Five Towns Jewish Home 01.08.26

January 8, 2026

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Dear Readers,

B

rother, can you spare some time?

The expression that emerged from the Great Depression was “Brother, can you spare a dime?” But sometimes, when my day becomes so busy, I recognize that all I need to get everything done (along with lots of energy and copious siyata d’Shmaya) is just a few more minutes of time. So, maybe, brother, can you spare (or share) a dime – or ten minutes – of time?

A few weeks ago, I had a few errands to run. I went from store to store and realized that my last errand needed a certain amount of time. But running that errand would mean that I may not make it back home in time for my daughter’s bus, and so, I had to forgo that task and race home, making it back in time to greet my little preschooler. But truly, if I had an extra ten minutes, I could have gotten it all done. Ten minutes, and it would have changed the schedule of my day….

I’ve noticed that, as mothers, there are so many different tasks balanced on our plates. Each one may not take too much time, but added together, these little responsibilities encompass a very full day.

And sometimes, if these tasks become too overwhelming or too much, we need to gently put a few of those obligations to the side, so we can ensure that we complete the

other responsibilities in our lives. The trick, though, is figuring out what can gently be put down, or moved to the side, or put off until tomorrow, or even delegated to others.

Often, the moments that feel the smallest are the ones that weigh the most. Ten minutes here, five minutes there — they don’t sound like much, yet they are the difference between calm and chaos, between feeling capable and feeling stretched thin.

Time is the one resource we can’t store away for later, and so we learn, sometimes the hard way, to spend it with intention.

Choosing where our minutes go is not just a logistical decision; it’s an emotional and spiritual one as well.

Perhaps the greatest kindness we can offer ourselves is recognizing that not everything needs to be done today. There is strength in knowing our limits and wisdom in prioritizing what truly matters in each season of life. Somehow, the right things find their place, even when a few items remain unchecked on the list. And maybe that, too, is a form of success — understanding that a day well lived isn’t measured by everything we accomplished, but by the people we showed up for along the way.

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 Rachel Bergida Shana Brecher Lani White Design & Production Gabe Solomon Distribution & Logistics P.O. BOX 266 Lawrence, NY 11559 Phone | 516-734-0858 Fax | 516-734-0857 Classified Deadline: Monday 5:00PM classifieds@fivetownsjewishhome.com text 443-929-4003 PAYMENT VIA CREDIT CARD MUST BE SUBMITTED ALONG WITH CLASSIFIED ADS The Jewish Home is an independent weekly magazine.

Opinions expressed by writers are not neces­sarily 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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Contents LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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COMMUNITY Readers’ Poll

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Community Happenings

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Voice Notes: Thinking Carefully About the Return

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NEWS Global

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National

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That’s Odd

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ISRAEL Israel News

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Weathering the Banks

by Barbara Deutsch

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My Israel Home

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JEWISH THOUGHT Torah Sparks

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Rabbi Wein on the Parsha

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Staying Strong by Rav Moshe Weinberger

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Emerging from the Waters by Rabbi Shmuel Reichman

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Delving into the Daf by Rabbi Avrohom Sebrow

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Headlines and Halacha by Rabbi Yair Hoffman

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PEOPLE Leadership Through Self-Sacrifice: Remembering Rabbi Yehuda Kelemer, zt”l

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Education is the Primary Defense in Combating Hate: TJH Speaks with Michael Cohen

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Inspiration Nation

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Edmund Myers and Richard Jessel by Avi Heiligman

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HEALTH & FITNESS The Brain Chemical That Makes Life Matter by Rivka Kramer, PMHNP-BC 104

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Foods, Flare-Ups, and Eczema

by Aliza Beer, RD

106

Conversation Breaks

by Michal Goldman, LCSW

102

A Cure or Cause of Body Dissatisfaction?

by Sara Weissman 108 FOOD & LEISURE

Food for Thought

114

The Aussie Gourmet: Salmon Dumplings

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LIFESTYLES Dating Dialogue, Moderated by Jennifer Mann, LCSW

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School of Thought

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Parenting Pearls

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What’s in a Name? by Rivki D. Rosenwald Esq., CLC, SDS

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Dear Editor, I so enjoy my weekly reading. There were so many superb articles in last week’s paper, covering many diverse topics. I pulled out quite a few articles to share with my family members. Thank you!

There is one article in particular that I must comment on. Rivki Rosenwald points out, “There are hidden thoughts – and often lighthearted humor – in so much of what we confront all the time.”

I generally agree with Rivki and enjoy her columns. But within this particular discussion Rivki includes the exceedingly loud volume of music being played at our simchas and the ringing in her ears that persists long after these events. Forgive me, please, but I must point out that there is nothing at all humorous about hearing loss, which is often the result of this bombardment of noise that we refer to as music!

Hearing loss is permanent, progressive and while seemingly physically painless, it’s painful in other areas. Hearing loss drastically alters one’s quality of life. One can no longer easily participate in social functions, in easy conversation. Some are plagued by tinnitus, constant ringing in one’s ears. Be aware. Be forewarned. Be proactive. Use protective earplugs. Or even better, leave the room! Hearing loss may be reaching epidemic levels with younger people suffering also, not just senior members of our communities, due to this barrage of “music.”

This has been an issue for decades already.

I find it difficult to understand. It is simply unethical to host our family and friends for our joyous occasions and then subject them to this excessively loud music which, G-d forbid, may very well cause them hearing problems.

Please note that there are gemachs in

our community providing protective “earmuffs” for infants who are brought to our simchas. Contact TJH for further info.

Our hearing is so precious. We must do all we can to protect our hearing and the hearing of our family and friends.

Our sense of hearing is among the gifts that Hashem has so graciously blessed us with. Let us appreciate all our gifts and guard them well.

Miriam Liebermann Dear Editor, Thank you so much for your well-written newspaper that my family and I enjoy each week!

I have never written a letter to an editor before, however, after reading the “Dear Navidaters” column in the December 25 issue, I felt compelled to respond, not because I disagree with anything the panelists wrote, but I am concerned about what was not written.

I am speaking out on behalf of parents of neurodiverse children who often feel judged and misunderstood. What was not mentioned by any of the panelists is that the two behaviors described – biting other children in the park and attempting to swallow change – are not developmentally typical behaviors of a 6-7-year-old. Not all children with special needs look special, not all of them go to special schools, and not all of them even have a diagnosis or an accurate diagnosis.

I understand that the column is a dating advice column and therefore the focus of the responses were directed towards answering the question of what the writer should do when his date’s response towards her nephew’s behavior seemed misaligned with his views on parenting.

Their answers such as talking to her and Continued on page 18

HUMOR Centerfold

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Shmooze and Muse

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POLITICAL CROSSFIRE Notable Quotes

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Trump is Riding High on Venezuela by David Ignatius

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The 10 Worst Things Trump Did in 2025 by Marc A. Thiessen

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The 20 Best Things Trump Did in 2025 by Marc A. Thiessen

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Venezuela, Trump and the End of the Liberal World Order

by Jonathan S. Tobin

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CLASSIFIEDS

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Do you like Dubai flavored chocolate?

52 24 24 %

No

%

Yes

%

Never Tried It

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Continued from page 14

understanding that babysitting a nephew is vastly different than raising your own children are therefore on target. However, the insinuation of some was had a mother responded in the way the aunt did, they would judge her. Know that when you see a parent respond to their child’s misbehavior in public, especially when the behavior seems so out of bounds, you are only seeing a minute piece of the picture.

You have no idea of the journey this parent has gone through with this child. You have no idea how many consultations, evaluations, therapy, medications, and behavior plans they have been through.

You have no idea of the ups and downs they have experienced.

Perhaps the way the aunt dealt with her nephew was the wisest way to de-escalate the two situations.

Please don’t judge!

A mother of both neurotypical and neurodiverse children Dear Editor, As my posek, Hagaon Harav Yehuda Kelemer, zt”l, approaches his fifth yahrtzeit, I’d like to share one of a handful of stories of him that I’ve heard of this tremendous adam gadol.

Someone moved to West Hempstead

just before Pesach and needed his kitchen kashered for the chag. Rabbi Kelemer came to his house, no problem to take care of it – at 2 in the morning.

Yes, you read that right – 2 a.m. While others were sleeping, Rabbi Kelemer helped a new community member do a mitzvah. It made no difference to him that he was brand new, likely not a member of any of the local shuls. It was done for one clear reason: Kol Yisroel areivim zeh la’zeh.

Indeed, I found out from several locals that 2 a.m. was a very normal hour for him.

How many rabbanim are even awake at that hour to help fellow Yidden? It’s a very rare find.

Rabbi Kelemer was extremely approachable and accessible to all. So much so, that Rav Elyashiv zt”l, would send Americans to Rabbi Kelemer to ask their shailos. I’m so thankful for grabbing the opportunity to ask him shailos via email during the final years of his life. Just like he was accessible during his lifetime, frequently in West Hempstead and the LIRR Penn Station waiting room, he is even accessible now, with his kever in New Mountfiore Cemetery, right off the Southern State Parkway.

May Rabbi Kelemer’s neshama have

an aliyah, and may all learn from his example to lead in the ways of the Torah.

Chaim Feldman Dear Editor, Now that my son has turned eight, “Super-Agent Gizmo” has entered our lives. Super-Agent Gizmo is a character created by Circle Magazine and is now featured in a series of books. The story follows eleven-year-old Gavriel Zalman, a.k.a. Super-Agent Gizmo, who is recruited by the CIA for his talents in decoding and creating advanced gadgets.

A thematic contrasting character to him is Uncle Shimmy, the perfect learner with stellar middot, who has a deep love for Gavriel Zalman. This is unlike Gavriel Zalman, who once created a robot of himself to attend cheder for a day, as learning was not his top priority. He refers to Uncle Shimmy as a “goodie-goodie.”

