation at the chagigah. They distributed thoughtful and personalized gifts, as they do every year.

The Junee management took the time to speak to each manager to find out what each individual would enjoy and they personally wrapped and labeled each gift. To see the smiles and reaction of the individuals was akin to the light and glow of the menorah. However, they did not simply distribute the gifts; they actively participated in the dancing and greatly

Rabbi Mendy Salgo and HASC Center participants

enhanced the ruach of the evening. The event was also graced by the presence of Abe Eisner, president of the HASC Center Board of Directors, Simcha Felder, New York State Senator, and Kalman Yeager, New York City Council Member Any parent of an individual who attended the HASC Center Chanukah mesibah was overjoyed and gave gratitude to Hashem for the accomplishments of their children and for the simchas hachaim they exhibited at this event.

As we all know the shamash serves all the other candles. It is the one that is raised above. Even though the shamash is elevated

above all, its only purpose is to serve the other candles by giving them light and igniting their flame. The staff at HASC Center is our shamash. The individuals we serve are the beautiful candles that shine so bright and illuminate our lives. Even though the shamash may seem to be elevated above the other candles, our only purpose is to light up the flame, the neshamos of our individuals.

We support the other candles and through this support we ourselves become elevated.

This is our purpose at HASC Center. This Chanukah mesibah visualized to all that our purpose was achieved.

Bais Yaakov of Queens: Sending “Lighthearted” Wishes

T

he sixth grade students of Bais Yaakov of Queens, like all BYQ students, think about others, always! “Learning we are part of a community is huge at BYQ, in our class, school and beyond. We encourage our students to reach out to others in the community,” said Mrs. Sarah Bergman, general studies principal.

Mrs. Karen Reisbaum, general studies assistant principal, works with teachers and curriculum and creates ways for students to learn technology skills and apply them to reach out to others. This group of

students created puzzles with messages for children in local hospitals.

During their computer class, Mrs. Adina Shapiro and the girls designed 8 x 11 messages and turned their colorful creations into puzzles. The

messages were heartwarming and the designs were delightful. The puzzles were packed up and delivered to North Shore and LIJ hospitals, ready to bring smiles to others for the first day of Chanukah!

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

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Chanukah at DRS

C

hanukah is always a spirited time in DRS. Throughout the special holiday, DRS students celebrated in a myriad of ways. One of the highlights of Chanukah is the time that shiurim get to spend at their rabbeim’s homes. Each rebbe hosted a Chanukah chagigah at his home, with food, divrei Torah, games, and presents. What a beautiful way to celebrate the holiday of Chanukah! In yeshiva, Dunkin Donuts, Rita’s Ices, and Costco baked goods were served for breakfast and lunch. On Thursday,

the second-ever schoolwide spelling bee took place, pitting students representing different shiurim against each other for a grand sushi prize for their class. Thursday afternoon featured a school-wide trivia contest and the annual Chanukah Good and Services Auction. On Friday, the DRS student band entertained the school and sparked spontaneous dancing in the lobby of school to celebrate Chanukah. Joined by Rabbi Kaminetsky on piano, the performance was incredibly impressive!

A Holiday Fire Safety Reminder from the Village of Cedarhurst

W

ednesday’s horrific fire that destroyed a family in Brooklyn is a terrible reminder that joy can turn to tragedy in an instant. Fire safety is an important imperative that should always be part of our holiday preparations and observance. According to the National Fire Prevention Bureau, thousands of fire deaths occur during the holiday season that are preventable by simply following some basic fire safety principles.

First and foremost make sure that you have working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors installed in your home. For more information about

where and how to install them, see this link http://www.lawrence-cedarhurstfd.org/smoke_alarms_and_detectors.php. Now is a good time to replace the batteries and test your devices.

• Never leave a burning candle or flame unattended. Leaving your home, going to bed, or simply leaving the room where candles and/or menorahs are lit and out of view is dangerous.

• Never light candles or a menorah near flammable objects, such as curtains, carpeting, tablecloths or paper holiday decorations or displays.

• Always place a lit candle or me-

In the 2016-2017 flu season, 42% of flu cases were averted because people had the flu vaccine.

Page 104

norah on a flameproof object, such as a metal plate or a baking sheet. A sheet of aluminum foil covering a tablecloth will stop messy drips but will not prevent a fire.

• Ask yourself: “What could happen if the candle tips over or falls?” It will help you assess the safety of the situation and make you aware of the precautions you should take.

• Keep a small fire extinguisher or fire blanket nearby. It is the safest and fastest way to extinguish a small fire. If a fire occurs, first get everyone out of the house to a safe distance, and then call 911. Running back into a burning home to save your “priceless” possessions is not worth the risk. Your most “priceless” possessions are standing in the street next to you.

• Children get very excited and animated during holiday celebrations.

While we want the enthusiasm, running and jumping near lit candles can accidentally cause them to fall and start a house fire.

• Don’t overload electrical circuits.

If the circuit breaker pops, don’t simply reset it. Reduce the load on that circuit (unplug some of the things con-

nected to the circuit) and then reset the breaker.

• Never run extension cords under carpets, tree skirts or furniture. Remember that extension cords are potential trip hazards and well as a common source of fires.

• Do not overload extension cords by chaining them together or installing cube taps. They are not designed to carry that much current.

• Using LED light sets reduces the electrical load. In addition, they run cooler and there is less risk of having a hot bulb touch a dry tree branch and igniting a fire.

The Lawrence Cedarhurst Fire Department offers some more holiday safety suggestions at this link. http:// www.lawrence-cedarhurstfd.org/holiday_safety.php Visit our website for a downloadable version that you can print and pack away with your holiday decorations and menorah as a reminder for next year.

Mayor Benjamin Weinstock, the Village Board of Trustees, and the entire Village Family wish everyone a joyous and safe holiday season.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community PHOTO CREDIT: DANIEL BAR-ON

208 new immigrants from Ukraine celebrated their first Chanukah in Israel this week after landing in Tel Aviv on Tuesday PHOTO CREDIT: YAAKOV KATZ STUDIOS

Lighting the Menorah atop the Freedom Tower

O

n Monday evening, December 18, the seventh night of Chanukah, the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce held an inspirational menorah lighting ceremony on the One World Observatory, on the 101st floor of the World Trade Center’s Freedom Tower.

This symbolized the Jewish communal business world utilizing the strength of its spirit and commerce to defeat darkness and hate. “Here, in the heart of the business world, we are declaring that nothing will deter us from succeeding and making the world a better place,” says Duvi Honig, founder and CEO of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce.

An array of dignitaries

participated in the World Trade Center ceremony including Rabbi Yosef Carlebach, Chabad Rutgers; J. Morton Davis, Chairman of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce; Adam Bisnowaty of the New York Giants; Rabbi Mendy Carlebach, Chaplain Port Authority of NY and NJ, and Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce ambassador; Lence Bryer, Transportation Security Manager at JFK International Airport; Officer Emanuel Almog of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; and event coordinator Rebecca Musumeci of Legends.

The menorah in the Observatory was lit by Rabbi Yosef Carlebach and J. Morton Davis, followed by lively renditions of Maoz Tzur and

other Chanukah melodies. Prior to this ceremony, Rabbi Mendy Carlebach lit a menorah at the tower’s Oculus below ground level, accompanied by a lively performance by the Maccabeats. A special menorah made out of scrap metal recovered from the ruins of the Twin Towers was used – offering poignant symbolism and optimism.

Event coordinators Lieutenant Scott Pomerantz of the Port Authority of NY and NJ and Rachel Kraus, VP

of Marketing at Westfield World Trade Center, were in attendance. The Ground Zero menorah and presence of transportation and security officials were particularly noteworthy, coming mere days after a failed ISIS terror attack on the New York City subway system. The message of bringing light unto darkness, and not weakening resolve, permeated the ceremony as the flames flickered.

Rabbi Yosef Carlebach observed how it is the everyday Jewish businessman, even more so than religious leaders, who can illuminate the world. “When a businessman conducts himself properly in the business world and is proud of who we are, we share our light with the entire world,” he explained.

The symbolism of a menorah atop the center of New York’s Financial District was also not lost upon Chairman Davis: “The Jewish people epitomize how after near-

ly getting destroyed we can rise to the top of the world in terms of achieving good for the world,” he stated.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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Chai Lifeline includes siblings and parents, too, with programs geared towards the entire family.

We care for more than 5,000 children and their families around the world and across the street.

Chances are, you know them. They just don’t look sick.

Whenever, wherever we’re needed, Chai Lifeline is there.

Chai Lifeline. Comprehensive, compassionate, professional assistance for families facing illness, loss or trauma.

151 West 30th Street, New York, NY 10001 I (877) CHAI-LIFE I (212) 465-1300 I www.chailifeline.org

Regional Offices: Greater New York I Southeast I West Coast I Midwest I Mid-Atlantic I New Jersey I Canada I England I Israel I Belgium Hospital Support: Meals | Transportation Assistance | Hospital Visits | Respite Children’s Programs: Arts and Recreational Activities | After-school programs | Sibling Programs | Educational Assistance in Limudei Kodesh Counseling for patients and siblings | Camp Simcha/Camp Simcha Special Family Programs: Advocacy and Information | Retreats | Insurance Advocacy | Family Recreation | Family Counseling | Bereavement Services Community Programs: Project CHAI, support for schools, camps, and communities facing crisis or trauma.

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Around the Community

CAHAL Chessed for Chanukah

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his year, the CAHAL staff went all out to excite, inspire and enrich their students’ Chanukah experiences. In addition to the usual Chanukah activities and chagigas both in school and at the rebbeim’s and teachers’ homes, some of the teachers invited mainstream classes to join them in attending engaging multi-activity programs designed and presented by the CAHAL students. Special recognition is due to Mrs. Riva Ratner at YOSS and Mrs. Shani Hildeshaim at TAG and their mainstream colleagues for their efforts in coordinating out-

standing integrated programs. There was much shared fun and simcha by all.

Under the direction of Morah Aviva Balsam, the CAHAL students at Bais Yaakov Ateres Miriam decided to blend chessed with creative fun by decorating the Achiezer Respite Room at South Nassau Communities Hospital with a huge Chanukah poster and menorah. Mrs. Naomi Nadata, CAHAL’s Program Director, and Mrs. Alice Feltheimer, CAHAL’s Educational Coordinator, rushed to get the girls’ artwork in place before the chag and Facetimed with

the class from the hospital as they gave a tour of the special amenities provided by Achiezer in this facility.

The girls were so proud to be able to bring Chanukah cheer to the families of the hospital patients.

St. John’s Hosts Adopt-a-Family Event

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n Wednesday, December 13, St. John’s Episcopal Hospital completed its Adopt-a-Family Program distribution. As participants in this program, patients in need and their families were able to receive holiday gifts thanks to the generosity of donors.

Patients and clients enrolled in the hospital’s Behavioral Health Outpatient services, being coached by the Patient Activation Measurement (PAM) team, or discharged from the hospital in the past year were referred to the Adopt-a-Family program by hospital staff members on their treatment teams. Among the families referred are those made homeless because of fire, domestic violence, and loss of work, as well as battling various financial and medical difficulties.

Gifts were donated by various community groups, including congregations in the Diocese of Long Island, St. John’s staff members, and The Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway.

Sophie Lifschutz, a 17-year old senior at HAFTR High School, was responsible for raising $2,300 through a GoFundMe page, bake sales, and other donations, which went to sponsoring one of the families in need.

“St. John’s is committed to the families that receive care from us,” said Gerard Walsh, CEO of St. John’s Episcopal Hospital. “Today’s Adopt-a-Family event is evidence of that.”

The staff at St. John’s would like to wish all a happy, peaceful holiday season!

Pictured (L-R) Sharika Gordon, Gwen Pinckney, Steve Guido, Rev. Dr. Cecily Broderick y Guerra, and the students of HAFTR

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community

YOSS Celebrates Chanukah

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he halls of Yeshiva of South Shore were filled with Chanukah cheer as each division of the yeshiva put their special spin on the yom tov. The Pre-1A talmidim in the Hollander Early Childhood Center embarked on a Mitzvah Macabee program. The boys proudly put on their badges shaped like shields each day, to remind them to behave with good middos. An impressive 6-feet tall menorah was built by 4th graders in the elementary school to greet visitors. The boys also created edible menorahs, read Chanukah-themed stories and, of course, played dreidel. The Mechina division shared special divrei Torah and enjoyed chagigos in the homes of talmidim and their rebbes.

Chessed on Chanukah at HALB

O

ver the eight days of Chanukah the students of HALB were busy celebrating and involving themselves in chessed.

The toy bin, which collected toys for Chai Lifeline families, was overflowing with presents for children of all

ages. The fourth grade boys went to Kulanu, where they sang and danced with the students. It was awesome to see the instant connection and new friendships forming. The eighth grade boys went to Masbia in Brooklyn, helped pack food for families in

need and organized the soup kitchen. Both tasks involved some heavy lifting and the boys did a great job.

The fourth grade girls traveled back to Long Beach and visited the residents at the Nautilus. Both the staff and the residents were so happy to

see the children’s faces; it was great to be back together again! The fifth grade girls volunteered at the JCCRP and assisted in sorting food and packing boxes.

Yasher koach to all!

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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Around the Community Chanukah performances at Gesher

Sephardic Congregation of Hewlett Chanukah Celebration

T

he Sephardic Congregation of Hewlett (“SCH”) celebrated its second annual Chanukah event on December 17. The party took place at the Brandeis School gymnasium and included games, inflatables, activities, music, and raffle prizes.

Pizza Pious catered the event.

The Sephardic Congregation of Hewlett started in a garage and eventually made its way to the home of Shmuel and Anita Koren. What makes this minyan unique is its diversity. Sephardim of virtually every background along with Ashkenazim, chassidim, Israelis, Americans, and

Russians – secular, traditional, and religious affiliations – all pray under one roof. It is this type of unity and respect for differing levels of observance and religious expression that is the hallmark of Sephardic tradition.

The Chanukah celebration gave congregants and supporters of the minyan an opportunity to socialize, enjoy a fun afternoon with their children, and discuss the minyan’s amazing growth and plans for the future.

For those interested in supporting this beautiful growing community, please call (516) 531 - 7212.

The atmosphere was positively sizzling on Monday night – the seventh night of Chanukah—as dozens of Five Towns residents converged on Gourmet Glatt’s Cedarhurst store for an exciting Latke Throwdown.

Pictured left to right: Throwdown winner Devorah Lerer; competition judge Melinda Strauss, Kitchen Tested; event MC Naomi Nachman, noted chef and cookbook author; competition judge Dani Klein, Yeah That’s Kosher; competition judge Stuart Vaiselberg, Gourmet Glatt Chopped Champion; and Throwdown contestant Avrohom Fridman

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

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On Tuesday night, December 12, Senator Todd Kaminsky joined the Chabad of Hewlett to light the menorah for the first night of Chanukah. It was a very joyous night with many Hewlett community members enjoying the hot cocoa, music, and crafts.

Rabbi Nochem Tenenboim of the Chabad of Hewlett, Nassau County Legislator Howard Kopel, and State Senator Todd Kaminsky are pictured at the Chabad of Hewlett menorah lighting with members of the community

Celebrating Chanukah SKA Style

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he email sent to the students of the Stella K. Abraham High School for Girls on the first night of Chanukah read “Dress warmly.”

When the SKA students entered the building on the first day of Chanukah, Wednesday, December 13, no one knew what to expect. After davening, however, Mrs. Helen Spirn, Head of School, announced, “Everyone to the buses, we’re going on a trip!” All the grades had a truly enjoyable “Chanukah on Ice,” bonding with each other and teachers at an ice skating rink in Great Neck. For those who needed a break, there were games set up around the rink and delicious pizza and snacks provided. It was a wonderful way to start the festivities of Chanukah at SKA. The next day began with an interesting twist. SKA’s Torah lishma initiative SPARKS introduced “Chanu-

kah Across the Curriculum,” ensuring each class in every subject connected Chanukah to the day’s lesson in a creative and meaningful way. Linear equations of dreidels in Math, the manufacturing of olive oil in biology, using oil pastels to create light in art and coding menorahs in pre-engineering were some of the concepts explored in addition to the halachot of Chanukah in Torah Shebeal Peh and the real history of Chanukah in History of Israel, among others.

To make the day even more special, the G.O. sponsored “Nes Cafe,” which provided delicious specialty drinks and food for purchase. In the evening, sophomores, juniors and seniors enjoyed amazing food and activities at teachers’ homes thanks to their grade level advisors and madrichot; the SKA Basketball Team even partied at the home of physical ed. teacher and coach, Mrs. Goldfeder.