In the end, Gavriel Zalman comes to recognize the greatness of his uncle and ultimately leaves the CIA, realizing that it caused too much interference with his personal growth.

The initial conflict and eventual reconciliation between Gavriel Zalman and his Uncle Shimmy magnificently captures critical concepts needed in today’s times, including individuality, unity, and recognizing the blessings we have.

The Mishnah (Sanhedrin 4:5) notes the greatness of G-d: from one person, Adam, He was able to create distinct individuals.

When looking at Gavriel Zalman and Uncle Shimmy [as representations of real people], a powerful connection exists between them—they both descend from the same person, Adam. In that sense, their DNA is alike. However, they are different: one excels in learning, while the other excels in invention and technology. Though they originate from one person and are therefore connected, they’re also new molds with diverse talents preventing Gavriel Zalman from connecting.

Ultimately, Gavriel Zalman comes to understand that his talents are not bringing a greater outcome for him, and that the love for another is steeped in more than another’s capacities. Of course, anyone’s talent defines them, but it must help the person grow and bring betterment to

the world.

Uncle Shimmy taught that if we love others because they are chelek Eloka mima’al, a divine spark of G-d, then we need not judge their talents. This perspective also allows us to draw closer to each other and G-d, for as people we can look at the whole person to stir love, and towards G-d we can be thankful for creating us from the same man to have a natural bond, but for also imbuing within us individual talents that can change the world.

To go further, if one wanted to eradicate bad qualities, he can see in his common man what behavior he deems unwanting, a sure sign that he himself has it, and work to change it.

Steven Genack Dear Editor, Last night, not long after Shabbos ended, a dear, highly devoted friend of mine called me up around 3 a.m. for him to announce that he became a father and then spent the next half hour talking to me.

As a token of appreciation for all he’s done, I searched on Google with the help of their translation to see if I could ship a baby gift straight to his home and was in for a surprise: not one but three websites demanded that I pay for shipping.

I asked my friend in Jerusalem if this was normal, as it’s very easy to buy online and get free shipping or even in-store pickup from Target or even Walmart on a small order.

His response: “Welcome to Israel.”

It makes me wonder how Israelis do shopping. Like, seriously – they actually have time to go to the store?!

A Reader Dear Editor, The recent tragic death of Sol Zaltz should serve as a reminder that the motor vehicle insanity that has overtaken our community must be dealt with forthrightly. Illegal U-turns on Central Avenue, driving with one hand while holding a cell phone in the other, speeding, and going through stop signs and red lights have all become commonplace.

We must take a stand and put a stop to this insanity. Lives are at stake.

Pinches Kovitz Lawrence, NY

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.

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The Week In News

Operation Absolute Resolve

In an unprecedented move, the United States launched a surprise operation, capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and bringing him to New York, with U.S. President Donald Trump praising the raid on Saturday as one of “the most stunning, effective and powerful displays of American military might and competence in American history.”

The operation, codenamed “Absolute Resolve,” was exceptionally risky.

It ended with Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, arriving in the U.S., where the Venezuelan dictator pleaded not guilty to narco-terrorism charges at a courtroom in Brooklyn.

Trump, in a Saturday morning interview with “Fox & Friends Weekend,” described the raid. When U.S. forces infiltrated Maduro’s “highly guarded” and “heavily fortified military fortress in the heart of Caracas,” the Venezuelan president almost escaped to his safe room, but he was “unable to close it,” Trump said.

“It had what they call a safety space, where it’s solid steel all around,” Trump explained, noting that the forces had “massive blowtorches” in case they had to cut through steel walls. “He didn’t get that space closed. He was trying to get into it, but he got bum-rushed right so fast that he didn’t get into that. We were prepared.”

According to Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Dan Caine, U.S. forces prepared for the operation for months.

They learned all of Maduro’s habits.

“They actually built a house which was identical to the one they went into with all the same, all that steel all over the place,” Trump said, explaining how the forces trained in a replica building.

The operation was conducted in dark-

ness, according to Trump.

“The lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have,” Trump said. “It was dark, and it was deadly.”

The capture coincided with bombings.

Seven or more explosions were heard in Caracas. The attack, which was over in under 30 minutes, was part of a “massive joint military and law enforcement raid,” according to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. It is unclear how many Venezuelans died in the attack, though dozens were reported dead. According to Trump, some U.S. forces were injured, though none were seriously hurt or killed.

The U.S. views Maduro, 63, as an illegitimate dictator, with many countries and groups attributing his electoral victories to election rigging. The U.S. and other countries have accused Maduro of crimes related to narco-terrorism, with the Trump administration raising the reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest to $50 million.

In the days leading up to Maduro’s capture, Trump claims he urged the Venezuelan president to surrender, but Maduro refused.

Around 20 to 49 U.S. servicemembers took part in the operation, which began with Trump’s go-ahead at 10:46 p.m. EST Friday. At 1:01 a.m. EST Saturday, American forces arrived at Maduro’s compound and left the country at 3:29 a.m.

EST. Over 150 aircraft were launched from across the Western Hemisphere, including B-1 bombers, as well as F-18, F-22, and F-35 fighter jets.

After his capture, Trump posted a picture of Maduro blindfolded and wearing a gray sweatsuit and protective headphones, noting: “Nicolas Maduro on board the USS Iwo Jima.”

The operation took place following months of tension between the U.S. and Venezuela, which included U.S. military strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug boats.

Now, the U.S. will “run” the country until Venezuela is ready to select a new president, Trump said, adding: “We’re not afraid of boots on the ground if we have to.”

“We’re going to make sure that that country is run properly. We’re not doing this in vain,” Trump said. “This is a very dangerous attack. This is an attack that could have gone very, very badly.”

After Maduro’s capture, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez became acting president. Trump warned Rodriguez to do “what we want.” He also claimed that Maria Corina Macado, an opposition leader who won the Nobel Peace Prize, “doesn’t have the support within, or the

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respect within, the country.”

Many celebrated the U.S.’s move, while others condemned it. Still, other countries, particularly U.S. allies, were more vague about their thoughts, simply calling on all parties to abide by international law.

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Iran Protests Turn Deadly

With Iran’s economy in dire straits, Iranians took to the streets to protest the government’s failure to fix the economy.

More than a week later, protests are still ongoing.

In response, Iranians forces have resorted to violence. Human Rights Activists News Agency, a U.S.-based organization, reported at least 36 casualties and over 1,200 arrests. Among the deaths were 29 protesters, four kids, and two Iranian security officers.

On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to intervene. He wrote on social media that if Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go.” He didn’t specify further. However, the U.S.’s recent capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro adds weight to Trump’s threats.

Protests have swept the country, with demonstrators protesting in more than 250 locations across 27 of Iran’s 31 provinces. More than 1,200 people have been detained since the protests began.

Fars News, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated outlet, claimed that around 250 police officers and 45 members of the IRGC’s volunteer Basij force have been injured due to the protests.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s statement on Thursday contradicted Iran’s response to the mass demonstrations. Pezeshkian told reporters that the protesters’ demands are valid and that “if people are unhappy with us, we are the ones at fault.”

The protests began because of Iran’s economic crisis. However, demonstrators are also protesting against other issues and are calling for wider change.

UAE, Saudi Arabia Growing Apart The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia were once regional partners. Now, they’re becoming rivals, as the two Gulf Arab countries continue to develop competing economic and geopolitical interests.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin

Salman (MBS) and his former mentor, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, have, in kind, reportedly begun distancing themselves from each other.

According to Baraa Shiban, an expert on Yemen and Gulf states, Saudi officials are astonished by the UAE’s actions in Yemen and Sudan. Saudi Arabia believes that the UAE is fine with the division between the countries, going so far as to support disruptive forces in order to gain

influence. While the UAE and Saudi Arabia are both fighting the Houthis in Yemen, they back rival factions inside the same allied government.

Shiban also noted that Saudi Arabia doesn’t share, at least not to the same degree, the UAE’s “obsession” with combating the Muslim Brotherhood and political Islam.

“Seeing one country with huge influence, like the United Arab Emirates, crafting bilateral deals…suddenly having

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footholds in multiple countries with those non-state actors, it’s something they would be very concerned about,” Shiban added.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia’s rivalry in Yemen became apparent after the UAEbacked separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) forcibly took large areas of resource-rich Hadramawt and Mahra provinces from Saudi-backed loyalist forces. Last Tuesday, the Saudi-led military coalition, which the UAE is technically a part of, bombed a supposed weapons shipment from the Emirates intended for the separatists.

U.S. President Donald Trump, last November, vowed to end Sudan’s ongoing civil war after MBS asked him to get involved. The UAE has been accused of providing weapons to the Saudi-backed Sudanese army’s enemy, Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a charge that Abu Dhabi

denies.

The UAE has boosted ties with Somaliland, a mostly unrecognized country that declared independence from Somalia. Simultaneously, Saudi Arabia has become a supporter of Somalia.

In 2020, the UAE established relations with Israel, which recently became the first country to recognize Somaliland.

Saudi Arabia and 20 other countries criticized Israel’s move, but the UAE did not.

Israel has long hoped for Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords.

Swiss Ski Resort Fire

A horrific fire at a ski resort in Switzerland killed at least 40 people and injured another 115, officials said on Thursday, with President Guy Parmelin calling the incident “one of the worst tragedies that

our country has experienced.”

Many of the victims were teenagers and young adults. They had been partying at a New Year’s celebration in the Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, a popular ski town in the Valais region, where 16 years old is the legal drinking age. Half of the 40 victims were 18 years old or younger.

The fire was caused by sparklers on Champagne bottles, according to investigators. Officials have ruled out terrorism as a cause. Initially, many partygoers ignored the flames or videoed them. Then, when the fire grew more violent and the ceiling collapsed, they began screaming and attempting to flee. Survivors describe the scene as chaotic. One woman said there were “about 200 people trying to get out within 30 seconds through some very narrow steps.” Many of those who died passed away from smoke inhalation.