SKA’s Chanukah on Ice

Chanukah in chemistry class

The eagerly awaited annual SKA Chanukah Chagiga and the Chanukah Privilege Auction capped off the yom tov; in the “bowling alley,” long rows of colorful boxes offered opportunities to bid on class parties, lunches and outings with faculty members and Shabbos invitations. Since the funds raised go to tzedaka, this has always been a very popular event

and bidding is friendly but fierce. Of course, it wouldn’t be Chanukah at SKA without chessed! Boxes labeled for Toy and Book Drives were filled to capacity, and 9th and 12th graders shared simcha with participants from Otzar and Gymnasia.

We hope everyone had a freilichen Chanukah. The students and faculty of SKA certainly did!

Chanukah in math class

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community

Chanukah at Siach Yitzchok

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he entire Siach Yitzchok including Reishes Chochma had an amazing Chanukah. Each class had an individual dreidel drop. The dreidel drop is long-time tradition of the cheder. The boys sing and dance around the dreidel with the Menahel Harav Dovid Sitnick, shlit”a. While dancing, the Menahel goes into the middle of the circle to untie the fully packed dreidel. Out comes many pekalech and prizes that each boy jumps and grabs.

Later, all the classes loaded the buses and headed to Sh’or Yoshuv. Awaiting them in Sh’or Yoshuv was a delicious seudah, a magic show, a professional storyteller, and very geshmake singing and dancing.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

Around the Community

We Can All Be Heroes

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urturing kindness is a central priority at HANC’s Samuel and Elizabeth Bass Golding’s Elementary School in West Hempstead. In the midst of the school’s Chanukah festivities, the fourth through sixth grade students attended an amazing anti-bullying assembly led by the renowned motivational speaker Jon Pritikin. As his presentation began, Jon demonstrated some seemingly impossible feats of strength. He curled a frying pan with his bare hands, lifted a steel bar with two sixth grade girls holding onto each end and twirled them around in the air, and after returning the girls to the floor, he then put the bar between his teeth and bent it in half. The students were mesmerized by his feats of incredible strength. Standing over six feet tall, he looked like a pillar of strength.

Jon then told the children a story about a lonely, sixyear-old boy who was unable to speak. This young student ate lunch by himself every day and was bullied mercilessly by his classmates. The other students always told this boy that he would never amount to anything in his life. As he told this story, the students could feel the pain that this little boy felt. Lat-

er in his high school years, a wonderful teacher by the name of Mr. Edwards took an interest in him and made him feel that he could succeed in life. He started to study, began to excel in school, and later was able to attend college. What happened next took everyone’s breath away.

Jon paused and then revealed that the boy he had been describing was him!

Since then, Jon has made it his life mission to educate children about bullying. While his feats of strength and engaging style of entertainment delighted the crowd, his message of kindness and compassion truly resonated with the children. He told the children that when they see someone who is going through a tough time in their life, they will have to be a hero for someone else. His message to everyone was that every person is special and no one should tell you otherwise. “If you see someone being teased, or is sitting by themselves, step in and be a hero.” He also paid tribute to the teachers who attended the event with their students, emphasizing how one compassionate teacher of his completely changed his life.

To date, Jon has spoken to eight million students

around the world as well as numerous sports teams. At an event outside of London, England, Jon broke and set two Guinness World Records. The official record title that landed his picture in the Guinness Book of World Records was for “The Tightest Circumference of Two Aluminum Frying Pans Rolled Together With His Bare Hands in Less Than 30 Seconds.”

He uses his strength, though, towards promoting conflict resolution.

Jon inspired the HANC students with the message that they should never stop believing in themselves and that things can always improve. Everyone promised to step up and be part of the solution and not part of the problem in the fight against bullying. Jon reiterated that

every child should be a hero, and not a bully. They should always remember how special they are. Teachers and students alike were very moved by this outstanding program!

In an effort to bring the best programs and speakers to HANC, the school partnered with several organizations

to make this event possible.

Thank you to David Rettig from the National Character Education Foundation; Rabbi Raphael Butler, Rebbetzin Karen Hochberg and Mor Keshet from the Afikim Foundation; and New York State Representative David Weprin, all of whom attended the event as well.

Please say Tehillim for Shilat bas Louza Aliza, Daniel ben Louza Aliza, Yosef ben Ahuva Masuda May they have a refuah sheleima and know no more tzaar.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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Around the Community

Stuart B. Almer Named New President/ CEO of Gurwin Jewish Nursing & Rehabilitation Center

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he Board of Directors of Gurwin Jewish Nursing & Rehabilitation Center has announced the appointment of Stuart B. Almer to the role of President and Chief Executive Officer for Gurwin Jewish Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, Gurwin Jewish ~ Fay J. Lindner Residences, Gurwin Home Care Agency and Gurwin Jewish Healthcare Foundation, effective January 1, 2018. Mr. Almer currently serves as Administrator/Chief Operating Officer for Gurwin and will succeed Herbert H. Friedman, current and founding Executive Vice President/CEO. Mr. Friedman was instrumental in creating the Gurwin brand, which includes a

full continuum of senior care services that started with a community nursing home in 1988 and has grown to encompass all levels of care, from a proposed independent living community to complex skilled care, all on the Gurwin campus in Commack. He will remain with Gurwin as President/CEO of the newly-established Gurwin parent corporation, Gurwin Healthcare System, and of Fountaingate Gardens, Gurwin’s proposed independent housing community. Additionally, he will have input on strategic planning through 2018.

In a career spanning more than 30 years, Mr. Almer has garnered substantial administrative and management

experience in both the acute care and long-term care settings. Since joining the Gurwin team in 2015 from Parker Jewish Institute for Health Care and Rehabilitation, Mr. Almer has been responsible for the day-to-day operations of Gurwin’s 460-bed nursing and rehabilitation center. In that time, he spearheaded the creation of a 60-bed memory care unit, expanded the adult day care program to include a social program for those with mild to moderate dementia, and has influenced change in the facility’s CMS rating to five stars, among other highlights.

“Stu is a proven leader, with a comprehensive understanding of our rap-

Stuart B. Almer

Herbert H. Friedman

idly-changing healthcare environment, a strength in strategic planning and an appreciation for our Gurwin mission,” said Bert E. Brodsky, Chairman of the Board of Gurwin Jewish Nursing & Rehabilitation Center. “Gurwin has come far in the 29 years since its founding to serve the Long Island community. With much still to accomplish, we are certain that Stu is the perfect choice to position Gur-

win for long-term growth and success.”

“I am honored to be able to step into this leadership position at this important juncture in the history of Gurwin Jewish,” said Almer. “As we continue to adapt to a rapidly changing and challenging healthcare environment, I look forward to guiding change and spearheading innovation to ensure long-term growth for the Gurwin Family of Healthcare Services.”

Literacy Week at Shulamith

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iteracy Week ended on a high note with back-to-back events on Thursday afternoon.

The first event was the Shulamith Middle Division Annual Poetry Slam, in which an unprecedented thirty-four poets participated. The judges of the poetry slam, Mrs. Ellen Katz, Mrs. Aviva Weintraub, and

Mrs. Sarah Wolf, were awed by the talents of the poets and had a tough time choosing the winners. After tallying the scores for content and presentation, Mrs. Wolf announced the winners. First Place was awarded to seventh graders Tamar Pilevsky, Elana Reichman, Aliza Zilberberg for their poem entitled, “A

Parade Below Sea Level”; in second place was Bayla Rothschild (7B) for her poem, “Underwater Imagination”; and third place was awarded to Tehila Ostroff (8B) for “The Wonders Below.” Tehila Jansenson (8C) earned an honorable mention for encouraging us all to preserve our precious seas with her poem entitled, “Think Blue and Go Green.”

Following the poetry slam, some very talented and creative students took part in a character pageant.

Performing individually, in pairs, trios, or in larger groups, students dressed up as their favorite literary characters and took to the stage to tell us about them. Characters ran the gamut from fairy tale figures such as The Three Little Pigs and

Tehila Ostroff at the poetry slam

Cinderella to favorites from children’s books such as The Cat in the Hat, Willy Wonka, and Alice in Wonderland.

In the 2015-2016 flu season, 2.9 thousand deaths were prevented by the flu vaccine.

Literacy Week heads Daniella Eichler, Mimi Altmark, Ilana Moskowitz, and Tehilla Jansenson

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Around the Community

Classroom Lessons Come to Life

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ur community boasts many wonderful yeshivos and chessed organizations. The yeshivos teach our precious children about the importance of emulating our Avos and Imahos, by caring for other Jews and doing acts of kindness. Our dedicated chessed organizations are committed to helping our neighbors in need in any situation.

It is truly amazing when yeshivos and chessed organization work together to help those less fortunate.

These acts of chessed not only help those in a hard situation, but they also help the teachers and schools bring their classroom lessons to life.

The children get a hands-on experience of what they are learning.

The address for these real life lessons is the JCCRP kosher food pantry (located in Far Rockaway). The food pantry distributes food packages to over 1,900 of our neighbors a month.

The food pantry helps community members make healthy food decisions by choosing healthy starches, fruits, vegetables and healthy sources

HALB 5th graders with their teacher Mrs. Wieder and the JCCRP Executive Director Moshe Brandsdorfer

of protein. Additionally, the food is distributed to community members in a most discrete and respectful fashion.

MAY, HANC, HAFTR, SHA and most recently HALB have all graciously given of their time to volunteer by restocking the kosher food

pantry. The students come in and eagerly get right down to work, unloading boxes of pasta, canned goods, chicken, fruits and vegetables.

“I’m so happy to help people and do chessed. It was hard work, but it feels great!” commented a 5th grader from HALB.

The JCCRP has many volunteer opportunities available and welcomes the opportunity to partner together with all the local yeshivas.

To arrange a time for your class to volunteer please call Naamah at 718327-7755 ext. 6124 or email nadelman@jccrp.org.

Rambam’s Dodgeball Tournament Raises Close to $1K for IDF

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pearheaded by Rambam’s Chessed Committee and run by seniors Benny Csillag, Gavriel Haviv, Effie Klein, Evan Linder and juniors Aaron Moradi, Rafi Lowe, Yair Oppenheim, and

Oren Teeter, Rambam Mesivta’s 8th Annual 4-Corner Dodgeball Tzedakah Tournament raised close to $1,000 to benefit the IDF! Over 60 students participated in this student-run, one-of-a kind tournament

that is one of the highlights on the Rambam calendar.

The game, a variant of traditional dodgeball that involves four teams and four balls on at once, was invented by the late, legendary physical ed.

teacher Al Hecht and was brought to Rambam when Hillel Goldman came to Rambam as assistant principal. The tournament, and how it is run, combines all the elements that exemplify the notion of “Smart Fun” that makes Rambam’s programming unique and designed to maximize student involvement and skill-building. It encourages chessed, student empowerment, strategy, innovation, leadership, the incorporation of technology, and outside-the-box thinking. “The tournament isn’t just about a sport and having a great time. It is about a worldview that sees everything as an opportunity for growth and chessed,” explained Mr. Goldman.

The tournament came down to the final round as all four teams were in contention to win it all. In the end, the Blue team, led by Michael Akhavan took home the medals. Yoni Auerbach, Yoni Grossman, Eli Hanuka, and David Rabinovich all earned All-Star Awards with Joe Wertman winning the “Al Hecht Memorial MVP” trophy.

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

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Five Towns NORPAC Welcomes Senators Schumer and Stabenow

By Eliezer Cohen

T

he Five Towns NORPAC event gave a warm Chanukah welcome to Senators Charles Schumer and Debbie Stabenow (DMI) at the home of Trudy & Stanley Stern on Sunday, December 17. Senator Schumer, as the Democratic Senate Leader and a longtime friend of the U.S.-Israel relationship, opened the event by lighting the Chanukah candles with the Stern grandchildren and led the singing of Maoz Tzur.

Senator Stabenow has worked closely with Senator Schumer on many bills over the last 17 years in support of Israel and reaffirming its right to self-defense. First elected to the Senate in 2000, Stabenow is cur-

rently Ranking Member of the Senate Agriculture Committee and a member of the Senate Energy, Finance, and Budget Committees. Although you may think that Israel and the Senate Agriculture Committee have little in common, she educated us on how important Israel’s innovations and advancements are to the agricultural communities across America, including New York State.

It was a pleasure to hear from Senator Stabenow how special she feels the U.S.-Israel relationship is. She has been a friend to Israel throughout her career. Both senators endorsed President Trump’s announcement with respect to Jerusalem. They believe without Israel things would be

Saluting Those Who Can’t

very precarious in the Middle East and around the globe.

Senator Schumer answered some tough questions and gave a peek into the back door politics that sometimes give the appearance that he does not have our back. Nothing can be further from the truth. The senator understands the difficulties triggered in today’s climate due to the relationship between the United States and Israel. He is seeking solutions to shift the perception that college youth and the progressive left view Israel as an oppressor and aggressor. The United States relies on Israel for many innovations for the military, security and welfare of America. “We cannot afford young Americans not being

supportive of Israel,” he asserted. For the welfare of the United States it is essential that there be a strong Israel.

Senator Stabenow believes that Israel has a right to defend itself and issues related to Israel must remain bipartisan. She is a strong opponent of BDS and has been a true friend of Israel, despite the fact that her state has a very large Muslim population.

It was very important to show her our appreciation for her unflinching support. It was evident that she truly appreciates our support and she is a senator that puts truth and her beliefs ahead of doing “whatever it takes” to secure votes. We wish her good luck in her re-election bid next November.

Bee-lieve it!

By Rabbi Zev Meir Friedman

W

alk…

The sun would soon be setting so I found myself searching for the closest shul in Tel Aviv. I had been visiting my recently widowed relative who was not feeling well. She is my only first cousin, daughter of my uncle who, along with my father, a”h, survived the Holocaust in which all other family members were murdered. She attended Bais Yaakov in Cracow but the war and other circumstances led her in a different direction.

As all know, Jerusalem is Israel’s spiritual capital and Tel Aviv is regarded as its secular, non-religious capital. Surprisingly, I was told that there are more than 300 shuls in the city and there was one only two blocks away. A hurried walk got me there as people were assembling. The rabbi walked in and his attention was called to the back corner of the room.

There he consulted with a man, approximately 30 years of age, who was in a wheelchair. The rabbi nodded his head in the affirmative and proceeded to his seat in the front of the shul. The wheelchair-bound man proceeded to snap on a prosthetic device to his left leg...and then his right leg .The double amputee then began to put on his tefillin. Apparently the questioner wanted to know if he could don tefillin for Mincha. He was pushed by a friend to a shtender in front of the

shul and was carefully lifted from his wheelchair bracing himself on the arms of the wheelchair to be able to stand before Hashem in prayer. This courageous man, who lost his limbs defending Klal Yisrael, stood as a proud Jew, able to carry on the tradition of our people.

To my mind, this was no ordinary man. His Mincha spoke volumes about his commitment to davening and recognition of Hashem despite what most would consider a tragedy. Did he consider the fact that his limbs were blown off to be a tragedy?

I didn’t ask, however, the distinct impression I had was that this hero considers it his responsibility and honor to risk his life to protect those who come to daven.

C

an you spell “instantaneous”? How about “variegated” or “conundrum”?

The Shulamith Spelling Bee, a highlight of Literacy Week in the Middle Division, featured these words and more as commendable students from grades 5 through 8 proved their spelling alacrity.

In the senior division spelling bee, seventh grade class champions Aliza Coronel, Leah Solomon, Yael Szalfrock, Lauren Zalisky, Aliza Zilberberg, and Hannah Zucker competed against eighth graders Chavi Feldman, Ahuva Halpert, Gabriella Herman, Michal Lipsky, Nechama Jacobowitz,Tehilla Jansenson, Shira Mintz, Tehila Ostroff, and Leah Weiss. The contestants were obviously well prepared and didn’t find the spelling too exasperating, but someone had to win, and it was Ahuva Halpert who spelled her way to

victory in the competition.

In the second bee of the day, fifth grade class champions Meital Bhatia, Keli Faivish, Chaya Furst, Chaya Gluck, Tamar Jansenson, Hadassa Klahr, Leora Klier, Elianna Mishaan, and Daniella Turner competed against the sixth graders, Tamar Abittan, Naava Belsky, Kayla Feigenbaum, Mindy Pfeffer, Leora Spirgel, and Rebecca Talansky. The audience was riveted as two students remained and spelled increasingly difficult words correctly for round after round.

They made it look easy, and not the least bit enervating! Eventually, a tie was declared and Meital Bhatia and Hadassa Klahr were both declared winners!

Congratulations to each of our spellers on their impeccable achievement!

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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Around the Community

Achdus Beyond Words on Display at RCCS Auction

W

hat event could draw a crowd of close to 60,000 people of all ages, from all segments of Klal Yisroel, all joined together with one ambitious goal in mind?

The answer is the Annual Rofeh Cholim Cancer Society (RCCS) Auction!

Tens of thousands of people from all around the world tuned in at RCCSauction.org, listened live to one of several radio stations broadcasting the show, or called in to the live hotline and enjoyed an exceptional evening of entertainment and inspiration, all with the goal of raising much-needed funds to save the lives of cancer patients in our communities.