Many of the injuries were serious. According to Dr. Robert Larribau, the chief physician at Geneva University Hospitals’ emergency department, many injuries were caused by “backdraft” and “flashover,” two deadly phenomena. Backdraft, which happens when new air comes in contact with fire that has run out of oxygen, can cause “immediate fatal injuries, including severe blast trauma, extensive thermal damage, and lethal inhalation of toxic gases,” Larribau said, “and is therefore more commonly observed among non-survivors rather than among rescued victims.”

Flashover refers to the near-simultaneous ignition of all flammable materials within an enclosed space. That leads to “severe, often deep, burns predominantly affecting exposed body areas such as the face, neck, and upper limbs, and is frequently associated with critical inhalation injury due to intense radiant heat and superheated gases,” he said. Survivors, he added, will require weeks or months of rehabilitation, “and many will suffer lifelong consequences.”

“I feel like it’s actually a nightmare, that I’m going to wake up,” Nathan Huguenin, one of the survivors, told the press on Thursday. “I closed my eyes, and everything kept coming back to me, because I saw people being resuscitated. I saw people completely burned. I saw people dying. Honestly, it was quite complicated and quite difficult to stomach.”

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said the EU would assist with medical care, while Swiss officials said Friday that 50 injured patients have been transferred to burn centers outside the country.

The fire started at around 1:30 a.m. local time, and over 100 people were in the building at the time.

Charlotte Niddam, 15, was an Israeli girl who was killed in the tragic event. She also had British and French citizenship.

“Charlotte was a student at Immanuel College, and her family has now moved back to France,” her school said. “The families have asked that we all keep them in our thoughts and prayers during this extremely difficult time.”

Swiss Jewish sisters Alicia and Diana Gunst, 15 and 14, also died in the fire.

They were from an Italian-Jewish family and lived in the Jewish community of Lausanne, Switzerland.

The resort had not undergone a fire inspection since 2020.

Cyberbullying France’s First Lady

Ten people who falsely claimed that Brigitte Macron, France’s first lady, was born male were found guilty on Monday of online harassment.

The eight men and two women — three of whom were tried in absentia — were given a range of sentences. One received a six-month jail sentence. Other punishments stretched from mandatory online harassment awareness training to an eight-month suspended jail sentence.

The court also fined each 600 euros and ordered them to contribute to a total of 10,000 euros — about $12,000 — in compensation to Macron.

Five of those convicted were also barred from using the social media platform involved in the case, X, for six months.

They were tried after posting messages and photos on social media that wrongly suggested that Macron — the wife of President Emmanuel Macron of France — was born a boy called Jean-Michel Trogneux, the name of her older brother. The seven defendants tried in person denied wrongdoing, variously saying their posts were either meant in jest or constituted legitimate debate. Only one apologized.

Emmanuel Macron has cited the case to amplify a broader campaign against misinformation, which includes a contentious proposal to issue certifications that differentiate professional news networks from other websites.

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The Macrons have often been the subject of such misinformation since Macron successfully ran for president in 2017, in part because of their 24-year age gap. Brigitte Macron, 72, met her husband when he was 15 and she was his 39-year-old drama teacher. At the time, she was married with three children.

The 10 people convicted at the Paris trial were aged 41 to 65, according to evidence read out in court during the trial.

Three of the defendants had been identified by prosecutors as the main instigators because of their large social media followings. Delphine Jégousse, 51, who was also sued for slander by Brigitte Macron and her brother in a separate case, received a six-month suspended sentence, as did Bertrand Scholler, 56, the owner of an art gallery in Paris.

Aurélien Poirson-Atlan, 41, a former publicist turned novelist who had tens of thousands of followers before his account was disabled, was given an eight-month suspended sentence. All three were also ordered to undergo online harassment awareness training and were barred from using X for six months.

Macron did not appear during the trial. (© The New York Times)

Ireland’s Oldest Man Dies

Josef Veselsky, who was Ireland’s oldest man, died this week at the age of 107.

Veselsky was a Holocaust survivor and a twice national table tennis captain.

He was born Josef Weiss in 1918 in Trnava, a city in present-day Slovakia.

He immigrated with his wife, Katarina, to Dublin, Ireland, in 1949, following the communist coup d’état in his home country. His parents, brother, and sister-inlaw had been killed in the Holocaust after being deported to the Auschwitz death camp.

After watching his loved ones being forced into a cattle car, Veselsky escaped the same fate by changing his last name and joining the Czech resistance movement in the Carpathian Mountains. He

was later awarded the Order of the Slovak National Uprising for his part in the resistance.

In Ireland, despite speaking little English, Veselsky made a living as an importer of Swiss watches and other jewelry.

On the side, he made a name for himself as the captain of Ireland’s national table tennis team, a role he reprised from his time serving as the captain of the Czechoslovakian national team.

His achievements in table tennis were recognized by the Slovak Republic, which in 2021 awarded him the Order of the White Double Cross for his services to sport. In 2025, he was the recipient of the European Table Tennis Union (ETTU) Badge of Honor for his outstanding contribution to European table tennis.

Veselsky was awarded an honorary degree at Trinity College in 2016. He began taking humanities classes at the prestigious university in 2010, resuming his education at the age of 93 for the first time since the outbreak of World War II.

Deadly Raid on Nigerian Village

At least 30 people were killed and others were abducted when a group of armed gunmen raided Kasuwan-Daji village in Nigeria’s northern Niger state on Saturday evening. The attackers opened fire on residents, burned down the local market, and destroyed several houses.

No specific group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but local law enforcement say it was a group of bandits who arrived from the National Park Forest along the Kabe district—an area known for sheltering gangs.

Attacks such as the one that happened over the weekend are common in Africa’s most populous country where rogue gangs looking for control often target remote communities that have limited security and government presence. In November, hundreds of children and a dozen teachers were abducted from a school in the Papiri community of Niger state.

Nigeria’s Christian communities, in particular, have cited a pattern of persecution, which have been underscored in the

United States by President Donald Trump speaking out about the safety of Christians in the country. Last week, Trump ordered a strike against the Islamic State (ISIS) group in northwestern Nigeria who he said was “targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians.”

“Over 30 victims lost their lives during the attack, and some persons were also kidnapped. Efforts are ongoing to rescue the kidnapped victims,” Niger state police spokesperson Wasiu Abiodun said.

Spokesman for the Catholic Church of Kontagora Diocese where the attack happened, Reverend Father Stephen Kabirat, told local media that more than 40 people were killed and that children were abducted.

The attack lasted for at least three hours. Survivors were fearful to retrieve the bodies of the victims due to the lack of security.

Arrests for Damage to Undersea Cable

Finnish authorities have arrested two members of a cargo ship’s crew in connection with damage to an undersea telecommunications cable in the Gulf of Finland that occurred last week between the capitals of Finland and Estonia. Two other crew members were placed under a travel ban due to the ongoing investigation.

The damage was discovered early Wednesday in Estonia’s exclusive economic zone. The cable belongs to Finnish telecommunications service provider Elisa and is considered to be critical underwater infrastructure.

Helsinki police have opened an investigation into aggravated criminal damage, attempted aggravated criminal damage and aggravated interference with telecommunications.

The ship, named the Fitburg, was flagged in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

It had been traveling from Russia to Israel. The 14 crew members hail from Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan and were detained by Finnish authorities.

Finnish National Police Commissioner Ilkka Koskimäki said that the ship was

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damaged cables were outside Finland’s territorial waters.

The Kremlin previously denied involvement in damaging the infrastructure, which provides power and communication for thousands of Europeans.

The Eagle S was flagged in the Cook Islands but had been described by Finnish customs officials and the European Union’s executive commission as part of Russia’s shadow fleet of fuel tankers.

Those are aging vessels with obscure ownership, acquired to evade Western sanctions during the war in Ukraine and operating without Western-regulated insurance.

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Anne Frank’s Stepsister Dies

dragging its anchor for hours when it was discovered in Finland’s exclusive economic zone.

Finnish Customs discovered structural steel in the cargo that originated in Russia and falls under sanctions imposed by the European Union, the agency said in a statement.

“Import of such sanctioned goods into the EU is prohibited under EU sanctions regulations,” the statement said. “Finnish Customs continues to investigate the se-

quence of events and the applicability of EU sanctions legislation to this case.”

The undersea cables and pipelines crisscross one of the busiest shipping lanes in Europe, linking Nordic, Baltic and central European countries. They promote trade and energy security and, in some cases, reduce dependence on Russian energy resources.

Finnish authorities last year charged the captain and two senior officers of a Russia-linked vessel, the Eagle S,

that damaged undersea cables between Finland and Estonia in December 2024.

The Finnish deputy prosecutor general said in an August statement that charges of aggravated criminal mischief and aggravated interference with communications were filed against the captain and first and second officers of the oil tanker. The officers, whose names were not made public, denied the allegations, the statement said. A Finnish court in October dismissed the charges because the

Eva Schloss, a survivor of the Holocaust who became Anne Frank’s stepsister, died this week at the age of 96.

“Eva was a remarkable woman: an Auschwitz survivor, a devoted Holocaust educator, tireless in her work for remembrance, understanding and peace,” the Anne Frank Trust UK, which Schloss co-founded, said.

Eva was born in 1929 in Vienna, Austria, a month before Anne Frank. Her family fled to Amsterdam, the Netherlands to escape the Nazi regime. Anne’s and Eva’s families met in Amsterdam, and the two girls would sometimes play together, though Eva recalled that they were not particularly close.

“I was a tomboy, and she was so much more sophisticated,” Eva told the Guardian in 2013. “We simply didn’t have the same interests.”

Eva’s family went into hiding in 1942 on the same day as the Franks, and they remained concealed for two years until 1944, when someone betrayed them, and they were sent to the Auschwitz death camp.

Eva’s father, Erich Geiringer, and her older brother, Heinz, were both murdered in Auschwitz. Eva and her mother, Fritzi, both survived.

After the war, Fritzi became reacquainted with Otto Frank, Anne’s father, who had lost his wife and two daughters

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Fireworks and Fire in the Netherlands

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in the Holocaust, and they married, making Eva the posthumous stepsister of her old friend.

Eva settled in London where she met her husband, Zvi Schloss, and had three daughters, Jacky, Caroline and Sylvia.

It was only in 1988, after an exhibition dedicated to Anne Frank opened in London, that she began speaking publicly about the trauma she went through at Auschwitz.

“I was far from politics, but I realized

that the world had not learned any lessons from the events of 1939 to 1945, that wars continued, that persecution, racism, intolerance still existed,” Eva said, according to the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam. “And then I began to share my experience, to call for changes in the world.”

From then on, Eva dedicated her life to educating the world about the horrors of the Holocaust. She spoke in schools and universities, wrote three books –

“Eva’s Story,” “After Auschwitz” and “The Promise” – and co-founded the Anne Frank Trust UK in 1991, which specifically aimed to educate children aged 9 to 15 about the dangers of antisemitism and other forms of prejudice.

‌Two people died in the Netherlands in fireworks accidents during the celebration of the New Year. In a separate incident, a fire largely destroyed a 19th-century church in Amsterdam during the holiday.

The blaze broke out in the early hours of Thursday at the Neo-Gothic Vondelkerk, a tourist attraction that has overlooked the capital city’s central Vondelpark since 1872. The 50-meter-high (164-foot) tower collapsed, and the roof was badly damaged, but the structure was expected to remain intact. There were no injuries due to the fire, although some buildings were evacuated and around 90 households were left without power.

“It is a very intense and terrible fire in this monumental church,” said Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema. “Our first concern and priority now is the wellbeing and homes of the immediate residents.”

The Vondel Church was used as a Roman Catholic church until 1977. Most recently, it was used for other purposes and special occasions such as concerts. In 1904, a fire destroyed the church’s original tower.

Separately, the head of the Dutch Police Union, Nine Kooiman, reported an “unprecedented amount of violence against police and emergency services” across the country over New Year’s Eve, when some 250 people were arrested, and in several towns, riot police were deployed.

Kooiman said she had been pelted three times by fireworks and other explosives as she worked a shift in Amsterdam.

In the southern city of Breda, people threw petrol bombs at police.

A 38-year-old man in Aalsmeer, close to Amsterdam, was killed in a fireworks accident. In another fireworks accident, a 17-year-old boy from Nijmegen, a town in the east of the country, lost his life. Three people were injured.

The eye hospital in Rotterdam said it had treated 14 patients, including 10 minors, for eye injuries. Two underwent surgery.

New Year’s Eve 2025 marked the last

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year before a nationwide ban on the sale of fireworks to consumers will come into effect. According to the Dutch Pyrotechnics Association, revelers splashed out a record 129 million euros ($151m) on fireworks.

Some areas had been designated firework-free zones, but this appeared to have little effect, as some neighborhoods were hearing fireworks until 3 a.m.

Similar scenes of violence were reported in other European countries. In Belgium, for instance, police made scores of arrests as officers in Brussels and Antwerp were targeted with fireworks, with a New Year’s ban on their use failing to prevent chaotic scenes in both cities.

Police used tear gas and arrested more than 100 people in the port city of Antwerp, where minors as young as 10 and 11 targeted officers and emergency services with fireworks and stones, setting fire to bikes, cars and garbage cans. Authorities confiscated a number of “very dangerous” professional-grade fireworks.

Likewise, in the Belgian capital, Brussels, police said they were “repeatedly” targeted with fireworks, making some 70 arrests overnight.

Kim’s Daughter is Potential Heir

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s daughter visited a sacred space in North Korea on New Year’s Day, bolstering her position in the ruling family.

Kim Ju Ae is around 13 years old.

North Korea’s state media showed the teen standing in the front row with her parents and deeply bowing at Pyongyang’s Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in Pyongyang, where the embalmed bodies of her late grandfather and great-grandfather are on display.

The palace is “a place that symbolizes legitimacy of the North Korean regime” and her visit there ahead of the Workers’ Party congress is a politically orchestrated move, noted Cheong Seong-Chang, deputy head of the private Sejong Institute in South Korea.

Kim Jong Un, 41, is the third generation of his family to rule North Korea since the country’s foundation in 1948.

He often marks key state anniversaries by visiting the Kumsusan palace and paying respect to his father Kim Jong Il and grandfather Kim Il Sung.

North Korea will be holding the Workers’ Party Congress in January or February. The congress hasn’t met for the past five years and is meant to establish new priorities in state policies and reshuffle officials. It’s possible that Kim Jong Un is considering giving Kim Ju Ae a job at the congress, despite her youth.

Since first appearing in state media in November 2022, Kim Ju Ae has accompanied her father at a slew of events including military parades and missile launches. In September, Kim Jong Un brought her on his trip to Beijing. During New Years’ Day celebrations this week, she kissed her father on the cheek, showing their closeness.

Earthquake Rattles Mexico

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On Friday morning, around 8 a.m., a strong earthquake rattled southern and central Mexico, interrupting President Claudia Sheinbaum ’s first press briefing of the new year as seismic alarms sounded and leaving at least two people dead.

The earthquake had a magnitude of 6.5. Its epicenter was near the town of San Marcos in the southern state of Guerrero near the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco, according to Mexico ’s national seismological agency. There were more than 500 aftershocks.

Various landslides were also reported.

Guerrero Gov. Evelyn Salgado said that a 50-year-old woman living in a small community near the epicenter died when her home collapsed. Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada said that one person died after suffering an apparent medical emergency followed by a fall while evacuating a building.

Segev Kalfon’s Testimony

On October 13, 2025, at the beginning of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire, Segev Kalfon was freed along with the final 19 living hostages. During his two years as a hostage in Gaza, Kalfon often dreamed of walking freely around a supermarket.

Now that he’s home, however, he frequently dreams of waking up in captivity again.

Hamas held Kalfon with five other hostages in a two-square-meter room inside a terror tunnel. To divert their attention away from their unbearable hunger and pain, they counted the floor’s tiles and cracks.

“I was in the lowest place a person can be before death – the lowest. I had no control over anything, when to eat, when to shower, how much I want to eat,” said Kalfon, noting the constant physical torture they endured.

At certain points, Kalfon was so emaciated that he could count each of his individual vertebrae. Kalfon recounts trying to please the terrorists in order to receive more food or avoid a beating. Now, he said, “everyone is trying to please me.”

Kalfon, now back home in the southern city of Dimona, is grappling with life, frequently visiting doctors and psychologists.

Before October 7, Kalfon, 27, was employed in Arad at his family’s bakery. He was studying finance and investments at the time. During the Hamas-led October 7 massacre, Kalfon was at the Nova music festival. When the attack began, he and his friend attempted to save others.

In Gaza, every moment “felt like an eternity,” Kalfon recalled, noting how their tiny once-a-day meals were the only thing that varied their painfully monotonous routine.

Kalfon thought he would die at several points of his captivity, including when the Israeli military would launch strikes, when he became sick but was not treated,

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and when he was starved and beaten. According to Kalfon, the terrorists whipped him and others with bicycle chains and punched them while wearing sharp rings.

“We didn’t even have energy to yell out, because no one hears you,” he said.

“You’re in a tunnel 30 meters underground; no one knows what’s going on.”

During the last three months of his captivity, which were the worst, he was isolated and felt close to going crazy.

During his captivity, both Kalfon and his family turned to G-d. Kalfon and the five hostages in his tunnel would mark the beginning of Shabbos and Jewish holidays, putting a piece of toilet paper (the six of them were given one roll to last two months) on their heads as yarmulkes, and reciting prayers before drinking the tiny bit of water they had and eating their moldy pita. Meanwhile, Kalfon’s family purchased Jewish books and ritual objects and received blessings from top rabbis.

In an effort to convert them to Islam, the terrorists left the hostages a radio that played recordings of the Koran.

Sometimes, the hostages were able to capture signals from Israeli news. At his most desperate point, when Kalfon was mulling a last-ditch escape attempt, he turned the radio on and suddenly heard his mother’s voice, talking on Israeli radio. To him, that felt like a message from G-d, urging him to stay strong for a little longer.

Kalfon has called U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration led peace talks, a “messenger from G-d” and the only person capable of stopping the war.

“Everyone wants to support me and say, ‘You’re such a hero,’” Kalfon said. “I don’t feel like a hero. Every person would want to survive.

“Although the war in Gaza is over, now my war is starting with my soul, to try to deal with thoughts that are very difficult,” he said, noting his traumatic nighttime flashbacks. “But every night when I’m alone, it comes up.”

On October 7, 2023, Hamas and other terror groups murdered 1,200 people and abducted 251 others. The remains of one abductee, Ran Gvili, are still being held in Gaza.

Sa’ar Visits Somaliland This week, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar visited Somaliland for the first official visit since Israel recognized the breakaway nation last month. While

there, Sa’ar met with Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi and other top officials.

“A delegation led by the Israel Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar landed at the Hargeisa town, he was received at the airport by senior government officials. He had meetings with the Somaliland top officials,” the presidency said in a statement.

Sa’ar’s office confirmed that the foreign minister would be meeting with Somaliland’s Foreign Minister Abdirahman Dahir Adam, Presidential Affairs Minister Hader Hussein Abdi, and Chief of Staff Nimsan Yusuf Osman.

“Unlike ‘Palestine,’ Somaliland is not a virtual state,” Sa’ar said alongside Abdullahi, in remarks released by the Foreign Ministry. “It’s a functioning state. Somaliland is a fully functioning country based on the principles of international law.”