The show was hosted by the well-known community activist and motivational force R’ Chaskel Bennett, who kept the show going with his wit and enthusiasm.

He was joined by his cohost, a renowned orator who has inspired thousands worldwide, Rav Gav Friedman, who provided words of Torah inspiration throughout the evening.

The devoted RCCS volunteers manning the phone lines were kept busy all evening, as the calls kept coming in from around the globe with their donations and auction ticket purchases. A huge cheer went out when this year’s goal of raising $1.8 million to fund lifesaving insurance policies for cholei Yisroel was met!

By the time the show ended, the auction had far surpassed the original goal.

The success of the event will allow RCCS to continue to be there for cholim and their families as they go through their painful and difficult ordeal. Huge thanks go out to everyone who helped make this a reality. Mi k’amcha Yisroel!

A highlight of the evening was the amazing Team Talent Show presented by Chai Care – The Official Auction Sponsor. Anyone with a talent they were willing to showcase was able to able to apply to join the live talent show – and the judges and crowd were really blown away by the acts. From music to acrobatics, to magic tricks to karate, the contestants of Team Talent were a sensational bunch.

The Talent show was hosted by Mr. Ari Abramowitz and featured a panel of all-star celebrity judges.

Jake Turx, Ami Magazine’s Washington Correspondent, and Jewish music legends Yossi Green and Eli Gerstner appraised the competitor’s skills and gave their expert opinion on all the acts. The judges were also joined by Gabriel Boxer, the famed Kosher Guru, who added his own blend of humor to the show.

Taking home first place were the Braun family, who performed a sensational unicycle act that included the entire family – from the father right down to the baby! Coming in second was 13-year-old Shmuel Duvid Landau, who sang an emotional tune while simultaneously masterfully playing the guitar. Rounding out the top three was Yisroel Zachariash, a 14-year-old bochur who performed a new song that he actually composed specially for the event. Talk about dedication to the cause!

The jam-packed program also featured all-star musical performances, inspirational messages, moving firsthand accounts of dealing with illness, and informative panels that kept the audience spellbound until well after midnight.

Finally, it was time to

draw the winners of the 40 incredible auction prizes, as well as the three elite prize – a family Sukkos in Yerushalaim, a trip to Cancun for Pesach, and Shavuos with Nofesh – the Grand Prize of up to $50,000 cash (depending on how many tickets the winner put into the auction) and the “Chai Cash” prize of $18,000.

The Grand Prize winner received the full total of $36,000! Congratulations to the Katz family of Lakewood!

The “Chai Cash” winner of $18,000 was Ruchi Katz of Brooklyn! Other winners came from throughout New York and New Jersey, as well as Waterbury, Conn., and even two winners from Miami Beach, Fla. Congratulations to all the winners! But, of course, everyone who participated in this amazing auction is a winner!

The theme of this year’s auction was #ThereAreNoWords – as no words can ever truly do justice to depict the pain, suffering and confusion cancer patients and their families go through as they deal with the effects of the dreaded disease, and no words could ever suffice to explain all that RCCS does to ease their pain and assist them in so many ways.

So too, no words could ever describe how much the mass show of support by tens of thousands of Yidden means to RCCS and the cholim they care for, and no words would ever be enough to portray the amazing level of achdus Klal Yisroel showed by joining as one to be a source of life for the most vulnerable segment of our society.

It was a truly awesome event – one that shall be long wordlessly remembered with fondness and joy!

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Around the Community

Keeping the Kesher: Chapter 20

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or the past 20 years, Rabbi Zev Meir Friedman, Rambam’s Rosh Mesivta, has made it a point to spend a special Shabbos with Rambam alumni learning in Eretz Yisroel. This much anticipated Shabbaton provides an opportunity for all the talmidim to get together with each other and Rabbi Friedman.

This year’s program was hosted

by Yeshivas Migdal HaTorah in Modiin, just two days after President Trump announced that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, confirming a longheld Jewish reality. Despite, or perhaps because, security was especially tight in and around Yerushalayim, virtually all the talmidim came from near and far to join.

Shabbos was ushered in with a beautiful tefilla and sumptuous seudah replete with divrei Torah. Rabbi Friedman provided an update on the latest goings on. The alumni cheered when they heard of their alma mater’s latest attempts to rid the U.S. of the Nazi living in Queens. They recounted their own experiences when just last year they rallied outside his house in Jackson Heights chanting, “Your hands are drenched in blood” and

“Just get out.”

Those who played on sports teams were excited to hear that the Varsity Basketball team was 7-1 and the Varsity Hockey team had achieved a 6-2 record. The poets heard about the poetry slam and Mordechai Gerstley winning Best Free Verse Poem; the JV College Bowl is 2-1; The Writer’s Guild has over 20 student members; the Meet the Author Club had the privilege of meeting Alan Dershowitz; and about the pre-Shacharis learning group that is treated to Dunkin Donuts.

A tisch with a spontaneous and informal question and answer session followed the meal with a wide range

of queries from parsha and halacha to the situation in Eretz Yisroel. After Shacharis and kiddush, the boys were treated to a shiur from Rabbi Ginsburg, Migdal’s co-rosh yeshiva.

Lunch, zemiros, and divrei Torah by talmidim set the tone for the afternoon.

After a brief break, boys reassembled for an afternoon shiur with Rabbi Friedman who analyzed the kedusha of ner Chanukah and what benefit, if any, we can derive from the light of the candles. Mincha, Seuda Shlishis, featuring more divrei Torah, shmoozing and a classical Mizoram L’David preceded benching.

After a “late” Maariv and a Shabbos that felt “too short,” havdala, and singing, a parting picture was taken before the talmidim headed back to their respective yeshivas.

Later that week, many of the talmidim got a chance to spend one on one time with Rabbi Friedman who visited the yeshivos and gave shiurim where the boys are learning.

The kesher that talmidim form with their Rambam rebbeim begins in high school, continues in Eretz Yisroel and eventuates in so many engagements, weddings and life cycle events having Rambam rebbeim at the side of their talmidim.

Momentum Builds for 3rd Annual TEAM Shabbos

J

ust one week remains until the highly anticipated Shabbos that is already spurring hundreds of shuls and communities around the country into positive action: TEAM Shabbos. Following last year’s tremendous success, the third annual Traditional End-of-Life Awareness Movement (TEAM) Shabbos returns this Shabbos, Parshas Vayechi, December 30, 2017.

A project of the National Association of Chevra Kadisha (NASCK), TEAM Shabbos addresses and discusses the vital concepts and concerns related to end-of-life within the Jewish community. The mission of TEAM Shabbos is resonating strongly within communities all over: to generate positive awareness and provide

education and direction regarding the value of life and critical end-of-life decisions.

The momentum and positive energy is overwhelming. Shuls and communities nationwide are enthusiastically embracing the opportunity to bring the topic of end-of-life, a subject which is often uncomfortable and therefore avoided, out into the open in an informative, inspiring and positive way. So far, over 400 shuls in 209 cities have joined this year’s Shabbos, already exceeding the number of participating shuls in 5777.

There are several ways your shul can participate in TEAM Shabbos.

Utilizing the week leading up to TEAM Shabbos, incorporate related material in shiurim, newsletters,

Shabbos drashos, and divrei Torah to ensure that the largest number of people will have the chance to be informed and inspired. Communities can still use this special opportunity to collaborate with NASCK and plan to run programs or host renowned lecturers in the coming months to speak on a vast array of end-of-life related topics, further boosting awareness and knowledge.

From shuls in New York, Florida and Toronto to cities in Ohio, Nevada and Tennessee, the national initiative is creating a dramatic shift in the common approach and perspective that people have regarding the issues surrounding end-of-life care and preparation. Subjects that were once taboo and concerns and questions

that have gone unanswered are now being addressed in a helpful and constructive way.

By utilizing the teachable moment that Parshas Vayechi offers and the commitment of rabbis and shuls around the country, we can continue spreading our message about the importance of properly preparing ourselves and others for illness and endof-life decisions.

Has your shul joined TEAM? Sign up today and join hundreds of shuls across the nation to generate awareness about the Torah perspective on the value of life, here and hereafter.

To sign up or learn more, call 718-847-6280 or visit TEAMShabbos.org.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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Around the Community

By Rabbi Yehuda Baruch Kamenetzky

A Tale of Two Zaidys

I

am by no means worthy of reflecting on the life of my zaidy, Rav Binyamin, Kamenetzky, zt”l, nor can I do justice to all his accomplishments. I would like, however, to share a personal anecdote that paints a small picture of the man he was. They say the measure of a man is how he treats others. I learned a lot about my own grandfather by watching him interact with one of his peers – my wife’s grandfather.

I vividly remember the first time I met my wife’s grandfather, Mr. Avraham Kurcfeld, yebodel l’chaim tovim. It was in Queens – Kew Garden Hills, to be exact. Her grandparents had just moved to Israel and were in America for a simcha. I had met many grandparent-aged individuals in my life, but something struck me about my wife’s zaidy. I could not put my finger on it. We planned an outing to a pizza shop for a small lunch to get to know each

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other better. It was chilly outside and snowing pretty heavily. I announced that I would pull up the car.

Immediately, my soon-to-be grandfather looked at me and said, “I’m not going in a car. The pizza shop is only two blocks away.” I looked at him sheepishly, and replied, “I thought that it would be easier to go by car because it’s snowing outside.”

He then shocked me by saying, “So what? They made me march in the snow for fifteen miles.”

I had never known a Holocaust survivor on an intimate level before.

Both sets of my own grandparents were on U.S. soil during the war. My zaidy, Rav Binyamin, had escaped before the war and was a yeshiva bochur in Williamsburg at the time of the Nazi invasion of Poland. The retort about a personal Holocaust experience from my wife’s grandfather unnerved me. I felt unprepared and slightly apprehensive about how to respond. We ended up walking to the store.

I would later learn that Mr. Kurcfeld’s youth and education were stolen away by Hitler, ym”sh.

He never had the chance to go to a yeshiva. Of course, he remained staunchly frum, but he continued to be what he calls to this day, a “stam Yid.” Shabbos, tefillin, mezuzah and kashrus are fundamental to his life.

Fast forward a couple of months to my wedding. For anyone who knew Rav Binyamin, the first encounter between my zaidy, zt”l, and my new zeida, as we call him, was typical.

As my father-in-law, Rabbi Mayer Kurcfeld, sh”lita, reminisced in a letter: “I shall never forget, and will

always feel much gratitude for the manner in which Rav Binyamin, zt”l, treated my father when they first met at one of our shared, earliest simchas. He made my father feel as if he was a longtime chaver, as if he knew him from the ‘old days!’ He would not let go of my father’s hand.

Instead he lovingly caressed it in his own and then asked my father to sit next to him after which he continuously focused on him and conversed with him. More so, he made my father feel like an ‘equal’ without projecting any aloofness because of his status as a Rosh Yeshiva and talmid chachom.

“Although this story happened over 10 years ago, when I informed my father of his passing, he still recalled with fondness that first meeting and the way in which Rav Binyamin, zt”l, was mekabel him that day. That is a true mark of a gadol b’Yisroel… His Torah was not mere words, but, more so, it became a part of him. One could see it in his character and in the way in which he interacted with others; a true example of an Ish Elokim!”

My grandfather was actually a number of years older than my wife’s grandfather but treated him like more than a peer, like an older sibling whose life experience made him a mentor – someone to revere and cherish. Indeed, my grandfather’s entire life was dedicated to others. I remember being puzzled when helping him load some new contacts onto his old-style flip cellphone. Preceding many of his contacts, there was a large “W.” I asked him if they all had the same first name, and he answered, “No, those are the almanos that I call every Friday to wish them a Good Shabbos.”

As we just experienced the yom tov of Chanukah, and Klal Yisroel as a whole enjoyed the added light which uplifted our week, anyone who got to meet Rav Binyamin, zt”l, even a “stam Yid,” felt his light, and their lives as a whole were lifted up through those encounters.

Rabbi Yehudah Baruch Kamenetzky, Med., NCC is the Director of Student Services and Guidance at Yeshiva of South Shore. He is the author of “Brainstorm,” which details his journey with a life-threatening illness.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

INYAM B I V

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Parshas Shemini

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TJH

Centerfold

You gotta be kidding

Bubba and Jimbo were standing at the base of a flagpole, looking up.

A man walked by and asked what they were doing. “We’re supposed to find the height of the flagpole,” said Bubba, “but we don’t have a ladder.” The man took a wrench from his pocket, loosened a few bolts, and laid the pole down. Then he took a tape measure from his pocket, took a measurement and announced, “Eighteen feet, six inches,” and walked away.

Junior shook his head and laughed. “Wow, that guy is really not smart. We asked for the height and he gives us the length!”

Well Said, I Guess In a Department Store: Bargain Basement Upstairs In an Office: Would the person who took the step ladder yesterday kindly bring it back or further steps will be taken.

In Another Office: After the tea break, staff should empty the teapot and stand upside down on the draining board.

Notice in a Field: The farmer allows walkers to cross the field for free, but the bull charges.

Notice in a Dry Cleaner’s Window: Anyone leaving their garments here for more than 30 days will be disposed of.

In a Health Food Shop Window: Closed due to illness.

Message on a Leaflet: If you cannot read, this leaflet will tell you how to get lessons.

On a Repair Shop Door: We can repair

Spotted in a Safari Park: Elephants Please Stay In Your Car. Sign Seen During a Conference: For anyone who has children and doesn’t know it, there is a day care on the first floor.

anything (Please knock hard on the door – the bell doesn’t work.)

Spotted in a Bathroom in a London Office Building: Toilet out of order. Please use floor below.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017 The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015

Knicks Trivia

Now that they once again seem to be relevant

b. Boston Celtics c. Miami Heat d. New Jersey Nets 4. Who scored 8 points in 9 seconds in the ‘94-’95 playoffs to defeat the Knicks? a. Michael Jordan b. Steve Kerr c. Charles Barkley d. Reggie Miller 5. How many 3-pointers did John Starks miss in game 7 of the 1994 finals? a. 6 b. 9 c. 11 d. 17 6. What is Patrick Ewing’s middle name? a. Gerald b. Milhous

c. Herbert d. Aloysius 7. When was the last time the Knicks won a playoff series? a. 2008 b. 2002 c. 2000 d. 1998 8. Who coached the Knicks for the most years? a. Red Holzman b. Pat Riley c. Joe Lapchick d. Jeff Van Gundy 9. How many Jews were on the first Knicks basketball team? a. 1 b. 3 c. 4 d. 6

 Answers 1. C- A barrel of oil’s refined produB- 1970, 1973 2. A 3. C 4. D- With 13.5 seconds left in Game One of the Conference finals, the Knicks led 105-99. Miller hit a quick 3. He then stole the in-bound pass, ran out behind the 3-point line and hit another 3, tying the game.

John Starks was fouled and had an opportunity to put the Knicks ahead, but he missed both free throws. Ewing rebounded the ball and put up a short jumper but missed. Reggie

1. How many times have the Knicks won the NBA Championship? a. Never (what do you think they are – the Nets or something?) b. Twice c. Four times d. six times 2. Which team has defeated the Knicks the most times in the playoffs? a. Boston Celtics b. Indiana Pacers c. Chicago Bulls d. Miami Heat 3. Which team did the Knicks beat in 1999 to become the first #8 seed to defeat a #1 seed in the Eastern Conference? a. Milwaukee Bucks

 Scorecard 8-9 correct: You probably even know how to spell “Kristaps Porzingis” correctly. (Yes, that is the correct spelling, genius.)

4-7 correct: You would be a good Knick, not too bad but not too good either (let’s hope that’s not the story this year).

0-3 correct: You are like John Starks in game 7 of the ‘94 finals.

Miller got the rebound, was fouled, and nailed both free throws.

5. C- After scoring 27 points in Game 6 of the finals, Starks missed all 11 of his 3-point shots. Regarding the game, Starks said, “To this day, people bring it up. You can’t get away from it, but it doesn’t stop you from living.”

6. D- I guess that is not as bad as Dikembe Mutombo’s full name, which is Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo.

7 .C- In 2000 the Knicks won the Conference Semifinals vs. Miami Heat, 4–3.

8. A- Red Holzman served as coach for 12 full seasons.

9. D- In the first game in NBA history, on November 1, 1946, the Knicks put four Jews on the court for the opening tip-off and carried six Jews on their roster. The Knicks won the game. Leo “Ace” Gottlieb led scoring with 14 points. Sidney “Sonny” Hertzberg captained the team. Oscar “Ossie” Schechtman scored on the first shot of the game, thus becoming the first man in the history of the NBA to score a point. Ralph Kaplowitz was the fourth Jew in the Knick’s starting five, while Nat Militzok and Hank Rosenstein played as reserves.

Riddle me this?