He added, “Somaliland is, and has been, a stable democracy for nearly 35 years. It has democratic elections, most recently in November 2024, and peaceful transitions of power. It’s pro-Western and friendly to Israel.”

In late December, Israel became the first country to recognize the Republic of Somaliland as an independent state, more than three decades after the African region broke away from Somalia.

Abdullahi, in a statement on Sa’ar’s visit, said he had expressed his “deep appreciation to the Government of Israel for its historic and courageous decision” to recognize Somaliland.

“This milestone reflects a relationship founded on mutual respect and shared interests, aimed at cooperation and stability without prejudice to any party,” he said, stressing that Somaliland was a “reliable and responsible partner,” ready to advance “regional and international peace, security, and constructive engagement.”

As part of the December 26 agreement formalizing Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, both countries agreed to open embassies in the other and to appoint ambassadors.

When signing the deal last month, Abdullahi said Somaliland would join the Abraham Accords, a deal brokered by the Trump administration in 2020 that saw the United Arab Emirates — a close partner of Somaliland — and Bahrain establish ties with Israel.

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Israel’s recognition of the breakaway state sparked criticism from Somalia, which has long opposed Somaliland’s bid to secede, as well as from the African Union and the Arab League, which both said it “undermines” the territorial integrity of Somalia. The EU also criticized the move, and the United States said that it continued to recognize the territorial integrity of Somalia, “which includes the territory of Somaliland.”

Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991 and has for decades pushed for international recognition. A self-proclaimed republic, it enjoys a strategic position on the Gulf of Aden and has its own money, passports and army. But it has been diplomatically isolated since its unilateral declaration of independence.

Iranian Plot Foiled

This week, the Shin Bet and Israel Police said that they had arrested a resident of Rishon LeZion suspected of carrying out surveillance missions under the direction of Iranian intelligence, including photographing near the home of former prime minister Naftali Bennett.

According to a joint statement, the suspect – identified as 30-year-old Lekacho Demsash, who was arrested last month – had been in contact with Iranian handlers in recent months and was asked to carry out a series of tasks in exchange for money. The assignments began as simple missions but then escalated to

photographing locations in his home city and elsewhere, including near Bennett’s residence.

Security officials assessed that the activity was part of Iranian intelligence-gathering efforts aimed at facilitating an attack on the former prime minister, noting similarities to a separate case made public last month involving another suspect accused of spying near Bennett’s home.

The Shin Bet and police have warned Israelis against maintaining contact with hostile foreign actors, including through social media. Over the past two years, dozens of Israelis have been charged with espionage on behalf of Iran. In many of the cases, Iranian agents recruited Israelis via social media, specifically the Telegram messaging app.

On Saturday, an Iran-linked hacking group claimed to have broken into former minister Ayelet Shaked’s mobile phone, sharing about 60 pictures and videos supposedly stolen from her device. A day later, thousands of Israelis received threatening text messages containing their personal information, in what appears to be an attempt at psychological warfare by Iranian agents.

“This is your last chance to save yourself and your family. Our shagriruyot [embassies] are open to you. We know you,” the English-language message read.

Some recipients received a link to a page containing their personal information, including their national ID number.

The National Cyber Directorate called the texts an “attempt at intimidation and social engineering with the goal of creating psychological pressure.”

Judge Convicted of Helping Immigrant

from the Wisconsin constitution,” Wisconsin assembly speaker Robin Vos said.

Democrat Ann Jacobs, the chair of the Wisconsin elections commission board, said she agreed with Dugan that Milwaukee should have a permanent judge while her defense team appeals her conviction.

“Despite her situation, she is ever the champion of justice, wanting to remove the judiciary from a political battle over her fate,” Jacobs wrote on X. “I’m sure this is terribly hard for her, but she is true to her faith and her principles.”

Flu Numbers Surge Judge Hannah Dugan resigned her post this week after she was convicted of obstruction for helping an immigrant evade federal officers.

She was convicted on December 19 and faced calls to resign from state Republicans, who threatened to impeach her if she did not.

Dugan, who served nine years as a Milwaukee county circuit court judge, received national attention when immigration authorities tried to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, who is undocumented, attending a hearing in her courtroom in April. The judge confronted FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents waiting outside the room to arrest Flores-Ruiz and directed them to the chief judge’s office, according to an indictment.

While the agents were gone, Dugan told Flores-Ruiz’s attorney that his client could attend his next hearing via Zoom and led them through a private jury door.

Agents spotted Flores-Ruiz and arrested him after a foot chase. He was later sentenced to time served for illegally re-entering the United States and deported.

“As you know, I am the subject of unprecedented federal legal proceedings, which are far from concluded but which present immense and complex challenges that threaten the independence of our judiciary,” Dugan wrote in a letter sent on Saturday to Tony Evers, the Democratic governor. “I am pursuing this fight for myself and for our independent judiciary. However, the Wisconsin citizens that I cherish deserve to start the year with a judge on the bench in Milwaukee county branch 31 rather than have the fate of that court rest in a partisan fight in the state legislature.”

“I’m glad Dugan did the right thing by resigning and followed the clear direction

According to government data posted on Monday which tracked flu activity through the week of December 25, the flu season numbers are already surpassing the flu epidemic of last year, which was one of the harshest in recent history. It is likely that the season is only going to get worse.

Forty-five states were reporting high or very high flu activity during the week of December 25, up from 30 states the week before.

The higher numbers appear to be driven by the type of flu that’s been spreading, public health experts say.

One type of flu virus, called A H3N2, historically has caused the most hospitalizations and deaths in older people.

That’s the type most frequently reported this season. Even more concerning is that more than 90% of the H3N2 infections analyzed were a new version — known as the subclade K variant — that differs from the strain in this year’s flu shots.

Flu seasons often don’t peak until January or February, so it’s too early to know how big a problem that mismatch between the vaccine and the virus will be.

“The fact that we’ve seen steady increases over the last several weeks without much of a decline or even a flattening would suggest to me that we’ve got the peak ahead of us,” said Dr. Robert Hopkins, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.

Last flu season was bad, with the overall flu hospitalization rate the highest since the H1N1 flu pandemic 15 years ago. Child flu deaths reached 288, the worst recorded for regular U.S. flu season.

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front of the artificial intelligence boom by making semiconductors more powerful than any of his rivals’. This year, he’s promising to do it again.

On Monday, Huang said the company would begin shipping a new AI chip later this year that can do more computing with less power than previous generations of chips could. Known as the Vera Rubin, the chip has been in development for three years and is designed to fulfill AI requests more quickly and cheaply than its predecessors.

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Nine pediatric flu deaths have been reported so far this season. For children, the percentage of emergency department visits due to flu has already surpassed the highest mark seen during the 2024-2025 season.

Flu strain H3N2 typically hits older adults hardest.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates at least 11 million illnesses, 120,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths from flu have already

occurred this season.

Public health experts recommend that everyone 6 months and older get an annual influenza vaccine. But federal health officials on Monday announced they will no longer recommend flu vaccinations for U.S. children, saying it’s a decision parents and patients should make in consultation with their doctors. Still, the flu vaccine will be fully covered by private insurers and federal programs.

COVID-19 infections also have been

rising, other federal data show, though so far this winter they remain less common than flu. The Trump administration stopped recommending COVID-19 shots for healthy children last year.

Nvidia’s Vision Jensen Huang, CEO of chipmaking giant Nvidia, put his company at the fore-

Huang, who spoke during CES, an annual tech conference in Las Vegas, also discussed Nvidia’s surprisingly ambitious work around autonomous vehicles. This year, Mercedes-Benz will begin shipping cars equipped with Nvidia self-driving technology comparable to Tesla’s Autopilot.

Nvidia’s new Rubin chips are being manufactured and will be shipped to customers, including Microsoft and Amazon, in the second half of the year, fulfilling a promise Huang made last March when he first described the chip at the company’s annual conference in San Jose, California.

Companies will be able to train AI models with one-quarter as many Rubin chips as its predecessor, the Blackwell. It can provide information for chatbots and other AI products for one-tenth of the cost. They will also be able to install the chips in data centers more quickly, courtesy of redesigned supercomputers that feature fewer cables.

If the new chips live up to their promise, they could allow companies to develop AI at a lower cost and at least begin to respond to the soaring electrical demands of data centers being built around the world.

The new chips, named for astronomer Vera Rubin, who did groundbreaking research on dark matter, are key to maintaining Nvidia’s dominance of the AI industry and its perch as the world’s most valuable company. Nvidia’s AI chips, which account for more than 90% of the market, are highly coveted by businesses and governments around the world. It sells them for about $30,000 each, with nearly three-quarters of that being pure profit.

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But the company is facing increased competition from chipmakers and even some customers who are eager to seize a slice of the lucrative AI industry. (© The New York Times)

Walz Won’t Re-Run

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz abandoned his bid for reelection on Monday amid an ongoing welfare-fraud scandal that placed his state under intensified scrutiny by federal authorities.

Walz, who was the running mate of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in 2024, had been vying for a third term as Minnesota governor.

“I can’t give a political campaign my all,” Walz told the press in St. Paul, his state’s capital. “Every minute that I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who want to prey on our differences.”

Walz, 61, made the decision over the weekend. Though he’s not suspected of overt involvement in the Somali childcare scandal, the Trump administration and the Republican Party have accused Walz of wrongdoing.

“For the last several years, an organized group of criminals have sought to take advantage of this state’s generosity,” Walz said. “And even as we make progress

in the fight against the fraudsters, we now see an organized group of political actors seeking to take advantage of a crisis.”

The Trump administration has ordered Minnesota officials to provide information about providers and parents who receive federal childcare funds by January 9, most of them from the Somali community. The investigation into stolen government funds was initially launched by the Biden administration.

Walz accused President Donald Trump of exploiting the crisis for his own political gain. He said a federal investigation was welcomed, as his state’s residents must feel confident in Minnesota’s social safety net programs.

“A single taxpayer dollar wasted on fraud is a dollar too much to tolerate,” Walz said on Monday. “And while there’s a role to play for everyone – from the legislature to prosecutors to insurance companies to local and county government – the buck does stop with me.”

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who secured her fourth term in 2024, met with Walz on Sunday to discuss the prospect of her running for governor, according to two officials with knowledge of the matter. She is reportedly “seriously considering it.”

The extent of the losses from the fraud cases being prosecuted by federal authorities in Minnesota isn’t certain. Prosecutors have put the losses from one case known as Feeding Our Future at $300 million alone. Prosecutor Joe Thompson estimated the total from all cases could exceed $1 billion.

Hegseth Censures Sen. Kelly Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, formally censured Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ar-

izona, for telling soldiers in a video that they “can refuse illegal orders,” Hegseth announced on X. Previously, Hegseth threatened to court-martial Kelly, a retired Navy captain. Instead, Hegseth issued a formal censure to the senator and moved to demote him in retirement. If the demotion proceedings are successful, Kelly would get paid less from his military pension.

Successfully firing Kelly post-retirement would be complicated, as the law mandates that demotions be based on how a soldier acted while on duty. Navy Secretary John Phelan, as per federal law and Navy regulations, has the power to decide the ranks of officers below vice admiral. Typically, an administrative board would look into a case and recommend a course of action to Phelan. Post-retirement demotions are uncommon.

In his announcement, Hegseth referred to the senator as “Captain (for now) Kelly.”

In response, Kelly criticized the defense secretary.

“If Pete Hegseth, the most unqualified Secretary of Defense in our country’s history, thinks he can intimidate me with a censure or threats to demote me or prosecute me, he still doesn’t get it,” Kelly wrote on X. “I will fight this with everything I’ve got – not for myself, but to send a message back that Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump don’t get to decide what Americans in this country get to say about their government.”

According to Gen Fidell, a former Coast Guard lawyer and military law professor at Yale Law School, Hegseth’s case for demoting Kelly “is dead on arrival” and “ludicrous.”

Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate minority leader, labeled Hegseth’s move “a despicable act of political retribution.”

Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia professor and political analyst, claimed that Hegseth’s move could make Kelly more popular, allowing him to potentially “ride this horse right into the White House, courtesy of Trump’s unquenchable thirst for retribution.”

2,000+ Measles Cases in 2025

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States saw over 2,065 confirmed measles cases in 2025.

The U.S. risks losing its measles elimination status, which it achieved in 2000, as the country sees its highest number of cases in decades. Dozens of more cases are reported each week in upstate South Carolina and along the Arizona and Utah borders. The year 1992, which was a few years after officials began recommending two vaccines instead of one, was the last time the U.S. saw over 2,000 cases in one year.

The measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine is highly effective at preventing measles infection. According to the CDC, one dose is 93% effective, while two are 97% effective. In order to stop outbreaks, at least 95% of incoming kindergarteners must be vaccinated. However, only 92.5% were immunized before the 2024-25 school year, according to the CDC. In mid-August, a measles outbreak in West Texas that began in late January officially ended. Texas and New Mexico saw hundreds of related cases, while three unvaccinated individuals, two children and an adult, passed away.

In October, South Carolina officials confirmed a measles outbreak. Since then, the state has seen 180 related cases.

Since Friday, twenty or more cases have been reported, with 300 individuals in quarantine.

In 2025, Utah and Arizona saw 350 confirmed cases. An outbreak on their border is ongoing.

Canada’s measles elimination status, in November, was revoked by the Pan American Health Organization, which is part of the World Health Organization, due to major outbreaks.

Does America Still Love Pizza?

In 2024, pizza chains made around $31 billion in revenue, according to Technomic, a research firm. The Agriculture

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Department reports that, each day, one in 10 Americans, mostly younger ones, eats a slice of pizza. But pizza, while still a beloved food, isn’t as popular as it once was.

For years, pizza sales have been trailing behind other fast-food options, and the trend is continuing. There are now fewer pizza shops than coffee shops and Mexican food eateries, data shows.

A number of companies have filed for bankruptcy recently, including the parent of Pieology Pizzeria, as well as the parent of Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza & Wings and Bertucci’s Brick Oven Pizza & Pasta.

Many Americans feel that $20 for a pie is too expensive, especially compared with cheaper fast-food options and homecooked meals. Nowadays, pizza franchises are competitively lowering their prices.

Many companies are considering major business changes, and other chains have been shuttering locations to save money.

In the 1990s, pizza chains had the second-highest sales among all restaurant chains. In 2024, pizza sales ranked at number six, according to Technomic.

The number of U.S. pizza restaurants peaked in 2019 and has been dropping ever since, according to Datassential, a market-research firm.

To handle lower sales, Domino’s has introduced lower prices, leading to sales growth. Meanwhile, officials at Papa John’s are considering selling the chain.

Other pizza stores, in an effort to boost sales, have been offering more options beyond regular pizza pies.

New Laws for 2026

Several laws have recently gone into effect, marking the beginning of the new year.

In Indiana, facilities that host bingo or casino game nights can now only operate up to three nights a week. The law was enacted after the Indiana Gaming Commission seized over $100,000 from a local Elks lodge after accusing it of engaging in racketeering in connection with its charity casino.

On the first day of 2026, Florida started an online registry with the names of individuals who have been convicted of animal cruelty charges. The database, which is similar to ones in Delaware and Tennessee, exists so that animal sellers know they aren’t giving a pet to an abuser.

Meanwhile, Tennessee opened a registry for domestic violence offenders who have received a repeat conviction since January 1. The public database, which will include the individuals’ names, dates of birth, conviction dates, counties of conviction, and photos, is the United States’ first.

Hawaii now charges an 11% “Green Fee” for tourists staying in hotels, shortterm rentals, or cruise ships. The additional fee, which was increased by 0.75%, is intended to fund Hawaii climate research and is expected to bring in $100 million annually.

California’s plastic bag ban has just

gotten stricter, with all plastic bags being banned.

Those younger than sixteen years old will only be allowed to use social media for one hour a day in Virginia, unless a parent or guardian permits more screen time. Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed the law, and social media companies are responsible for ensuring its implementation. It’s the first law limiting children’s social media use in the U.S. In Texas, children below the age of 18 will require parental consent to download mobile apps.

On January 1, Texas enacted the Responsible Artificial Intelligence Governance Act, banning individuals from creating or releasing AI that “intentionally aims” to promote self-harm or criminal activity. The act also bans the government from tracking people’s “biometric data” with AI and establishes a government council to influence Texas’s regulation and use of artificial intelligence.

In Wyoming, legal residents who are non-citizens will be required to have the words “not U.S. citizen” written on their driver’s license or ID card. The law, which is likely the first of its kind in the U.S., doesn’t apply to those who already have a license.

In Washington, “isolated employees” (those who work alone) will now need to carry a panic button while working.

Lastly, Maryland will require cosmetologists, including licensed hairdressers, nail technicians, and barbers, to complete one-hour domestic violence awareness training in order to renew their licenses.

The law reflects the idea that stylists are often among the first to notice bruises and other signs of abuse. Other states, including New York, Illinois, Arkansas, and Tennessee, have similar laws.

Rep. LaMalfa Dies

On Tuesday, California Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa died at the age of 65.

LaMalfa’s death tightens the razor-thin House majority and could imperil Speaker Mike Johnson’s grip on the House. The House stood at 219 Republicans and 213 Democrats after Rep.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., resigned on Monday. LaMalfa’s death brings the House to 218 Republicans.

Democrats are favored to pick up additional seats from special elections in the coming months. Two Democrats are in a runoff in Texas at the end of the month.

The election to replace now-New Jersey Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill will take place later this year.

LaMalfa represented California’s 1st Congressional District since 2013. He chaired the Congressional Western Caucus.

LaMalfa was a key player on California water issues and served on the House Natural Resources and Agriculture Committees. He also served on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. He was a rice farmer by trade.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump lauded the congressman.

“He was a fantastic person,” Trump said. “He voted with me 100% of the time.”

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., said in a post to X he’s “devastated about the sudden loss of our friend, Congressman Doug LaMalfa.”

“Doug was a loving father and husband, and staunch advocate for his constituents and rural America,” Emmer said.

Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican, called LaMalfa “a great colleague and friend” who “represented California well for over a decade.”

“He will be missed,” Lawler said.

Breaking the Bank

Millions of euros’ worth of property were stolen by thieves last week when they managed to drill into a German bank vault in what could be Germany’s largest heist.

The theft occurred on Monday, December 29, and affected more than 2,700 bank customers. For now, police are saying that the thieves managed to walk

All That Glitters Former mayor of Guangzhou Zhang Zi was sentenced to death last week in China after authorities discovered that he had amassed tons of gold in his apartment.

The corrupt official had squirreled away 13.5 tons of gold bars, 23 tons of cash, a portfolio of luxury real estate in China and abroad, and a collection of pre-

mium cars. This marked one of the most significant anti-corruption cases in recent years.

Zhang Zi was accused of bribery, abuse of power, and embezzlement on a massive scale, leading to a death sentence. The sentence reflects the Chinese government’s strong stance on combating corruption at the highest levels of government and is a deterrent to others who may engage in corruption.

Zhang Zi was the senior party official of Haikou, the capital of Hainan province.

According to investigators, he accepted bribes in return for granting government contracts, approving land deals, and providing favors to businesses and developers. The corruption reportedly took place between 2009 and 2019, a period when large construction and land projects were underway.

In many death sentence cases in Chi-

Local Tri-state offices: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Cedarhurst, Monsey Covered by private medical insurance and Medicare. FDA cleared

na, the sentence may later be commuted to life imprisonment, depending on behavior and cooperation.

Sounds like he deserves a pair of golden handcuffs.

Big Fish

A huge fish made waves this week.