• Aliza is not first or last • Batya is not next to Aliza • Chaya is fourth • Debbie is not next to Chaya or Fayge • Ella is second

• Batya is four away from Fayge • Aliza is one away from Chaya • Fayge is not first • Fayge is three away from Chaya • Sarah is not in the third spot See answer to the right

Debbie is first, second is Ella, third is Batya, fourth is Chaya, fifth is Aliza, sixth is Sarah, and last is Fayge

Seven people are sitting on the same bench in shul.

Based on the following clues, where are they seated?

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Torah Thought

Parshas Vayigash

By Rabbi Berel Wein

T

he statement of our father Jacob to the Pharaoh of Egypt that “my years of life have been few and most unpleasant” is most perplexing. We all know the well-known anecdote that one of the most disappointing things in life is to ask someone how he or she is and they actually tell you. One would’ve expected that Jacob would have answered the Pharaoh in a general, positive fashion.w Rashi interprets the answer of Jacob in the light of his deteriorated physical condition that he presented to Pharaoh. He wanted Pharaoh to realize that the lines in his face were well-earned. He also wanted him to realize that the lives of even the most righteous of people and the holiest of families can also be troubled and difficult.

He was teaching Pharaoh the great lesson that in this world good is its own reward and that it does not necessarily carry with it physical comfort and emotional serenity.

He was telling Pharaoh not to judge him or his family by the shortsight-

ed yardstick of material success and lifelong leisure.

This was his explanation of the great Jewish lesson, “that the race is neither to the swift nor success to those who deem themselves to

sesses the gift of the future and of immortality.

How sad it is if a person has to look back at one’s lifetime and feel that somehow life cheated him or that he deserved better! The ability

Though Jacob lived a stormy and often tragic life, it is he who blesses Pharaoh for he, Jacob, possesses the gift of the future and of immortality.

be wise.” Pharaoh was accustomed to immediate reward and benefit, to royal garments and gilded chariots.

Jacob informs him that that this is a false measure of life and achievement. Though Jacob lived a stormy and often tragic life, it is he who blesses Pharaoh for he, Jacob, pos-

to deal with the vicissitudes of life, its downs as well as its ups, in the strength of belief that everything is from the hand of our Creator has always been the great characteristic of the Jewish people.

Jacob can look back upon the life of turbulence, disappointments

and sadness and yet see for himself and his progeny greatness and immortal memory. Pharaoh must have realized that a blessing from this old broken Jewish stranger was of enormous value to him in Egypt. Oftentimes in history it is the unlikely and seemingly downtrodden individual who holds the key to future developments and the correct worldview of situations and conditions.

As long as Jacob lives there will no longer be a famine that will affect Egypt. Pharaoh must have undoubtedly realized the gift of this blessing to Egypt. But like many people who will receive blessings in this world, he seems not to be impressed sufficiently by the matter to change policies, attitudes or behavior.

But Jacob and his descendants will haunt Egyptian society for centuries until it finally will overwhelm it. This has been the lot and mission of Israel over its very long, troublesome but great history.

Shabbat shalom.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

From the Fire

Parshas Vayigash The Test of Poverty, the Test of Wealth

By Rav Moshe Weinberger Adapted for publication by Binyomin Wolf

W

hen Yaakov was about to bring his entire family down to Egypt, he first sent Yehuda ahead, as the pasuk (Bereishis 46:28) says, “And he sent Yehuda before him to Yosef to be a guide before him to Goshen.” Rashi explains Yehuda’s goal as follows: “To prepare for him a house of study from which guidance would come.”

The Midrash (Tanchuma Vayigash 6) makes a mysterious connection between Yehuda’s exploratory journey to Egypt and the mitzvah of havdala when it says as follows: “’And he sent Yehuda…’ Sages, explain to us: When do we make the blessing on the candle Motzei Shabbos [after Shabbos]?

The Sages taught, ‘We only make a blessing on the candle when we benefit from its light.’ From where do they

derive this? From Hashem, as it says (Bereishis 1:4), ‘And Hashem saw the light, that it was good.’ And only afterward does it say, ‘And G-d separated between light and darkness.’” We see that Hashem only made havdala (separation) after He saw the light.

Therefore, we too do not make the blessing over the candle at havdala until we have benefited from the light of the havdala candle.

Why does the Midrash derive the laws of making a blessing on the candle at havdala in the context of the story of Yaakov sending Yehuda down to Yosef in Egypt to establish a source of guidance? What is the connection?

The Ksav Sofer, zt”l, has a remarkable teaching which illuminates the difference between Yosef and Yehuda in this context, and Rav Pinchas

Friedman, shlita, expands on the Ksav Sofer’s lesson. The Ksav Sofer explains that there are two major categories of tests in the world. Some face the test of wealth and others face the test of poverty.

The Torah itself warns us of the dangers of wealth when it says (Devarim 8:12, 14, 17), “Lest you eat and become satisfied and build good houses and dwell in them…and your heart becomes haughty and you forget Hashem your G-d…and you say in your heart, ‘My strength and the might of my hand made all of this success for me.’” Shlomo Hamelech also warned of this when he said (Koheles 5:12), “There is a terrible sickness that I have seen under the sun: wealth kept by its owner which hurts him.” Such a person thinks he is wealth’s “owner,”

but it only hurts him.

On the other hand, the test of poverty is just as bad. As the Gemara (Eiruvin 41b) testifies, the affliction of poverty “takes away his intelligence and his consciousness of G-d.”

Shlomo Hamelech davened (Mishlei 30:8-9), “Do not give me poverty or wealth. Give me only the portion which I need. Lest I becomes satisfied and deny, saying, ‘Who is G-d?’ And lest I become poor and steal and violate the name of G-d.”

But neither poverty nor wealth are equally difficult tests for everyone in all circumstances. If one grew up poor his entire life, it is not such a difficult test, though it is still challenging. On the other hand, if someone grew up wealthy, wealth is not as difficult of a test for him. But if he was

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

suddenly stripped of everything, and we know some people who have unfortunately endured this scenario, the test of poverty can completely break a person and take them away from the path of Torah and mitzvos. So too, if someone grows up poor and then suddenly becomes wealthy, such wealth can turn him into a monster, a person of profound arrogance and expensive, indulgent tastes.

Yosef faced the test of starting off poor and becoming wealthy. He was a slave in Potiphar’s house and then spent 12 years in prison. And then, suddenly, he was instantly placed in a position of great wealth as viceroy of Egypt. He was the paradigmatic individual who faced the test of wealth.

Rashi explains that the pasuk (Shmos 1:5), “And Yosef was in Egypt,” teaches us “the righteousness of Yosef – the same Yosef who shepherded the flock of his father was the same Yosef who was in Egypt and became a king, remaining in his righteous state.” Yosef faced the test of wealth and passed with flying colors. The Ksav Sofer explains that Yosef’s ability to pass the test of wealth was the main accomplishment that amazed his father Yaakov when he said (Bereishis 45:28), “Joy! My son Yosef is still alive [spiritually]!”

Yehuda, on the other hand, faced a different kind of test. One can be poor by lacking things other than money. Prestige, honor, and authority are all qualities possessed by wealthy people without which they would feel bereft of everything. Before the sale of Yosef, Yehuda was the head of the twelve tribes. He had money, authority, honor, and prestige. But after the sale, the pasuk (Bereishis 38:1) says that “Yehuda descended from his brothers.” Rashi explains what this means: “They demoted him from his position of authority when they saw their father’s pain. They said, ‘You told us to sell him, but if you had told us to return him [to our father], we would have listened to you.’” Chazal even teach that they placed a ban on Yehuda. In addition, the Midrash (Tanchuma Vayigash 9) says that Hashem said to Yehuda, “You caused pain to your father and tricked him with ‘Yosef was torn apart.’ By your life, you will marry a woman and bury your sons and then you will understand the pain of one who has lost his children…”

Indeed, we never find that the brothers restored Yehuda to his position of authority until their father, on his deathbed, said to him (Bereishis 49:8), “Yehuda, your brothers will acknowledge you.” Yehuda started off with everything and lost it all. We would almost not blame him if, feeling rejected and without any of his prior esteem or honor, he wanted to throw it all away. But we see that Yehuda passed the test of being thrust into a state of poverty. When he was faced with the choice, he admitted his shameful act with Tamar in front of everyone. By throwing his honor to the side in favor of truth and justice, he thereby showed that he passed his test and earned back his rightful place as the leader of his brothers. It was literally a fulfillment of that which his great-great grandson Dovid Hamelech sang (Tehilim 113:7), “You lift up the poor from

im, will return.” “Those who were lost in the land of Assyria, Ashur” refers to those who face the test of wealth and good fortune, osher. And those who were “pushed aside in the land of Egypt, Mitzrayim” refers to those who face the test of poverty, who sit in the straits, me’tzarim.

Those who pass these two tests of poverty and wealth create the havdala candle’s light, as the Gemara (Pesachim 54a) hints, “After Shabbos, Hashem gave Adam Harishon the knowledge like that of above and he rubbed two stones together and light came from them.” Before the sin, Adam faced the test of wealth. He had everything he could possibly need in Gan Eden. But after he sinned and Shabbos passed, he found himself in a dark world. Facing these two tests, Adam strengthened himself. He did not give up. He rubbed two stones to-

By passing these tests we cause light to emerge from the crashing of these “stones.”

the ashes, from the trash heaps You lift up the destitute.” Yehuda faced humiliation. He felt as if he had literally been thrown into the trash heaps, yet he maintained his righteousness. He was the “stone despised by the builders” (Tehilim 118:22) which became the foundation stone.

We see that the forbearers of the two Moshiachs, Moshiach ben Yosef and Moshiach ben Dovid, had to endure and pass the tests of wealth (Yosef) and poverty (Yehuda).

We can now understand why Yaakov Avinu sent Yehuda ahead to join Yosef in Egypt and establish a source of guidance for the Jewish people. Together, they invested every Jew with the ability to pass the tests of poverty and wealth. Our ability to succeed when we face these tests is reflected in the pasuk (Yeshaya 27:13) regarding the times of Moshiach, “And those who were lost in the land of Assyria, Ashur, and those who were pushed aside in the land of Egypt, Mitzray-

gether and made light. By not giving up after leaving Gan Eden, where had everything, to a state of relative poverty who had to eat “by the sweat of his brow,” he brought the light of the havdala candle into the world. Perhaps the two stones are hinting to the two stumbling blocks that challenge our faith. By passing these tests we cause light to emerge from the crashing of these “stones.”

Even for us, Motzei Shabbos is the intersection between these two tests. On Shabbos, we face the test of wealth. We have everything we need provided beforehand. And when Shabbos ends, we face the pressures of the week again, which are similar to the test of poverty. That is why the light of the havdala candle emanates from a Jew passing both of these tests of wealth and poverty.

We face both of these tests all of the time as well. Last year, I was riding with a non-Jewish driver in a car service on the way to a shiur in

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Manhattan. The Five Towns community in Long Island is known as being a relatively affluent community. This driver said to me, “Rabbi, you have got to speak to the kids. You’re a man of G-d and the children who ride with me to school wear kippot and should be religious too. But when they get into the car, they never look up. They don’t say, ‘Good morning.’ ‘How are you doing?’ They never take their eyes off of their iPhones or smartphones.

And Rabbi, you would not believe the inappropriate music I hear them listening to. And the things they look at on their phones are horrible. You have got to speak to these children, Rabbi!”

I didn’t know what to tell him. The truth is that these children are “those who were lost in the land of Assyria, Ashur,” good fortune, osher. We are failing the test of wealth.

And many of our brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisroel exemplify those who are lost in the test of poverty.

They have developed an unhealthy and crooked pattern of relying on outsiders to support themselves over the last number of decades. Now that they are losing some of that support, they lash out at the non-chareidi communities, calling them “Greeks” and other horrible and illogical names. A member of the shul was recently complaining to me that he could not understand how our chareidi brothers could possibly call other Jews names like that. I tried to explain to him that the Gemara says the afflictions of poverty take away a person’s “intelligence and his consciousness of G-d.” We must therefore attempt to judge people somewhat favorably when they behave irrationally because poverty takes a person out of his normal state of mind.

But with all of the difficulties we face in the tests of poverty or wealth, we must strengthen ourselves to stay faithful to the Torah, mitzvos, and the values and priorities of the Torah.

May Hashem help us succeed in these tests and bring back “those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were pushed aside in the land of Egypt.”

Rav Moshe Weinberger, shlita, is the founding Morah d’Asrah of Congregation Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, NY, and has served as Mashpia in Yeshiva University since 2013.

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

Between the Lines

Foresight is 20/20

By Eytan Kobre

While everyone else is chasing the puck, I go where the puck is going to be.

-Wayne Gretzky

I

n a recent New York Times article, “We Aren’t Built to Live in the Moment,” psychologist Martin E.P. Seligman and journalist John Tierney posit that what sets man apart from beast is our ability to look to and consider the future in making decisions in the here and now. “We contemplate the future,” the authors argue. “Our singular foresight created civilization and maintains society.”

So, they posit, “[w]e are misnamed. We call ourselves Homo sapiens, the ‘wise man,’ but that’s more of a boa2he corrosive mores and influences of Egyptian culture (Rashi, Bereishis 46:28). His foresight paved the way for the Jewish people to retain their heritage – the recipe for redemption.

R’ Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman used to tell of a group of wealthy benefactors in Minsk who conceived of an idea to open a yeshiva designed for the best and brightest young minds sure to become the next generation of leading Torah scholars.

To facilitate the students’ undivided commitment, the benefactors agreed to underwrite the full cost of support for all the students, and further as-

sumed responsibility for locating suitable matches for them and even supporting them after marriage.

The benefactors approached the young R’ Ruderman and invited him to join the select group of students in the elite yeshiva. Intrigued, R’ Ruderman sought the counsel of his rebbi, the Alter of Slabodka. The Alter took R’ Ruderman to the window of his room and pointed to a nearby river. “Better you should jump into that river than join this yeshiva!” R’ Ruderman heeded the Alter’s warning and declined the invitation to join.

Nearly twenty years later, R’ Ruder-

of foresight as the mark of wisdom.”

Nachum Ish Gamzu once was traveling when a poor person approached and begged him for some food. Nachum Ish Gamzu obliged, and he told the beggar to wait while he unloaded his donkey. But while doing so, as misfortune would have it, the beggar collapsed and died of starvation. Nachum Ish Gamzu felt responsible for the man’s death and took upon himself self-inflicted sufferings as a result (Taanis 21a). The Alter of Kelm sees in this episode not insufficient concern or sloth, but a lack of foresight. Nachum Ish Gamzu’s “error” (so to speak) was that he failed to pre-

His foresight paved the way for the Jewish people to retain their heritage – the recipe for redemption.

man was on a train and found himself sitting next to a man who, as it turns out, had been invited to and did join the exclusive yeshiva. When R’ Ruderman asked the man what had come of the yeshiva, he learned that of the entire “class” of elite students, he was the only one to remain true to Torah ideals; the rest had joined the “reformers” and no longer were Torah observant.

“Only then,” R’ Ruderman would reflect, “did I fully appreciate the words of our sages extolling the virtues

pare immediately-accessible food before embarking on a journey where he might encounter a poor, starving person. An exacting standard, to be sure, but one he failed to meet.

With foresight, life events are akin to a rope that has no defined beginning or end (Yerushalmi, Sota 8:10) – shake one end and the other shakes along with it. So we commend not the one who sees “the future,” but the one who sees “that which has yet to be born” (Avos 2:9; Tamid 32b). To

those with foresight, past, present, and future are all bound together: past experiences steer present actions into future outcomes (Chasam Sofer, Nedarim 30b). Or, as Thomas Jefferson put it, “History, by apprizing [people] of the past, will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations.”

Foresight is not about prophecy or clairvoyance. Those are concerned with divining the future; foresight is about the present. It is not enough merely to know the expected outcome of our actions – we must see those outcomes as if they are here and now (Ohr Yahel, Vol. 3; Lev Eliyahu, Shemos 28:3; Chofetz Chaim, Avos 2:9). Foresight is about how the choices we make today influence – even dictate – what happens tomorrow. And we are to tailor our present-day conduct accordingly.

In our fast-paced world, where knee-jerk reactions are expected and snap judgments are demanded, it is often difficult to set aside time to consider where our words and deeds ultimately will take us.

Hindsight merely explains what foresight might have prevented.

Foresight, on the other hand, truly is 20/20 vision.

Eytan Kobre is a writer, speaker, and attorney living in Kew Gardens Hills.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions?

E-mail eakobre@outlook.com.

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The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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TEHILLIM KOLLEL REPRESENTATIVE GETS CHIZUK FROM A MEMBER

I

love my job. Being a Tehillim Kollel customer service representative requires deep emotional connection, but I really feel like I’m making an impact and helping others. Yet, some parts of my job are more challenging than others. When I call members whose membership is about to expire, I know I am about to hear joyous incredible news…. or sad, heart-wrenching pain.

On that Tuesday, as the phone rang on the other end, I davened that Hashem should give me the right words to say.

“Hello?” said the voice on the other end.

“Hi, this is Menachem from the Tehillim Kollel, calling about your membership. It’s about to expire and we wanted to check in and see how you and your family are doing, if your bakashos have been answered, and if you are interested in continuing your membership.” I held my breath for the response.

“Well,” he said, sadly, “No, no my bakashos have not been answered.” My heart plummeted for his pain and I readied myself to offer him some support.

Before I could, he continued, “But I believe every Tefillah matters, and every Tefillah on my behalf has a positive impact and that your Tefillos are bringing me closer to my yeshua.

So yes, please continue my membership and please continue to have your special minyan of ehrliche yidden daven for me every single day!”

I was overcome with awe at this member.

Here, I was preparing to give him chizuk, and he offered me beautiful inspiration instead, and the faith that even when we can’t see that things are improving, Hashem is taking care of us. Like I said, I love my job.

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

The Observant Jew

Mail and Female

By Rabbi Jonathan Gewirtz

I

f you pay attention, you can find life lessons in the smallest, most off-the-cuff remarks people make. It makes sense, too, as they’re not thinking about it so their statements speak volumes about human nature. Of course, one who is careful about how they view things will be much more studied in their comments as well, but the following true story illustrates my point.

I had gone to the post office to mail a package for my wife. It was going international and the woman behind the counter told me I needed to fill out a customs form. As I filled out the form, she helped another customer who also had a package to mail.

The customer placed the box on the scale and, as she did so, commented that she wasn’t sure the right way to place it (which way should the bar code face, should the long side be perpendicular to the scale, etc.). That’s when I heard the postal worker make the remark that got me thinking: with a wry smile, almost a smirk, she said, “There is no right way.”

That fatalistic argument raised my hackles and I realized she could just as easily have said, with a genuine smile of kindness, “There is no wrong way.”

The point she was trying to make was that it didn’t matter which way the package was placed. She would have to weigh it and scan it but there was no right or wrong way to do it that the customer was expected to

know. The difference in her wording, however, is astounding.

Saying there is “no right way” conveys negativity. No matter what you try, you will be wrong. On the other hand, saying there’s “no wrong way” is a positive message that says you couldn’t mess it up if you tried.

It’s more reassuring and therefore

be more demanding while mothers are more nurturing. The masculine traits in the Torah are ones of conquest while the feminine ones are traits of acceptance.

Any man or woman can exhibit these traits, but though the masculine ones may bring others to fear you, only the feminine ones will

We should work to be positive, upbeat people

the nicer, more proper way to speak.

The Torah’s ways, we say, are “ways of pleasantness” which means the Torah way is to choose the nicer way, the way that doesn’t belittle others or make them uncomfortable.

The Torah tells us to honor our parents and to fear our parents.

However, when it comes to honoring them, the father is mentioned first.

When it comes to fearing them, the mother is mentioned first. Chazal say this is because it is more common for one to fear his father and honor his mother. Why is that?

It’s because of the way that “fathers” and “mothers” are viewed in the Torah. While we won’t apply this to any specific individuals, as a general rule, fathers are considered to

cause them to respect and honor you, which is a much higher level of regard to achieve. Thus, the Torah tells us we must “honor our fathers and mothers” because we’re more likely to fear our fathers. A person must “fear his mother and father” and give weight to their words, because we’re less likely to take seriously the demands of one who is generally accepting and loving of us.

Given the choice, however, in the long-run, it is better to exhibit the traits that show acceptance and love than those of displeasure, which is why the words of that woman in the post office grated on my ears so much.

We should work to be positive, upbeat people and not cynical and

jaded. It may be easier to be negative, but it’s not worth it. Being negative and viewing others in that light only causes pain and hurt. It drags us down along with everyone else and drains our happiness. When we complain about things, we won’t find joy in any of the sympathy we might get.

It will only serve to bring us down further.

So take my advice, and let’s learn a lesson from the postal worker. The way we view things and the words we use to frame the world will have a profound effect on our own happiness and the happiness of those around us. By opting for the more loving, accepting, and encouraging approach to the people and things we encounter, we will fulfill “its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace,” we will find ourselves more fulfilled, and finally, we will always be sure to “send” the right message.

Jonathan Gewirtz is an inspirational writer and speaker whose work has appeared in publications around the world.

You can find him at www.facebook.com/ RabbiGewirtz, and follow him on Instagram @RabbiGewirtz or Twitter @ RabbiJGewirtz. He also operates JewishSpeechWriter.com, where you can order a custom-made speech for your next special occasion. Sign up for the Migdal Ohr, his weekly PDF Dvar Torah in English.

E-mail info@JewishSpeechWriter.com and put Subscribe in the subject.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

World

Builders

Celebrating the Miracle of a Life Saved

By Raphael Poch

A little miracle

O

ne day, towards the beginning of November, a father discovered his two-year-old son lying motionless at the bottom of their private pool. In utter panic, he jumped into the pool and pulled his son out of the water. The child’s skin was a deathly grey from lack of oxygen, and he was completely unresponsive. Hysterical and unable to think clearly, the father screamed desperately for help. United Hatzalah volunteer Boaz Gotel who was teaching in a school just next door heard the screams and raced over, alerting United Hatzalah dispatch as he ran.

United Hatzalah volunteer ambucycle driver Yaakov Yaish received the alert, jumped on his ambucycle and sped through the roads of Netanya towards the scene. It was quite a distance away by car but on his ambucycle, he was able to make it in record time. The two medics suctioned the child’s airway and then provided artificial respiration as they feverishly performed CPR

Yaish and Gotel with the child they saved and his family at the party

on the unconscious child. They kept the little boy alive until the ambulance arrived sometime after Yaish.

The child was rushed to the pediatric intensive care unit in critical condition.

Doctors asserted that the child had been under the water for 4

survival. Thankfully, the little boy returned to consciousness a week later. What was even more miraculous was that there was absolutely no sign of brain damage and the child returned home to his parents healthy and whole.

At the end of the month, the

As Gotel and Yaish looked at the energetic little two-year-old brimming with life, they could not help but remember that still, dark body next to the pool

minutes and without the immediate medical attention he’d received there would have been no chances of

parents invited Gotel and Yaish to a party that they made to celebrate the gift of their son’s life. As Gotel

and Yaish looked at the energetic little two-year-old brimming with life, they could not help but remember that still, dark body next to the pool and they could not help their eyes from brimming with unshed tears of gratitude that they had merited to be a part of this miracle of life.

President and founder of United Hatzalah Eli Beer said: “This time of year is a time of miracles and remembering those who acted to bring those miracles to fruition. Our modern day heroes are the volunteers who put their lives on hold to help others and bring the miracle of life and health through their speedy intervention. Our nationwide network of EMS volunteers is responsible for responding to 290,000 emergencies this year alone. The amount of lives they save and the amount of people they have touched is tremendous, but each and every one of them is its own miracle and should be remembered and celebrated together with the entire nation.”

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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OCTOBER DECEMBER29, 21,2015 2017| The | TheJewish JewishHome Home

WHAT TAX REFORM MEANS FOR

YOU

By Chanan Greenwald, CPA MST

T

axes. According to Benjamin Franklin it’s one of two things that are certain in life. Many taxpayers shudder when the date of April 15 looms closer.

The tax code seems convoluted, there are many deductions that we wish we knew, and it feels as if Uncle Sam keeps reaching deeper and deeper into our pockets. When Donald Trump crossed the country on the campaign trail he vowed to simplify America’s tax code. He also promised to provide tax relief for middle class families, grow the American economy, and not dig the United States deeper into debt.

This week, the president can put a check next to those promises.

Many of us have been closely following the ongoing tax reform agenda, also known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This week the bill was passed by the House and Senate and by the time

you read this article it has been signed into law. There haven’t been this many changes to the tax code since President Reagan signed the Tax Reform Act of 1986. The effective date of the changes will be January 1, 2018, although many of the changes are temporary and are set to expire after 2025.

On December 15, the Conference Committee finalized the package by blending the House and Senate versions of the bill. The general goal of the tax reform is to lower the tax liability for taxpayers on all levels, not just the wealthy. However, as with any bill, not everyone will come out a winner.

This article will highlight several points of the bill that may be relevant to our community and will show the potential impact of the changes.

Change in Tax Rates Under the bill, the tax rates will be

lower for all the income brackets, with the top rate being lowered from 39.6% to 37% for married taxpayers with income levels over $600,000. The lowest bracket remains at 10% for married taxpayers.

For purposes of illustration, let’s assume we have a family of six that lives in the Five Towns, with the husband earning $150,000 as an attorney at a law firm. His wife, who is self-employed as an interior designer, is earning a net profit of $75,000, making their combined income $225,000.

Under current law, their highest bracket would be 28%. However, if their income remains the same for 2018, their highest bracket would go down to 24% under the new law.

Change in Personal Exemptions/Child Tax Credit In order to raise revenue, the bill

eliminates the personal exemptions.

Currently, the personal exemption is $4,050 for each member of a family that is included in the joint tax return.

An exemption is similar to a deduction, both being a reduction in taxable income. To contrast this, the bill greatly expands the child tax credit; unlike an exemption, a credit is a reduction in taxes owed. The child tax credit currently is $1,000 per child for couples earning less than $110,000. The new credit will be $2,000 per child, and it is available to married taxpayers earning less than $400,000. Additionally, $1,400 of the $2,000 credit is refundable, meaning a taxpayer can receive it as a refund if he doesn’t owe additional tax.

Let us refer back to our family of six living in the Five Towns to see how they are affected by the changes to the personal exemptions and child tax credits. Under the current law, in 2017

The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015 The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

they are entitled to a total of $24,300 in personal exemptions. However, they may not be entitled to any of the child tax credit since their income is too high. Under the new law beginning in 2018, they will lose the $24,300 in exemptions, but they will be eligible for a total of $8,000 in child tax credits. In this case, the availability of the credit is more beneficial than the exemptions, since the $8,000 credit is worth more than the $24,300 deduction. Remember a credit is a reduction in taxes owed.

Increasing the Standard Deduction The bill will increase the standard deduction for all types of taxpayers.

The standard deduction is available for taxpayers who do not itemize. For married individuals, the standard deduction will increase from $12,600 to $24,000. This increase is in line with the GOP’s goal of simplifying the tax code, since this will reduce the amount of taxpayers who itemize their deductions. It also creates a broader zero tax bracket for many low income taxpayers that earn less than the standard deduction amount. For example, if a married couple’s annual income is $23,000 they would pay zero tax. For taxpayers that haven’t itemized in the past, the increase in the standard deduction would be beneficial.

Let’s go back to our married couple living in the Five Towns, and let’s assume that they don’t own their house.

In 2017, they gave $9,000 to charity, and their New York State tax bill is $9,000. In 2017, they would choose to deduct $18,000 over the standard deduction of $12,600. With the new bill effective in 2018, they would be better off taking the standard deduction of $24,000.

SALT and Property Taxes The bill makes significant changes to some of the popular credits and deductions. State and Local (SALT) income taxes and property taxes are currently both itemized deductions at the full amount. Under the new law, the combined SALT and property tax deductions is limited to $10,000. Given the high property taxes the Five Towns, this change may have a substantial impact and may even drive down the val-

ue of real estate. Residents of New York City, including Far Rockaway, who deduct their New York City taxes, will also be subject to the $10,000 cap. The bill also limits any 2017 year-end tax planning by adding a provision that one is not allowed to prepay his 2018 SALT or property taxes in 2017 to benefit from the full deduction.

Mortgage Interest Deduction Under current law, the mortgage interest deduction on a first and second home is limited to $1,000,000 of mortgage debt. The new law would limit the deduction to $750,000 of debt. To illustrate, let’s say someone has $1,000,000 in total mortgage debt, and the interest expense for 2018 will be $30,000. Under the old bill the entire $30K would be deductible, but under the new bill only $22,500 will be deductible. This new rule will be effective for new purchases after December 15, 2017 – not for existing mortgages.

For an acquisition incurred prior to December 15, 2017 the limitation is still $1,000,000 of mortgage debt. It is important to add that interest on a home equity loan will no longer deductible. However, taxpayers will still be able to deduct the mortgage interest on a second home, such as a vacation home in Israel or Florida, assuming it is within the $750,000 limitation.

Let us refer back to our family of six living in the Five Towns and now assume that they own their home. In 2017, they paid $9,000 to charity, and $9,000 for New York State income tax-

es. They also paid $22,000 in interest on a $650,000 mortgage and $12,000 in property taxes. In 2017, they will be able to deduct the full amount of these expenses – $52,000 – as itemized deductions. However, in 2018, they will be capped at $41,000 because they are only allowed $10,000 in combined property and SALT deductions. If we assume their mortgage is $800,000, the amount of mortgage interest they can deduct would be limited.

Pass-Through Businesses Pass-through entities include partnerships, LLCs, S-corporations and sole proprietorships (who file a Schedule C). The owners of these entities pay tax at their individual rates, with the highest rate being 39.6%. The current bill reduces the tax rate on passthrough income by allowing a 20% deduction.

Let’s refer back to our couple living in the Five Towns. Unlike the husband who receives a W-2, his wife operates a sole proprietorship as an interior designer and therefore qualifies for the new pass-through rates. As mentioned, her net income is $75,000, and in 2017 she would be taxed on the full amount. In 2018, the 20% deduction will result in her only being taxed on $60,000 of her income. In the earlier versions of the bill, there was a possible limitation on service providers, such as accountants, lawyers and doctors, benefiting from this rule. Under the latest version, the limitation for such service providers begins at $315,000

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for married taxpayers.

529 Plans Another point of the bill that we have been watching closely is the modification to the rules of a 529 plan. A 529 plan can be set up for a child’s college education, and any funds contributed can only be used for college expenses. The tax advantage is that a taxpayer can contribute up to $10,000 to the plan and any income earned in the plan is tax-free. For federal tax purposes, the contributions to the plan are not deductible, but for New York State taxes, a married taxpayer can contribute up to $10,000 per year taxfree. The current bill expands qualified education to include elementary and secondary school, i.e. Yeshiva tuition.

Presumably, the rules for New York State income tax would follow the federal rule, and a married couple would be allowed to contribute up to $10,000 per year for yeshiva tuition tax-free.

Repeal of the ACA The bill repeals the shared responsibility requirement of the Affordable Care Act, a move that President Trump had been vowing since his campaign to reverse the ruling signed

by President Obama. Under the new bill, there will be no penalty for not having health insurance coverage.

T

his article highlights only a few of the primary changes for individual taxpayers.

There are many other changes for individuals, business, international taxpayers, and non-profit entities in the new tax plan. Furthermore, each individual’s tax situation is affected differently by their income level, the number of dependents, and how many credits and deductions they have. We recommend that you consult your tax advisors, and stay tuned for the final signature on the bill in the near future to see how deep Uncle Sam will be digging into your pocket.

Chanan Greenwald, CPA MST is the owner of SGS Advisors, a tax practice located in Cedarhurst. He advises small businesses and individuals in all areas of taxation. He can be reached at shaun@sgsadvisors.com or at 516-415-1801.

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Dating Dialogue

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

Dear Navidaters,

Mindy and I got divorced two years ago after a very stormy marriage. We were both caused each other much pain. The divorce was also extremely painful, and we both said and did things that I know I regret and I’m pretty sure she also regrets. We have two young children.

Miraculously, since we’re divorced, we’re able to communicate in a much more normal way. We are both trying to be considerate of each other and work as a team in order to create a peaceful environment for our children. We’ve heard about all these divorced couples who forever torment one another. Neither of us want to be that divorced couple.

Now that our lives are settling down and we both feel ready to start dating again, Mindy suggested that we start dating one another! Neither of us have gone out yet and we both feel ready to get out there. At first, I was shocked at her suggestion. After all, during our marriage, we were really awful toward one another. On the other hand, when I think about how easy it would be to slip back into a marriage with her, I’m tempted. For the children, I know it would be the best thing. Financially, it makes a lot of sense. Plus, we’ve always had a certain chemistry together. There’s something about Mindy that has always appealed to me.

I know that we’ve both been through a lot and have grown from the divorce. It has forced us both to look at ourselves more closely and work on ourselves. On the other hand, the old wounds are still inside of me. I can’t honestly say that some of the things Mindy said and did to me don’t still come up and cause me to feel very angry.

Is there any way in which I should even consider such a thing? Do you know of couples who remarried and were successful? Are Mindy (and I) just looking for what seems like the easy way out but really kidding ourselves?

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

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The Panel The Rebbetzin Rebbetzin Faigie Horowitz, M.S. ast things first this time. There are people who remarry their exes. The Gemara has a positive thing to say about that. However, I have neither been in the homes of such couples nor in their hearts so I cannot comment on your question of whether they were successful.

Begin by taking a piece of paper and dividing it into several columns. I would suggest that you sit down and figure out honest reactions to the following questions and categories.

What actions of mine added tension to our marriage?