A bulky bluefin tuna made a splash at Tokyo’s Toyosu fish market on Monday morning, fetching a record 510.3 million yen ($3.2 million) at the market’s first auction of the year.

The winning bid for the 243 kg. fish came from Kiyomura Corp, the operator of popular sushi chain Sushi Zanmai, which has outlets across Japan and abroad.

“The year’s first tuna brings good luck,” said Kiyoshi Kimura, the compa-

ny’s president and a familiar figure at the annual new year’s auction.

Kimura, who has been dubbed the Tuna King, is known to bid high for bluefin tuna at New Year’s auctions. Still, he was “surprised at the price.”

“I’d thought we would be able to buy a little cheaper, but the price soared before you knew it,” he said.

Kimura paid 56.5 million yen for a bluefin tuna in 2012 and 155 million yen in 2013 – setting record prices both times.

In 2019, he bought a bluefin tuna with 333.6 million yen ($2.1 million) – another tsunami price.

The first auction at Tokyo’s Toyosu fish market typically sees fish selling for exorbitant prices. Last year, the first tuna at the auction was bought for 207 million yen by Onodera Group, another food company that owns a sushi chain. It said that the fish would be served at its restaurants across the country.

The million-dollar tuna was sliced up for customers at Kimura’s sushi restaurants shortly after it was auctioned off.

A fine kettle of fish.

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away with property worth between 10 and 90 million euros ($11.7 to 105.7 million).

A fire alarm summoned police officers and firefighters to the bank branch in Gelsenkirchen shortly before 4 a.m. on Monday. They found a hole in the wall and the vault ransacked. Police believe a large drill was used to break through the vault’s basement wall, which was adjacent to a parking garage.

Witnesses said that they saw several men carrying large bags in a nearby parking garage over the weekend.

Police officials compared the heist to famous movies in which large amounts of property and money were stolen from banks.

For now, police are acknowledging that these thieves are giving them a run for their money.

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Community Shulamith Middle School Father-Daughter Yom Iyun

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hulamith School for Girls was filled with a special sense of kedushah and warmth this week as fathers and daughters gathered together for a meaningful Father-Daughter Yom Iyun, centered around Torah, tefillah, and shared learning. The morning began with fathers coming to Shulamith to daven together with their daughters in a minyan. Following davening, par-

ticipants split into grade-level groups for a welcoming father-daughter breakfast. Each group heard thoughtful divrei Torah from grade representatives. The words shared were heartfelt, meaningful, and deeply inspiring.

The program concluded with an interactive chavrusa shiur led by Rabbi Benny Berlin, who brought the room alive with energy, depth, and warmth. Fathers and

daughters learned together, discussing, questioning, and engaging in Torah study in a way that was both accessible and profound. The sight of our auditorium filled with pairs learning side by side captured the essence of the day—Torah learned together becomes Torah that is truly lived.

The Father-Daughter Yom Iyun was an experience that was both meaningful and memorable, leaving a lasting im-

pression on all who participated. It was a powerful reminder of the impact of learning together as a family m’dor l’dor.

Shulamith is grateful to all the fathers who took the time to participate and help make this special morning one that will be cherished by their daughters for years to come.

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Around the Community

YOSS Mechina recently recognized its Tech-in Check Superstars and their incredible ongoing efforts with a special Snack Shack

The yeladim at HANC EC have been busy learning all about winter

Shulamith Visits Anne Frank Exhibit in Manhattan

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he eighth grade students of Shulamith School for Girls recently participated in a deeply moving and meaningful educational trip to the Anne Frank Exhibit in Manhattan. The visit left a powerful impression on the students, bringing history to life in a profound and personal way.

As part of their curriculum, the eighth grade has been studying The Diary of Anne Frank alongside a comprehensive Holocaust unit. Seeing Anne Frank’s

story presented through authentic artifacts, historical context, and immersive displays allowed the students to connect more deeply to the experiences of a young Jewish girl who lived through unimaginable hardship at an age so close to their own.

Walking through the exhibit, the girls reflected on Anne Frank not only as a historical figure but as a real person—a teenager with hopes, fears, and faith, whose voice continues to inspire generations.

The exhibit helped the students better

understand the challenges faced by Jews during the Holocaust, while also highlighting the resilience and strength of the Jewish spirit.

The experience was both emotional and uplifting. One student shared during reflection, “I really feel proud that we survived, and I feel like now I have a responsibility to lead a religious Jewish life.” Her words beautifully captured the impact of the visit on the entire group.

This powerful trip reinforced the lessons learned in the classroom and em-

phasized the importance of remembering our past while living with purpose and responsibility in the present. The Anne Frank Exhibit served as a reminder of the endurance of the Jewish people and the vital role the next generation plays in carrying that legacy forward.

Shulamith School for Girls is proud to provide meaningful educational experiences that inspire students to grow academically, emotionally, and spiritually, and this visit was truly one they will carry with them for years to come.

and inspiring, contributing meaningfully to every minyan, home, and program they attended Motzaei Shabbos continued the momentum, as many students headed to Central for a JV hockey practice followed by a Varsity hockey victory against JEC, rounding out a weekend that blended Torah, community, and school spirit.

With additional community Shabbatonim planned in North Woodmere, Queens, and Brooklyn, these weekends highlight a defining part of the MTA experience. Yeshiva life at MTA extends beyond the classroom and into Shabbos, the community, and the values our talmidim live every day.

MTA Shabbos in West Hempstead

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ver the course of Parshas Vayechi, more than 100 MTA talmidim filled the West Hempstead neighborhood with Torah, tefillah, ruach, and genuine achdus. The yeshiva’s presence was not only noticeable but deeply felt in the most positive way.

Friday night began with Mincha and Kabbalas Shabbos at Eitz Chaim of Dogwood Park, where the boys brought an unmistakable MTA energy to tefillah.

The evening continued with spirited chaburos and an uplifting Oneg, including an inspiring program with local eighth graders, creating meaningful connections between current talmidim and future Lions.

On Shabbos morning, MTA fully took over the teen minyan at the Young Israel of West Hempstead, with students lead-

ing every aspect of davening and leining.

The yeshiva then sponsored a deluxe kiddush, taking the minyan to the next level and highlighting the partnership between MTA and the West Hempstead community.

Shabbos lunch was hosted by local MTA families across the neighborhood, with grade-specific seudos spread geographically throughout West Hempstead. Each location was joined by MTA administrators and alumni fellows, creating warm, multi-generational Shabbos tables filled with Torah conversations, singing, and connection.

What stood out most was the impact the boys made. Community members consistently shared that MTA’s presence elevated the entire Shabbos experience.

The talmidim were engaged, respectful,

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Gesher Siddur Play

Rav Yaakov Feitman dancing with Rav Shimon Galai and Rav Moshe Tuviah Lieff at the Dirshu Siyum on Sunday in Far Rockaway

YUHSG Brings Fall Semester to a Close With Self-Care Day

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he annual First Grade Siddur Play at Gesher was a heartwarming milestone where children received their very first siddur. Surrounded by proud parents and grandparents, the students showcased the skills they had learned to daven, demonstrating their growing connection to tefillah and Hashem. For the past four months, the first grade students were learning all about tefillah through the Ani Tefillah program, where they were inculcated to have a close, meaningful connection to Hashem. The students were empowered to be mindful of Hashem and to create a connection with Him by expressing personal thoughts, requests, and feelings through tefillah.

This special event not only highlight-

ed the children’s hard work and dedication but also brought together families to celebrate the momentous occasion with abundant gratitude and happiness, and much nachas. Mazal tov to all the children, parents, and grandparents on the special day!

YOSS is Living the Dream

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athers truly took advantage of their day off on New Year’s to come and learn Torah with their sons in Rabbi Ackerman’s class at Yeshiva of South Shore.

They sat together with the boys as Rabbi Ackerman presented a fascinating lesson about dreams in Judaism and their significance. He brought examples from

Tanach, various Gemaras, and told some amazing stories; certainly, nobody was dreaming during this class!

It was beautiful to see the chashivus haTorah felt by the adults who came from near and far to learn Torah with their sons on their day off. IY”H they will have many more opportunities to come learn with the boys.

s the fall semester draws to a close and exams approach, the Yeshiva University High School for Girls (Central) is once again prioritizing student well-being. On Monday, December 29, YUHSG held its annual Self-Care Day. Designed to offer students a moment to pause, recharge, and reconnect, the day provided a fun, celebratory balance to the academic work of exams. This year’s Self-Care Day was planned and hosted entirely by Central G.O. “We’re so proud of everyone for getting through an entire semester, so we wanted to do something fun before midterms,” said G.O. Co-President, senior Shalhevet Koenigsberg. “Self-Care Day was the perfect way to relax and celebrate.”

The day was pajama-themed, with students arriving at school in their coziest -- or wackiest – pajamas. After davening, students gathered for a hot cocoa bar, giving everyone a chance to warm up before first period. Later in the day, Wildcats gave themselves manicures at a pop-up nail spa between classes. And after Mincha, a slime-making workshop gave Wildcats yet another way to let their creativity take center stage.

This most recent Self-Care Day builds on the school’s already-strong self-care track record. In the past few years, YUHSG has implemented a wide range of self-care programming, including mindfulness seminars, visits from therapy animals, and workshops focused on healthy habits like screen awareness, sleep hygiene, and stress management.

Together, these initiatives are intended to teach wellness as an essential life skill alongside Judaica, General Studies, and extracurricular learning. High school is not merely about productivity but being present in the moment. Junior Rena Lefkovich reflected on the value of having dedicated time in the school schedule to reset. “I liked coming to school in pajamas – it was relaxing,” she said. “And I

liked the activities. Slime is such a great stress reliever, and the workshop gave us a chance to hang out with our friends.”

Junior Ariella Kramer agreed that the time was well spent. “It’s nice to have a break,” she said. “It’s a chance to relax, especially before midterms.”