What attitudes of mine added tension to our marriage?

What communications skills do I need to work on to keep tension in check in my general life?

What actions can I take to show a person I care about them?

What values and attributes about my ex influenced me to marry her?

Why am I reconsidering dating my ex, which might mean remarriage?

After answering these questions, flip over your paper and pretend to be Mindy and respond to the same questions.

Such honest self-examination plus help from a mental health professional will start a process of growth and examination of the potential of this relationship. A process happens over time. Give this process time and be open with your ex about taking the time and getting the support to work this through. Suggest that she do the same. At some point, you can go to a therapist together. You may want to see a marital counselor who saw the two of you when you were married or you may choose a new one. This should be part of your efforts to explore whether the relationship has potential. There is a lot of baggage from the past and a lot

L

you have to work on in the present. Don’t skip working through this.

Don’t jump into dating her. Consider that you may be lonely and in regular contact with her for the sake of the kids.

Make sure that you have other social opportunities. Pursue hobbies and interests. And consider ways of increasing your income. Most divorced dads (and moms, of course) have to scale back their lifestyle after divorced. Financial considerations should not be a motivation to get back together. Repair yourself, repair your finances, and grow both with professional help. Then consider dating her.

The Mother Sarah Schwartz Schreiber, P.A. o Mindy and you share a certain chemistry. My husband, the analytical chemist, has taught me a few principles. There are a great many elements that when mixed and titrated can bring great things to life. Other substances – say bleach and ammonia – can trigger an explosive reaction when swirled in the same beaker.

From the sound of your letter, I deduce that you and Mindy are two terrific people who function beautifully, amicably, maturely in your separate zones.

When paired, once married…kaboom!

Getting remarried at this stage does make sense – both financially and for the sake of the kids. Why didn’t this obvious revelation occur to you when you did “Awful-Horrible-Painful” things to each other two years ago? I venture to guess you were in therapy during the break-up and still chose to split in spite of the consequences to your checkbook and children.

While Hollywood has produced many sensational examples of on-

S

again-off-again couples – the ones who can neither live together or apart – I can’t claim to know any real-life examples of successful second-timearound marriages. If you and Mindy sincerely believe that you can put the toxic hurtful patterns of behavior behind you and re-build your relationship from scratch, get thee both to a competent marriage counselor. Do the work, give it a year – no less – and then decide if you have both grown up enough to live peacefully and respectfully under the same roof.

It’s easy to get along with someone when you don’t have to live together, make decisions together, and put one another first.

The Shadchan Michelle Mond t seems that both you and Mindy were able to grow and mature once you divorced. It’s possible that time has healed the old wounds and that you can reconcile the past and remarry. But there are some important questions you need to ask yourself.

What steps did you both take to work on yourselves? Realize that, although Mindy and you have grown since the divorce, you remain the same people as before. You need to be completely honest and open with one another. Admit your faults and what you could have done differently. Honesty and transparency are helpful, as they provide a “litmus test” of your new relationship: did you both live up to your mistakes, grow and are willing to change, or do you have significant disagreements as to who is at fault? Are you both willing to talk through and learn from your mistakes? Were there personality disorders which weren’t addressed?

Are you remarrying for the financial advantages and for your children?

While those are noble objectives,

I

Disclaimer: This column is not intended to diagnose or otherwise conclude resolutions to any questions.

these cannot be the principle reasons, as those factors were unable to keep your previous relationship intact.

Can you (collectively) put aside and forgive all the nastiness and negativity of your previous relationship? If you remarry, you must be sure that the problem which led to the divorce is fixable and you can ensure it doesn’t recur. Will you be carrying that same baggage into your new relationship or will you find a new love for each other?

As with first-time dating, spend plenty of time getting to know each other again. Don’t rush your new relationship. Throughout the process, be totally honest about what went wrong.

In addition, while you are indeed lucky to enjoy a good relationship with Mindy, therein lies the ultimate question: What changed when you got married and what changed after you divorced? The answer is that once you married, you were part of each other’s lives in a way only married couples, not dating or divorced couples, are involved. When you were single and dating each other, but living your separate lives, everything was great. After you

Our intention is not to offer any definitive

conclusions to any particular question, rather offer areas of exploration for the author and reader. Due to the nature of the column receiving only a short snapshot of an issue, without the benefit of an actual discussion, the panel’s role is to offer a range of possibilities. We hope to open up meaningful dialogue and individual exploration.

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OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

divorced, you still like each other – but you are once again living separate lives. However, when you lived together, things got messy. Perhaps the current façade of calmness might just be hiding two individuals for whom everything is perfect until they need to provide for each other’s needs, at which point everything breaks apart.

This would indicate that selfishness is an issue which requires some work.

Finally, I’m going to put on a mind reader’s hat and predict that each of my fellow Navidaters will give you the most important piece of advice: Find a marriage counselor/therapist you’re both comfortable with and spend some quality time with him/her – together.

Ultimately, if you remarry and make a new marriage work, it will serve you as a source of bracha for years and decades to come. The ben-

efits to you, Mindy, and your kids would potentially be innumerable. I wish you much hatzlacha.

The Single Tova Wein

I

don’t have a good reaction toward your possible plan – for several reasons.

When people get divorced, especially if they have children, things have got to be really, really bad to break up a family and cause so much hardship to so many people. I have to believe that the two of you were fire and water together, unable to co-exist. OK, so now you’re not married and you’re feeling that it’s possible to get along. Why? Because you’re no

longer married to each other! It’s easy to get along with someone when you don’t have to live together, make decisions together, and put one another first. Right now your relationship probably involves conversations like, “What time will you be dropping off the kids?” which is not a stressful conversation. But it’s not any kind of indicator as to whether the two of you would get along any better than you did the first time around, when you once again start dealing with important issues.

I understand how easy it must feel to consider sliding right back into your marriage. You would have one household to upkeep rather than two and your children would probably be thrilled. These are such tempting reasons, and it’s understandable why you would consider it. But unless both you and Mindy have radically changed

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Clearly, there are unresolved, open wounds that will bleed if not cared for properly now. from the time you were married, I don’t think it’s a good idea in the least.

If you’re lonely, ask people to start setting you up and start dating other people. You may find that you’re attracted to someone very different than Mindy altogether, and someone who brings out better qualities in you. The same goes for Mindy. I give this question two thumbs down!

Pulling It All Together The Navidaters Dating and Relationship Coaches and Therapists

F

irst and foremost, I am responding as an advocate for the children.

When there are minors involved my main consideration is their well-being.

Adults get to make the choices and the children are along for the ride. So it is the children that I am speaking on behalf of. These children had no say in your divorce and they have no say in your decision to get back together.

Whatever your next move with Mindy, it will deeply impact your two small kids. Once we have children, their needs come before ours. That is not to say couples should never split. On the contrary; there are times when it is indeed in the children’s best interest that their parents go their separate ways.

Some would say that being raised in a home with chronic tension and fighting is far worse for children than a divorce.

If you and Mindy could get back together and restore a peaceful and harmonious family unit, then of course this

would be in the best interest of the children.

The issue is you don’t know if this is feasible. The only way to tell would be to give it a chance. If you decide to take this route, I offer you the following advice.

If you haven’t already been in your own individual therapy, my recommendation is to speak with someone now.

In your own individual therapy you will explore your role in the tumultuous marriage you described. Without knowing what the issues were or any of the unresolved business you brought into the marriage, I will say that in order to not repeat the same mistakes we must develop an awareness and insight into “what went wrong” and into our unsavory behaviors. Otherwise, history will repeat itself. You will also think about what you need from Mindy.

Since you and Mindy were married, should you decide to date, you two must

be in couples counseling.

There’s so much hurt, pain and anguish coming and going from both sides.

Clearly, there are unresolved, open wounds that will bleed if not cared for properly now. In counseling, it will become clear if there is a path toward reconciliation for you and Mindy.

My last piece of advice is potentially the most important. Do not tell the children you are dating until you are certain that you are getting remarried.

It is my personal opinion that young children should not meet any man or woman their parent is dating until things are fairly official. These kids have already been through enough turmoil, change and transition. When we introduce a new boyfriend or girlfriend to our children, they become attached to this person (if we are lucky). What happens if you break up? This is yet another loss for the child and more chaos that they aren’t equipped to handle.

All the more so with your children and their mother.

In summary, if you can restore this

family unit and give those kids two healthy, loving, functioning parents, then you have the green light. Take it slowly, go for therapy, both individually and together, and do not tell the kids that you and Mommy are dating or back together. If you fall back into old patterns and begin an unhealthy “dance” then by all means, it is time to move on.

Best of luck.

Best of luck, Jennifer Esther Mann, LCSW and Jennifer Mann, LCSW are licensed psychotherapists and dating and relationship coaches working with individuals, couples and families in private practice in Hewlett, NY. To set up a consultation or to ask questions, please call 516.224.7779. Press 1 for Esther, 2 for Jennifer. Visit www.thenavidaters.com for more information. If you would like to submit a dating or relationship question to the panel anonymously, please email thenavidaters@ gmail.com. You can follow The Navidaters on FB and Instagram for dating and relationship advice.

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

Dr. Deb

Six Ways to Climb Out of the Pit

By Deb Hirschhorn, Ph.D.

R

abbi Casriel Brusowankin of Aventura, Florida, gave me Tanya lessons because I figured out a cool way to get all the hours I needed for my license: I set up Chabad Family Counseling Services. We put up the name on the brochures, and they came.

One of the things I learned from him that impressed me strongly is that depression is a trick of the yetzer hara. Unlike every other emotional malady, depression is the absence of. . . . everything. The absence of doing, feeling, wanting, even, in some cases, thinking. Depression is giving up. Giving up goals, dreams, strategies, or even giving up on trying to formulate any of the above.

When depression takes hold of you, there is no energy for trying to get out of it.

So why did Rabbi Brusowankin say this all came from the yetzer hara?

We Jews are doers. True, we are believers, but for us, believing isn’t enough: we have to take action. G-d expects us to daven, learn, sing, cook, teach, talk to each other, reach out, and connect. Okay, not in shul, but you know what I mean. Keep the davening and the talking separate but definitely do both anyway.

That is how we serve Him: by doing. Doing our obligations and doing the extras – gemilut chasadim.

And when there is no energy to “do” and no interest either, then we are not serving G-d. So depression not only becomes a diagnosable “disorder,” but it pulls us away from our mitzvos. It could even lead to sin.

This means that perhaps above all other emotional afflictions, it seems like there is a chiuv, an obligation, to recover. But how do you do that when you have no desire and certainly no energy?

If you had the energy in the first

That’s all the energy they can summon, but that’s okay. That first step is all they need. The rest will come in due time. So I’m going to suggest 6 ways to climb out of the pit – choose any one of the six to get your journey started. What resonates with you?

1. ONE PRAYER Choose just even one pasuk, a line, from the tefillos to say. I often tell people who admittedly have not davened in a long time to say Modeh

Speaking up for yourself, however slightly, is a step in the right direction.

Depressed people are so down on themselves that they do not believe there is anything worthwhile or redeeming about them. I ask them to keep a log of the positive feedback people give them. They have to write the date, the person, and the incident down so that the comments they received become concrete in their minds, not some vague thing they can’t relate to.

I once attended a workshop, and the presenter asked those in attendance to write down all their positive qualities. We in the audience struggled to put down five or six items. She then informed us that when schoolchildren are given the same exercise, they have no trouble writing down 25 items. Where did the self-confidence of youth go? We need to get back there.

3. GET A PET place, you wouldn’t really be depressed. It seems like a catch-22.

Well, let me answer a question with a question: if a person is terribly depressed, how do they decide on therapy and exert the superhuman energy to get there? I don’t have an answer but I do know that they do. They reach out. They find that “something” inside of them that wants no more of being in the pit and they start the climb out.

They can only take one step.

ani because it is a reminder that G-d believes in them; they’re here for a purpose and they need to find out what it is.

For other people, it could be a line from Tehillim. For some, I’ve suggested the words “chazak, chazak, v’nitchazeik” because sometimes that is what you need to go forward.

2. JOURNAL Yes, a gratitude journal is lovely but that is not what I had in mind.

Clinical observation has shown that a pet can elevate people’s mood.

Not only is that dog a companion, but he’s a companion that really likes you. And the process of giving attention and care to the pet gives its owner a chance to feel useful.

That alone pulls him out of the pit.

Research backs this up. Stroking a pet has been shown to increase oxytocin, the bonding hormone, and reduce cortisol, the stress hormone, according to WebMD. Virgin-

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

ia Commonwealth University has a Center for Human-Animal Interaction, and professor of psychiatry there, Sandra Barker, said that after a visit from a therapy dog, people with severe depression were more relaxed and felt less lonely.

If owning a pet is unlikely, then second best might be to contact the American Kennel Club and ask about their Therapy Dog Program.

4. FIND YOUR VOICE One of the biggest reasons for depression is that someone is hurting you in some way and you just can’t say it. Alternatively, if you find yourself getting unexpectedly angry, you might be expressing yourself now to make up for not expressing yourself when you were being mistreated and needed to.

When I was doing my dissertation, I tape recorded people telling me their stories of their abuse experiences. It was the most difficult, frustrating task for me because, as investigator, I could not say any-

thing that might be soothing or helpful. Or so I thought. When I was finished with each person’s story, before I went on my way, they each thanked me just for listening. It was important to them that someone was a witness to their suffering.

Speaking up for yourself, however slightly, is a step in the right direction. You cannot remain mistreated. With some sense of success under your belt, you can learn to be more and more assertive. Note that assertive does not mean aggressive.

I’ve written about that previously in this column.

If speaking up doesn’t work, then it is a must to find a new place to live. If words from the heart enter the heart, then that would include toxic words, too. They lodge there and cause endless damage. Don’t be party to that.

5. PUT THE BRAKES ON VICTIM THINKING With the above section in mind, it is also true that we can damage

ourselves more than we realize simply by believing we are being re-victimized when we are not. This is such a large point, I would recommend reading my book (on Amazon) to get the full flavor of it. The idea is that if we were mistreated as children, we come to feel like victims.

Then, when someone says something that can be taken more than one way, count on the victim thinker to take it like he is being attacked.

This way of reacting is so automatic that it takes a lot of conscious awareness to even realize it’s happening. Once you do become aware of it, the next step is to fight it. When a person’s down, that’s hard. But it is doable. One way to succeed is to see the situation clearly in the present moment and remind yourself, “That was then; this is now.” This formula puts the past in the past where it belongs so it doesn’t muddy up relationships in the present.

6. DO ONE THING Sometimes the best way to pull

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oneself out of a bad place is to do one thing that satisfies you. Is it an art?

A sport? Just taking a walk? Making delicious food? Writing a letter to the editor (which is a way to find your voice)? Is there an abandoned hobby from bygone years that would wake up your heart? An activity that made you feel alive?

Start with any of these possibilities. Even when you think you have no energy for it, you will. Push yourself a little and the process of doing it will take you the rest of the way.

Then assess how you feel. Allow yourself to feel better than before and use that as your motivation the next time.

Dr. Deb Hirschhorn is a Marriage and Family Therapist. She can be reached at 646-54-DRDEB or by writing drdeb@ drdeb.com.

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and help you lose weight. The word detox might make you nervous, but when done right it’s just another way of describing a diet rich in whole foods. A detox usually consists of a lot of fluids and a wide range of natural ingredients and foods.

In the days leading up to a detox, try phasing out caffeine, sugar, processed foods, and artificial

are more extreme than others. I do not recommend an extreme detox, since they are usually lacking essential vitamins, minerals and nutrients. A detox can be a basic diet where you are really strict for the first few days. A calorically restricted diet will help flush out fat and processed foods from the body, leaving you refreshed and energized.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

Now that we’ve been forewarned, how do we detox? Avoid processed foods, added sugars, caffeine, alcohol, and artificial sweeteners. This includes honey, maple syrup, sugar-sweetened beverages, and fruit juices. You will also want to set aside anything that comes in a can. Keep cakes, cookies, candies – anything sugar- or flour-based – out of sight. Most detox diets restrict dairy, starches, and grains as well.

That sounds like a lot. So what can you eat while on a detox? Most detoxifications focus on antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables.

These will provide essential vitamins, minerals and fiber. Fiber is vital on a detox diet. Since fruits and vegetables are loaded with fiber, they help cleanse you out while still providing essential nutrients, and they contain few calories. The fruits and vegetables can be eaten in any way, shape or form. Eat your fruits fresh, or blend them in a smoothie. You can use frozen fruits in a smoothie too for a more iced consistency. Vegetables can be eaten fresh as a snack, in a salad, roasted, steamed, or as a popular detox dish – in a juice. Fruits and vegetables should be the bulk of your meals. Additionally, each meal should include lean protein, healthy fat, and fiber. Examples of lean protein are any variation of fish or chicken, soy, and legumes. Healthy fats are avocadoes, olive oil, and nuts. Drink plenty of water to stay hydrated throughout the day.

A detox diet is not for everyone.

Some detox plans severely limit protein which can result in fatigue.

Make sure you get the OK from your doctor before trying a detox.

A detox diet may not be easy, but it should make you feel better after eating all that heavy, oily food for a week. And you don’t have to detox for a whole week. Try 2-3 days and see how you feel. Listen to your

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body’s cues. If you feel dehydrated, week, or fatigued, stop right away.

Expert opinions vary as to whether detox diets actually work.

However, many people claim feeling better after a detox – probably because processed foods, added sugars, and high fat foods are eliminated. Keep in mind a detox is not a long term thing. Long term fasting causes nutrient deficiency and mal-

nutrition. A detox is OK for a few days only, followed by a well-balanced diet. Find a moderate detox diet that fits your needs and watch the pounds melt off.

Cindy Weinberger MS, RD, CDN, is a Master’s level Registered Dietitian and Certified Dietitian-Nutritionist.

She graduated CUNY Brooklyn College

receiving a Bachelor’s in Science and Master’s degree in Nutrition and Food Sciences. She is currently a dietitian at Boro Park Center and a private nutrition consultant. She can be reached at CindyWeinberger1@gmail. com.

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

Health & F tness

It’s All about the Flu – Again

By Hylton I. Lightman, MD, DCH, FAAP

T

he Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on Friday that

the flu has hit New York in force, one of 12 states with widespread flu activity at the moment. This

announcement came one day after the CDC published a higher, new estimate of the number of people from around the world who may die from the flu and related illnesses this year – about 640,000 people.

What can we learn from this?

The influenza virus grows and spreads in people because it periodically changes slightly its struc-

its smart and strong machinery to produce countless copies of itself which then spread throughout the respiratory tract, and then boom: a person is socked with the flu. The virus is really a clever little beast.

Several days will pass before the immune system indicates something is amiss. Fever will develop as all points in the immune system coordinate to expel the beast.

This is why Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is predicting a “relatively severe influenza season.”

ture to avoid the body’s detection systems. In fact, if this year’s flu virus does not match your immune system’s “wanted list,” it can enter your body without tripping off the alarm system. The flu virus is a social butterfly, attaching itself to the cells that line the respiratory tract. This social butterfly uses

When a person with the flu coughs or sneezes, large amounts of the virus are spewed out in droplets. Those droplets can travel up to 6 feet. If you inhale those droplets, it’s almost guaranteed that the virus will enter your body. The flu germs can also enter your body by landing in the eye. If the virus

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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parks on a surface which you touch and then touch your mouth, eyes, or nose, then unwittingly, you may infect yourself with the flu virus.

Thankfully, there is a way to predict how awful a flu season may be.

Australia and the Southern Hemisphere have their flu season several months before ours, and historically, it’s a good indicator of what’s to be in this part of the world.

Remember 2009 and H1N1 pandemic? Australia had 59,022 cases in its sparsely populated country.

This year, they have had 215,280 cases. Australia has the same vaccine as the United States and it was only about effective against the dominant strain in about one-quarter of the population. This is why Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is predicting a “relatively severe influenza season.”

In Australia, the problem did not appear to be a mismatch between the flu strains that were circulating and those that the available vaccine protected against. Instead, Dr. Fauci explains, it seemed to be the mutant proteins introduced as the vaccines were being produced in eggs.

“The very process of how we make the vaccine creates an unanticipated, almost accidental mismatch, which is what happened in Australia this year,” Dr. Fauci said in a recent interview.

The production of universal vaccines entails no such risk. The viral pieces used in these vaccines are not living organisms but genetically engineered proteins that can be grown and propagated in bacteria, making the use of eggs unnecessary.

The most advanced universal flu vaccine candidate is only in the earliest stages of human clinical trials, and others are still being tested in animals. This means they could be several flu seasons off.

Not wonderful news.

Despite this, I am an optimist.

I believe in the flu vaccines. It

shape. But the guidelines for good health are constant.

And, as always, daven.

Dr. Hylton 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.

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Childstones

T h i s C o u l d B e Yo u r M o s t I m p o r t a n t A p p Ev e r

By M Lowinger

A

vi is having trouble holding onto his pencil. Sarah is experiencing motor skills delays. And Leah’s teacher thinks she needs speech therapy.

All these children have something in common. Their parents are concerned and their teachers are recommending a professional evaluation.

But diagnosing a child’s developmental issues isn’t always easy, even when a specialist administers a battery of tests. Usually, a developmental pediatrician will ask to view any available videos of the child at a younger age to help determine an accurate diagnosis.

If only there would be an accurate visual record of the child’s developmental history to help evalu-

ate his progress. If only that record were a video with which the doctor or therapist could go back in time to observe how the child performed specific activities at an earlier age.

That information would surely help immeasurably in determining an accurate diagnosis.

Introducing Childstones, a revolutionary new app designed and developed by Dr. Eli Adler of Long Island, New York.

Says Dr. Adler, “We’re living in a new world. Today everybody has a smartphone and most of us can take real-time photos and videos of our children at any time. So we developed an app that would track each child’s developmental milestones from birth through age six and then store it for future refer-

ence. This would make it infinitely easier for a medical expert to make an evaluation and offer a professional opinion.”

Dr. Adler and his team built the Childstones app based on a list of developmental milestones published by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Parents who use the app take a series of short video clips of their child performing specific activities at designated stages of growth. This builds a visual history of the child’s developmental progress that will prove invaluable if there is a need to formulate a diagnosis.

The Childstones app is free of charge and remarkably easy to use.

Simply enter the child’s name and date of birth, and the app will au-

tomatically remind the parent to record their child doing simple but meaningful tasks such as sitting, crawling, climbing steps or drawing circles at specific ages. Those clips will be saved in the app for future evaluation and can be shared with evaluators and therapists when necessary. Parents are reminded to record milestones every two months during the child’s first year and once a year for the next five years.

According to Dr. Adler, “One out of five children in this country is experiencing some sort of delay, and some say that number is even higher in the Jewish community.

The Childstones app could prove to be a real game changer. Physicians and therapists will be able to

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

make a correct diagnosis simply by watching the child’s development during different ages and stages. It will give the evaluators a tremendous amount of significant information about the child’s progress.”

The Childstones app was just launched, and already it is creating quite a stir in the medical community. The Center for Disease Control’s “Act Early” program recently praised the app in an article published online. The agency cited Childstones “for its innovation and ability to track, record, and preserve important child development milestones.”

Dr. Adler dreams that one day every parent will be using Childstones to monitor their children’s progress, similar to the way that pediatricians keep a record of every child’s immunization and health.

That way, he points out, “Any deviation from normal development will be preserved on footage and can be studied and used for diagnosis.” The goal, of course, is for children with developmental issues

to receive the support and services they need early on.

Dr. Cecelia McCarton, MD, is a leading expert in developmental pediatrics and Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She expressed tremendous interest in the Child-

Dr. Mark Freilich, Developmental Pediatrician in New York City, is delighted with Childstones. “The app,” he notes, “will be a great tool for families to record and track developmental milestones, educate parents about what comes next, and hopefully be a great tool for devel-

Dr. Adler dreams that one day every parent will be using Childstones to monitor their children’s progress

stones app. “She told me,” says Dr. Adler, “that she often watches lengthy videos of a child’s birthday party in the hopes of glimpsing significant information that would be of diagnostic value. I explained to her that this app will guide parents to record diagnostic milestones in short targeted clips.”

opmental pediatricians who wish to make an accurate documentation of a child’s development.”

And Childstones is easy to use.

Miriam is a young parent who recently started recording her daughter’s developmental progress with the app. “I was introduced to Childstones after my third child was

75

born,” she says, “and now I’m able to easily take videos of my daughter doing each milestone action and have those moments last forever!

The app is easy to use and recording these milestones couldn’t be simpler.” Looking back, she says, “I regret that I haven’t recorded the milestones of my first two children.

These videos are really informative and the tutorials are clear and simple.”

Childstones has barely been launched and already the enthusiasm is mounting. Physicians, early intervention specialists, therapists, and child care workers are singing its praises and urging parents to download the app, which is available in the app store.

It really is a brave new world out there, especially for children like Avi, Sarah and Leah. With Childstones, they can receive a proper and accurate diagnosis early on which will lead them to acquire the help they need quickly and easily.

And in the end, that’s what matters most.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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Notable Quotes “Say What?!”

I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way [Trump] gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.

- Text message sent during the presidential election by senior FBI official Peter Strzok – who was recently expelled from Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s team after his anti-Trump bias was disclosed – to another senior FBI official, indicating some nefarious activity. The text message was disclosed last week

At one point he said, “We will never lose sight of our values and their capacity to inspire, uplift, and renew.” Then he realized someone left an old Obama speech in the teleprompter. “That doesn’t sound like me at all. What just happened? Wall. Come on, Donald, improvise."

- Jimmy Fallon

I think we all knew in the back of our minds, even though we feigned this whole line of “unintended consequences,” I think in the back recesses of our minds – something bad could happen. It literally is at a point now we’ve created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.

That is literally where we are. I would encourage all of you how to internalize this is: if you feed the beast, the beast will destroy you.

- Former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya, speaking at Stanford Business School about Facebook

While announcing plans to trim the size of the regulatory code, President Trump today cut a red ribbon with an oversized scissors that was draped across stacks of paper. Then, because of all the regulations he repealed, the scissors fell apart, a dolphin choked on the ribbon, and the paper burst into flames.

- Seth Myers

It’s not 9-9-9 but it’s fine, fine, fine.

- Herman Cain, who ran in the 2012 GOP presidential primaries on a “9-9-9 tax plan,” reacting to the GOP tax bill, on Fox News

All I want for X-mas is full Communism now.

- Tweet by Buzzfeed editor Kelly Oakes

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27

The rumor on the Hill when I left yesterday was that the president was going to make a significant speech at the end of next week.

And on Dec. 22, when we are out of D.C., he was going to fire Robert Mueller.

- Rep Jackie Speier (D-CA) in a television interview last Friday

This weekend I’m stocking up on portable phone chargers, warm clothes, & gear needed for when we take the streets. I’m concerned the assault on the rule of law is coming over the holidays when we’re distracted. It’ll be a defining moment for the Republic.

- Tweet by President Obama’s former ethics czar, Walter Shaub, who has been predicting that President Trump will fire Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller

This is the worst bill to ever come to the floor of the House.

- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), talking about the GOP tax cut bill

I told ya, I will never step foot in Wrigley Field again as long as I live. You couldn’t pay me to go to Wrigley Field again.

- Chicago White Sox broadcaster Ken “Hawk” Harrelson, while at the winter baseball meetings, stating that when the White Sox visit the Cubs next season, he won’t be in the broadcasting booth

If you had told me in late 2016 that almost a year into the Trump era the caliphate would be all-butbeaten without something far worse happening in the Middle East, I would have been surprised and gratified.

- New York Times columnist Ross Douthat in an op-ed titled, “The War Trump won,” acknowledging that President Trump deserves credit for his foreign policy

And the Trump strategy on Israel and the Palestinians, the butt of many Jared Kushner jokes, seems … not crazy? The relatively mild reaction to recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital may be a case study in expert consensus falling behind the facts; the Arab world has different concerns than it did in 1995, and Trump’s move has helped clarify that change.

- Ibid

We do it with no joy, but we do it with no reluctance. The United States will not be told by any country where we can put our embassy.

- U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley addressing the UN Security Council after the U.S. vetoed a resolution seeking to reaffirm Jerusalem’s status as unresolved

The fact that this veto is being done in defense of America’s role in the Middle East peace process is not a source of embarrassment for us; it should be an embarrassment to the remainder of the Security Council.

- U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley addressing the UN Security Council after the U.S. vetoed a resolution seeking to reaffirm Jerusalem’s status as unresolved

Thank you, Ambassador Haley. On Hanukkah, you spoke like a Maccabee. You lit a candle of truth. You dispel the darkness. One defeated the many. Truth defeated lies. Thank you, President Trump.

- Tweet by Prime Minister Netanyahu

On Trump Force One there were four major food groups: McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, pizza and Diet Coke.

- From the new book about the Trump campaign, written by former top campaign aides Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie

Obama must return his Nobel Peace Prize.

- Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid commenting on a bombshell Politico report that the Obama administration prevented the DEA from stopping Hezbollah from selling billions of dollars of cocaine in the United States because they didn’t want to jeopardize the Iran deal

[Putin] knows how to handle an asset, and that’s what he’s doing with the president.

- James Clapper, who was President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence and is one of the loudest voices about Trump colluding with Russia, on CNN this week, talking about a recent phone call between President Trump and Putin

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home

Youthquake

- Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year, in a nod to the unexpected level of youth engagement in last summer’s elections in the United Kingdom

We cannot envision any situation under which the Western Wall would not be part of Israel. But as the president said, the specific boundaries of sovereignty of Israel are going to be part of the final status agreement.

- A Trump administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, to the Associated Press

We note that we cannot imagine Israel would sign a peace agreement that didn’t include the Western Wall.

- Ibid.

I didn’t; I don’t.

- Rep Louie Gohmert (R-TX), when a Democrat congressman stated during a hearing that everyone in the country respects Robert Mueller

Paul Ryan revealed that he hasn’t eaten sweets in 10 years and said that he’d rather eat grilled asparagus than a Snickers. Americans were like, “And we thought Roy Moore was a monster!”

- Jimmy Fallon

MORE QUOTES

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Political Crossfire

Yellen’s Legacy

By Robert J. Samuelson

O

ne of Washington’s permanent parlor games is how much credit or blame a president deserves for the state of the economy. Inevitably, then, the question being asked now is whether Donald Trump or Barack Obama created today’s strong economy. The correct answer is: neither. To the extent that personal responsibility can be assigned, the worthy recipient is Janet Yellen.

In practice, presidents’ influence over the economy is limited.

If it were otherwise, we’d live in an economic paradise. Unemployment would always be low, wages would always rise, and recessions would never occur. No one has that kind of power. Presidents and their agencies can’t govern the business cycle.

The obvious qualification to this reality is the Federal Reserve. By regulating the flow of money and credit, the Fed stimulates or retards the economy, though not always in predictable ways. There are regular collisions between what the Fed can actually achieve and what the public thinks it should achieve. Yellen has led it since 2014 but will leave early next year and be replaced by Fed governor Jerome Powell.

Under Yellen, the economy has made huge progress. Here’s the record since she became Fed head in February 2014: Payroll employment has expanded by nearly 10 million jobs; the unemployment rate has dropped from 6.7 percent to 4.1 percent; average hourly earnings, uncorrected for

inflation, rose from $24.32 to $26.55.

(Corrected for inflation, the wage gain is about 4 percent – not great but not stagnation either. The pace, if maintained, would be roughly 10 percent over a decade.)

None of this was preordained. It’s true that Yellen followed the policies of her predecessor, Ben Bernanke, but these policies were not, as Yellen has repeatedly stated, on “automatic pilot.” They required much judgment. The problem faced by Yellen was to maintain a policy of easy money long enough to promote the economy’s recovery but not so long

Bernanke’s Fed had adopted a policy of ultra-easy money. It had reduced short-term interest rates to near zero and, in an effort to bring down long-term rates, had purchased more than $3 trillion of Treasury and home-mortgage securities. (When the Fed buys securities, their price typically goes up and their interest rate goes down.)

Yellen has slowly been reversing this policy. Since December 2015, the Fed has raised short-term interest rates five times, including an increase last week. The so-called Fed funds rate has risen to a maximum

The problem faced by Yellen was to maintain a policy of easy money long enough to promote the economy’s recovery but not so long as to feed either inflation or financial speculation.

as to feed either inflation or financial speculation.

It will be some years before a final verdict can be rendered on Yellen’s stewardship. Is the stock market overvalued? Did the Fed contribute to that? What happens if stocks crash? Questions linger.

Still, for the moment, most of Yellen’s judgments seem on the mark.

of 1.5 percent. More increases are expected in 2018. Likewise, the Fed is reducing its holdings of Treasury and mortgage securities, putting upward pressure on long-term interest rates.

All this has gone smoothly – and that’s just the point. It wasn’t inevitable. The mechanics of raising interest rates from their ultra-low position involved new and untested

procedures. There were dire predictions that things would go awry.

They didn’t.

“The Fed was acutely aware that it had to be perceived as successful ... to have public support,” says economist Ken Matheny of Macroeconomic Advisers.

Given her reputation as a conciliator, Yellen may also have improved the Fed’s public standing. Remember: The chair can’t singlehandedly impose policy. The Fed’s key decision-making body, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), has 12 members. Despite a tradition of deference to the chair, “you have to achieve a consensus,” says Matheny.

“It’s not a dictatorship.”

Yellen leaves a solid legacy, built on professional competence, integrity and dignity.

Just what prompted President Trump to pass her over in favor of Powell is unclear. It’s not monetary policy, where both adhere to the present Fed consensus.

Trump’s decision flouts an informal custom, since the 1980s, to reappoint the Fed chair to at least a second four-year term. It may be that the president feels more comfortable with Powell. Or he may think (inaccurately?) that, if the economy weakens, he can more easily bend Powell to his will than Yellen.

Whatever the case, the irony is hard to miss. Powell’s performance, at least initially, will be compared to Yellen’s. It is a high hurdle to clear. (c) 2017, Washington Post Writers Group

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

A Fulfilled L fe

What’s Your One Sentence?

By Rabbi Dr. Naphtali Hoff

“The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others” -Albert Schweitzer

I

n his bestselling book Drive (pp. 154-155), author Dank Pink references a 1962 conversation between Congresswoman Claire Boothe Luce and President John F. Kennedy. Sensing that the president had too many competing agendas, she sought to focus him by asking him to think about his “one sentence.”

Each great person, she said, has a single sentence that describes him/her. For Abraham

Lincoln, she said, it was “he preserved the union and freed the slaves.” In the case of FDR, a fitting single sentence would be, “He lifted us up from the Great Depression and helped us win a World War.” Because of his competing agendas, Boothe Luce felt that Kennedy’s one sentence would instead become an overly muddled paragraph.

We all can have single sentences that describe us, even if our contributions are not as deep and lasting as the aforementioned presidents. Whether they say something about us as individuals, as leaders or as community contributors, having the ability to construct a single sentence that captures our essence can serve as a great guidepost and motivator.

Pink (p.155) suggests some simple ones, such as:

• “ He raised four kids who became happy and healthy adults.”

• “She invented a device that made people’s lives easier.”

• “He cared for every person who walked into his office.”

Pink ends the section by suggesting that we all contemplate our purpose by considering the question, “What’s your sentence?”

I would like to take this idea a bit further. As I understand it, having a single sentence means that we need to add more purposefulness to our lives. Purposefulness emerges from recognizing that our lives have meaning. We understand that we are here for a reason and appreciate our lives as a means through which to grow and serve others. Still, while we recognize fundamentally that we exist to achieve a deep, meaning-

ful purpose, we can struggle to make that association daily and to recognize that every moment is a new opportunity for fulfillment.

How can we become more conscientious of our need to live purposeful lives? The following strategies may help us in achieving that goal.

• E stablish and clarify your core values – Values express our philosophy in life and guide us in our decision-making and actions.

Take the time to articulate and refine your values, to understand what truly motivates you. Share them with someone that you trust, someone who knows you well that could also serve as your moral compass when you lack clarity. Then, commit to

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

live by them, in thought and deed.

• B egin with the end in mind – This concept, made famous by the late Stephen Covey, focuses our attention on how we wish to be remembered.

Covey’s imagery is that of one’s own funeral. What will people say about him? How did they perceive his life, actions and values? What can we be doing each day to cause other to ref lect positively on our lives and say that we lived it to the fullest?

• E xpand your vision and act – People who lead purposeful lives often are people of vision. They see possibilities and growth opportunities where others see challenges. But vision alone is not enough. A person of consequence does not sit idly by.

After developing his vision, he rolls up his sleeves, ready to take the steps needed to achieve his goals.

• Reflect – Every time you engage in an experience, ask

the road or in a store. In addition, take the time to take stock of your progress as it relates to your values and goals. Are you on target?

How can you achieve even more?

the clarity and direction that we all need in our busy, distracting and confusing realities.

We all seek to live a purposeful existence framed by consistency and growth. As with all other noble endeavors, living purposefully requires a framework, a set of values and motivators that keep us along a straight and narrow path while we dream of future success. When we put those pieces together and then consistently live by them, we are living our one sentence that others will someday record for perpetuity.

Purposefulness emerges from recognizing that our lives have meaning

yourself how it may have impacted you. Did you grow from it? Could you have approached it differently and achieved better results? This includes interactions with family or your conduct on

Rabbi Naphtali Hoff, PsyD, is President of Impactful Coaching and Consulting. He can be reached at (212) 470-6139 or at nhoff@impactfulcoaching.com. Buy his new leadership book, “Becoming the New Boss,” on Amazon or at BecomingtheNewBoss.com/order.

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

Forgotten Her es

Burning Bridges

By Avi Heiligman

U.S. troops at the Ludendorff Bridge in Remagen, Germany

A

n idiom is a group of words established by usage as having a meaning different from those of the individual words. For example, the phrase “at the drop of a hat” means doing something without hesitation; it does not necessarily mean that someone just dropped their beret on the floor. Some idioms have been derived from the military. To “cross swords” refers to when two people or groups have a dispute, and to “dodge a bullet” means to have successfully avoided a serious problem. The phrase to “burn one’s bridges” now refers to alienate

former friends. However, the etymology goes way back in military history and is closely related to another idiom, “the point of no return.”

Several commanders in history were known to have their men burn bridges or other military equipment to prevent the enemy from having use of them. To burn a bridge meant that the enemy couldn’t follow you without repairing it first. It also meant that you couldn’t cross back over the river to launch another attack. The famous Chinese general and philosopher Sun Tzu wrote in the Art of War, “When

The Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge destroyed by a hurricane on September 29, 1896

your army has crossed the border, you should burn your boats and bridges, in order to make it clear to everybody that you have no hankering after home.”

Much of the American Civil War took place in the South. The most notable campaign north of Virginia was in the summer of 1863. Confederate General Robert E. Lee had his army travel into Pennsylvania to fight the war on open Union ground so that he would have a clear path to Northern cities such as Harrisburg and Philadelphia. As it turned out the Union troops met him at Gettysburg in what has been determined to be the turning point of the war.

During the journey north the Confederates would have had to travel over the Susquehanna River. There was a bridge at Wrightsville, PA, that had been built in 1834 (there had been an earlier bridge at the same area but it had been destroyed by severe weather conditions).

On one side of the bridge militia (civilian soldiers) from Colombia near Lancaster were determined not to let the Confederates get use of the bridge.

They were joined by some retreating Union soldiers as well as a company of African-American soldiers. The 1,500 ad hoc regiment-sized group set charges to the bridge and doused it with crude oil. On June 28, 1863, 1,800 Confederates opened fire with artillery on the Union troops who knew that

they had to retreat. As they left the battlefield the charges on the bridge were detonated but failed to destroy the bridge. When the Federal commander saw that the bridge was still standing the order was given to set it ablaze. In a scene out of a movie, Confederate troops ran through the flaming bridge.

They managed to put out the flames but the bridge was damaged beyond repair from six hours of burning. Lancaster was saved, and the Confederates retreated. (Another bridge was constructed in 1868 by the Pennsylvania Railroad. This was destroyed in an 1896 hurricane. A fourth bridge was built and was used until 1963 when it was dismantled.)

Capturing a bridge intact in wartime was so difficult that when it was done it is worth mentioning. German commanders during World War II regularly gave the order to blow up bridges when the Allies came from the west. Since the landings at Normandy, the Allied high command was constantly trying to find undamaged bridges to cross. Engineers could build pontoon bridges; however, this took a lot of time and would slow down the assault on German-held territory. German engineers always thwarted the attempts to capture a bridge intact. In March 1945, just two months from the end of the war, the Nazis be-

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

came fanatic about burning all bridges that crossed the Rhine River.

Fifty bridges went across the Rhine into Germany and the Germans had destroyed 49 of them, leaving just one railroad bridge to be blown up. What if the Americans could capture this bridge before the explosion? This “what if” became a reality when on March 7 reconnaissance patrols noticed that the bridge near Remagen, called the Ludendorff Bridge, was still intact.

The race was on as the U.S. First Army tried to get there in time. American troops under German-born Lt. Karl Timmerman raced towards the bridge as German engineers frantically tried to set off the explosives.

On the approach, the eastern end of the bridge was rocked by an explosion and the structure was lifted a bit into the air.

When the dust settled the Americans were surprised to see the bridge still standing. A fierce firefight broke out as the Americans ran across the bridge under heavy machine gun fire. Sergeant Alex Drabik was the first to reach the

other side with not a single member of his squad becoming a casualty. The word went up to all commanders, and even though the bridge wasn’t where most of the Allied troops were, General Omar Bradley said, “Shove anything you can across!”

An NBC correspondent spotted a lieutenant kicking demolitions into the river and cutting wires while still under German fire. Six divisions and thousands of vehicles and tanks managed to cross before the bridge finally collapsed on March 17. During the collapse twenty-eight American combat engineers and soldiers were killed. A pontoon bridge had been built nearby, and the troops and supplies still had a way over the Rhine.

In different times in history the phrase to burn one’s bridges has had several meanings. In the times of the Romans it was used by commanders so their own troops wouldn’t retreat once they crossed a bridge. Other armies began adapting the term to prevent the enemy from cutting off their retreat

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American troops and tanks crossing the Ludendorff Bridge

route. Sometimes, including with the Russians, bridges and other land was burnt so that the enemy couldn’t benefit from the land at all. When explosives became manageable, bridges were laden with dynamite, TNT, C4 or other combustible material to produce a explosion instead of burning the bridge with fire. Today, the phrase has entered our lexicon and has on taken a meaning of its own.

There are many stories about soldiers lighere is always light at the end of the tunnel, even in the bitterest of battles.

Avi Heiligman is a weekly contributor to The Jewish Home. He welcomes your comments and suggestions for future columns and can be reached at aviheiligman@ gmail.com.

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Your

Money

A Different Kind of Party

By Allan Rolnick, CPA

Y

our kids have finally finished eating their Simchas Torah nosh, which means that the real holidays are here. But before you sit down to open Chanukah presents, keep in mind that December 16th marks the 244th anniversary of an important holiday in tax history — a pop-up costume ball in Boston Harbor called the Boston Tea Party.

From 1698 through 1767, Britain’s Parliament passed a series of laws giving the East India Company a monopoly on the British tea trade, forcing the colonies to buy their tea from British wholesalers and slapping hefty taxes on it all. But Dutch traders, who paid no tax, could sell their tea for less, costing the East India Company a fortune.

(If you remember Miami Vice in the 1980s, try picturing a colonialera Crockett and Tubbs, dressed in fly white buckskins, chasing Dutch bootleggers in a sleek Italian brigantine.)

In 1767, Parliament passed the Indemnity Act to lower the tax on tea to compete with the Dutch. (Earl Gray was just three years old, so he didn’t vote.) But they needed a “payfor” to make up the lost revenue, so

they brewed up the Townshend Acts taxing colonial imports, including tea. Five years later, the Indemnity Act expired, and everyone was back where they started.

The Tea Act of 1773 brought things to a head. The new law actually lowered the price of tea to undercut the smugglers. But the

to unload and pay the tax within 20 days. But colonists, who gathered by the thousands, were determined to prevent that. On the night of December 16, the final deadline, a group of 30 to 130 of them boarded the Dartmouth and two more ships. A few of them sported elaborate Mohawk warrior costumes to hide their faces

and show their loyalty to American identity. They spent three hours dumping 342 chests of tea into the water. The next day, future President John Adams wrote in his diary:

The Tea Party set all sorts of consequences in motion besides the obvious “American Revolution” thing.

If you’re a coffee drinker, for example, you should know that coffee first became popular here as an alternative to “unpatriotic” tea, sort of like renaming French fries “freedom fries” during the Second Iraq War. 244 years later, we still resent paying taxes we don’t have to pay.

The good news is, you don’t have to don a Mohawk headdress and row out into the middle of the harbor for three hours of creative vandalism to pay less. You just need a plan. Make sure you have one when you’re ready to save, and let us give you something to celebrate!

There is a Dignity, a Majesty, a Sublimity, in this last Effort of the Patriots, that I greatly admire... This Destruction of the Tea is so

Allan J Rolnick is a CPA who has been in practice for over 30 yea rs in Queens, NY. He welcomes your comments and can be reached at 718-896-8715 or at allanjrcpa@aol.com.

244 years later, we still resent paying taxes we don’t have to pay.

colonists still hated Parliament taxing them without their consent.

They hated how England used those taxes to pay colonial governors and judges, thus insulating them from local influence. And that’s where things stood in November, 1773, as the tea ship Dartmouth sailed into a Boston Harbor steeped in resentment and controversy.

British law required the shipper

bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid and inflexible, and it must have so important Consequences, and so lasting, that I can’t but consider it as an Epocha in History.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

Passover 2018

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• Featured Scholars in Residence include: • Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter • Rabbi Dr. Joshua Joseph and Dr. Julie Joseph • Rabbi Daniel Kraus and Rachel Kraus • Greg Zuckerman • Dr. Steven Dyckman • Fabulous Chol Hamoed Entertainment including the comedy of Elon Gold and Mordechai Shapiro in concert • Elegantly-appointed Waldorf Astoria Guest Rooms • 3 Daily Gourmet Glatt Kosher Meals along with Daily Poolside Barbeques and Lavish Tea Room artistically executed by Grand Getaways and the Waldorf Astoria culinary team • Professionally run Day Camp & Teen Program

Alan Berger Owner and Director Robyn Hartman Co-Director For reservations or more information, please contact our team at: 1-877-PESACH4 (1-877-737-2244) or 516-734-0840 info@passovergg.com www.passovergrandgetaways.com

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

Lights, Sights & Delights Here are a few photos taken by TJH readers of what Chanukah means to them. Although lots of doughnuts and latkes abound, it seems that across the board being with family and friends is most important when lighting the menorah.

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

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The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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For info/application contact Marc 718887-9886 Pugatch Realty Corp., in Woodmere, is looking to hire and train a select group of motivated Realtors. If you are looking to build a career in real estate, or looking to take your existing career to the next level, there is no better place to start that the #1 Real Estate Brokerage in the Five Towns…

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Part time hours. Email resume CAROLATSIGA@gmail.com

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classifieds@fivetownsjewishhome.com text 443-929-4003

HELP WANTED TEACHER ASSISTANTS NEEDED For Special Education Pre School In Far Rockaway Competitive Salary. Email Resume to scohen@onourwaylc.org SHULAMITH EARLY CHILDHOOD is looking to hire a full time teacher assistant for the current school year.

Please email resume to earlychildhood@shulamith.org F/T & P/T REGISTERED NURSE openings to work with adults who have developmental disabilities within residential settings in Brooklyn, Manhattan, or Long Island. Current NYS RN, min 2 years hospital experience. OHEL: 855-OHEL JOB, www.ohelfamily.org/careers FIVE TOWNS OFFICE LOOKING FOR immediate hire of several people…part time and full time…starting at $15 per hour. Need detail- oriented person to handle A/P, A/R, customer service, and ability to negotiate bids and contracts.

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

Life C ach

Slipping Ahead to Better Things

By Rivki D. Rosenwald Esq., CLC, SDS

I

’m slip-sliding externally and internally. Another latke or jelly doughnut and my gallbladder will probably slip right out on the floor. Externally, it will be nice to have a surface that’s not dripping with oil, wax, or general gloop. I’m not happy to see Chanukah leave, just noticing some of the limited upside.

Now, much as we all will miss the wonderful, no-pressured, nightly routine of coming up with gifts for everyone and the ease of collecting everyone at the same exact time around the menorah, It will be a little less nerve-racking not having to hover over the menorah to keep the flames burning while the children dance around.

Also, having less tension with regards to which Chanukah party to attend, especially with “your family’s and my family’s” complicating things, might be a nice release.

And moving past – the doozy of them all – which family do we spend Shabbos Chanukah with will

be a high point.

So, though it’s sad to see the lights of Chanukah starting to flicker in the distance, there are some limited flashes of bright spots as it dims away!

one important step we can all take is to have the messages of Chanukah stay with us throughout the year.

We know Chanukah is about being aware of the miracles that took

What if we decide to look around and take note of a miracle a day?

Then again, we never like to tick off another holiday going by. It always means we are that much closer to Yom Kippur again, and though we all love the atonement piece, we are not so good with the 25-hour no food thing!

So, what’s ahead for us between now and next Yom Kippur, other than about 2 billion meals? Well,

place. Well, how about bringing that into our daily routine without the need for the dripping, the counting, and the singing? What if we decide to look around and take note of a miracle a day? Like when you ran out of the store just in time to put a quarter in your meter before the meter maid ticketed you. Or when you didn’t study for

the test and then the teacher was absent. Or when you thought the deal was a good one, sadly lost it, and then found an even better one.

There are endless good things that brighten our days but we are often too focused on something that went wrong to take the time to really notice and enjoy them.

So, let’s do this: let’s really be affected this year by Chanukah. Let’s continue to go from “left to right,” just like we did with lighting the candles. Let’s decide we have finally “left” off noticing the negative in our days and go “right” into focusing on the good things that happen in each day.

And hopefully that way we will slide both internally and externally into a happier, brighter and richer year!

Rivki Rosenwald is a certified relationship counselor, and career and life coach. She can be contacted at 917705-2004 or rivki@rosenwalds.com

The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 21, 2017

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DECEMBER 21, 2017 | The Jewish Home

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