The timing of the event was intentional. As students head into exams and the final stretch of the semester, Self-Care Day stands as one more reason so many describe YUHSG as a place where they feel supported and valued, a community that teaches the whole student and understands that success is built not only through hard work, but through balance and connection. “We are so proud of all of our students for their hard work this semester. They gave it their whole heart and whole soul. Self Care Day was the perfect ending to the semester!” said Ms. Leah Moskovich, Associate Principal.

Midterms begin January 5, followed by a winter break that will give Wildcats a chance to rest and recharge before the activity of the spring semester, filled with landmark events like the annual YUHSG Dinner of Tribute, chesed projects, yearly gradewide trips, and, of course, the graduation of YUHSG class of 2026.

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Morah Gitty Mandel’s Pre-1A students at Yeshiva Darchei Torah enjoyed making snowflakes out of cotton swabs as part of their winter unit

“P” is for popsicle painting at Shulamith ECC

An Inspiring Shabbos at Khal Machzikei Torah with the Mekubal Rav Nochum Cohen

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hal Machzikei Torah in Far Rockaway was privileged this past Shabbos to host the distinguished mekubal Rav Nochum Cohen, shlita, of Yerushalayim, who came to inspire and uplift the oilam. Rav Cohen, a fifth generation Yerushalmi, was warmly hosted by the Mora D’Asrah, Rabbi Daniel Cooper shlita, and his family.

The theme of the Shabbos, V’taher libeinu l’avdicha b’emes, resonated deeply throughout the tefillos, divrei Torah, and gatherings, setting a tone of spirituality, sincerity, and heartfelt avodas Hashem.

On Shabbos morning, Rav Cohen was visibly moved by the beautiful davening and spirited singing for which Khal

Machzikei Torah is known each week. He joined the tzibbur at the kiddush, which was generously sponsored in honor of Yossi Katz’s bar mitzvah parsha, adding an extra layer of simcha and celebration to the day. Rav Cohen sang zemiros together with the oilam and offered warm brachos to many members of the tzibbur, leaving a strong impression of warmth and genuine ahavas Yisrael.

As is customary during kiddush, Rabbi Cooper led a discussion on the halacha she’eilah of the week. Rav Cohen greatly enjoyed the lively give and take that followed, expressing admiration for the engagement, thoughtfulness, and depth of Torah learning demonstrated by the tzibbur.

Following Mincha, the kehilla walked together to Rabbi Cooper’s home for an uplifting Shalosh Seudos. Zemiros and a heartfelt kumzitz were led by Menachem Pollack and continued well past the zman, as the tzibbur was reluctant to part from the special kedusha of the day. Rav Cohen sang together with the oilam and shared inspiring words on the importance of serving Hashem with simcha, emphasizing that joy is an essential foundation of true avodas Hashem.

It was yet another memorable and inspiring Shabbos at Khal Machzikei Torah leaving the kehilla strengthened and uplifted as they carry the message of sincerity, and simcha into the coming week.

Annual Rambam Intergeneration Learn-A-Thon

By Avi Lax

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ast week, Rambam hosted its Annual January 1st Father/ Son/Grandfather/Uncle/Brother Learn-A-Thon. The event started off strong with an amazing schoolwide Shacharit. After davening, all talmidim and their families were invited downstairs to an amazing breakfast sponsored by the Rambam Women’s League.

During breakfast, the families had the chance to begin learning the Mekorot for the shiur. After breakfast, everyone went back to the shul, where certain talmidim were honored for their extra learning.

First, Rabbi Dr. Andrew Sicklick presented awards to all those who have been participating in Parsha Yomi, a program where talmidim sign on to learn the par-

sha each week with a quiz every Friday to earn prizes.

Next, Rabbi Avrum Haar, Assistant Principal, presented awards to talmidim who have earned the status of Masmidim, in one of the school’s oldest learning programs. Rabbi Haar also gave special shoutouts to seniors Avi Pearlman and Avi Lax for their 4-year long commitment to Masmidim. Additionally, Rabbi Haar gave shoutouts to all those who have been participating in the Bekius Program where talmidim are learning half or all of Mesechet Makkot. After the recognition of the extra learning being done in Rambam, the event culminated in an amazing shiur from guest speaker Rabbi Shmuel Ismach from the Young Israel of Great Neck. Rabbi Ismach spoke about the importance of quality over

quantity, whether it comes to learning or Tefillah. Rabbi Ismach inspired all of us to learn more and live a better Torah life.

After the shiur, each family was given a commemorative,“A Rambam Man never stops learning” coffee mug for the road.

Thank you to Rabbi Ismach for com-

ing out to share this inspirational Torah with us. Thank you to the Women’s League and everyone else who made this day possible. Thank you to all the rebbeim who dedicate their time to help the talmidim grow in their Torah. Thank you to everyone who came out to learn!

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Learning ABCs at HAFTR

YOSS Innovators After-School Program

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ongratulations to HAFTR Kindergartners for finishing the alphabet. They are now familiar with every letter’s sound and shape. To celebrate, they had a party with various foods starting with different letters of the alphabet.

Pajama Day at Gan Chamesh

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n connection with learning about Parshat Vayechi and the blessing of Hamalach Hagoel which we say before bedtime, the children of Gan Chamesh experienced a fun-filled Pajama Day. The children loved coming into school in pajamas and enjoyed hot cocoa, cereal and milk. They used their creativity and fine motor skills to decorate pillowcases. It was truly a cuddly, cozy day at Gan Chamesh!

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OSS Innovators launched their unit on simple machines by exploring mechanical advantage through inquiry-based activities. They also spent time examining graduated cylinders and flasks of colorful liquids. The students investigated how fluids of different temperatures can vary in density.

Mazal Tov!

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he HALB first grade boys and HALB first grade girls each had the siddur plays on Sunday! They

already love davening each day from their very own siddurim.

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The Flag Football Ravens Plow Forward

By Avichai Yosipov

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his past Sunday, the Rambam Ravens Varsity Flag Football team played an impressive game, clinching another round of the playoffs by defeating Flatbush 12–7. Led by Captain Ezra Mimun, we were able to break through with two amazing touchdowns.

A touchdown by Gabe Weiss (12) and

another savvy touchdown by Ethan Farber (12). The game started off on a chill tone, with both defensive lines playing an aggressive game, but it soon began to heat up. The thrilling game was played in arctic temperatures, with approximately a foot of snow (after being postponed due to the previous week’s snowfall). Get hyped for this coming Sunday’s Semi-Final game against Netzach!

Supporting Students’ Success at TAG

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orah Academy for Girls invests significant energy and resources to ensure that every student’s needs are met. To support our students’ growth and success in school and beyond, we are proud to have a robust team of dedicated support staff.

Dena Isaacs, MA, OTR/L, a pediatric occupational therapist with 25 years of experience in school-based occupational therapy in the yeshiva system, is an integral part of our team. Mrs. Isaacs works with students in all grades—from preschool through middle school—addressing developmental needs and collaborating closely with teachers to help them best support each child.

In addition to leading our writing program and implementing a multisen-

sory writing curriculum for our Kindergarten and Pre-1A students, Mrs. Isaacs facilitates a variety of age-appropriate groups across the school. This month, she ran a mini-workshop for seventh-grade students focused on time-management strategies to help them plan effectively for tests and assignments. She also led groups in our third and fourth grade classes to review the rules for neat and legible Hebrew handwriting and keeping personal belongings neat and organized in school. Meanwhile, our first grade students enjoyed engaging writing lessons on how to write sentences.

At TAG, we work tirelessly to ensure that every student finds success—both in the classroom and beyond.

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Mesivta Basketball League Crowns Junior Varsity Champions

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n a thrilling championship showdown this past Sunday, the Darchei Devils captured the Junior Varsity Basketball Championship for the second consecutive year, defeating the Torah VoDaas Thunder by a final score of 50–38.

The Thunder came out strong, storming ahead with a rapid 10–0 run in the opening minutes. But Darchei refused to back down, steadily chipping away at the lead throughout the second quarter and ultimately pulling ahead by halftime, 23–20. The momentum only grew from there with Darchei dominated the sec-

ond half, building a commanding advantage with an explosive offensive surge.

Though the Thunder rallied to close the gap to just three points, the Devils’ relentless scoring attack proved too powerful to overcome.

The Mesivta Basketball League proudly congratulates the Darchei Devils on winning the 2025–2026 Junior Varsity Championship and extends heartfelt appreciation to all participating yeshivos—the players, coaches, and devoted fans—for making this another unforgettable season.

Powerful Asara B’Tevet Program at YCQ

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he Yeshiva of Central Queens (YCQ) Junior High School held a meaningful assembly on Tuesday December 30, Asara B’Tevet. The program focused on the power of Jewish unity in the face of ancient and modern antisemitism.

Rabbi Landsman, principal of YCQ, opened the assembly by describing the history of Asara B’Tevet and sharing the iconic story of Napoleon Bonaparte observing the Jewish people mourning for the Beit Hamikdash. Rabbi Landsman highlighted Napoleon’s famous observation: “A nation that cries and fasts for over 2,000 years for their land and Temple will surely be rewarded with both.”

This message served as a critical reminder that our connection to the past is the foundation of our survival.

Providing a modern perspective, New York State Assemblymember Sam Berger addressed the student body regarding the fight against hate in Albany and his role in drafting and supporting legislation aimed at stopping antisemitic activity. He concluded by powerfully noting that just as in every generation there have been those who seek to destroy us,

our enemies have always been defeated and we remain resilient.

The program took a deeply emotional turn as Rabbi Stephen Knapp, JHS principal, described his experience visiting Australia a few years ago and introduced two videos centered on the recent attack at Bondi Beach. Students watched a video message from Rabbi Eli Schlanger HY”D from Chanukah 5785 and an unbelievable interview with Chaya Dadon, a 14-year-old hero who shielded younger children from harm during the attack.

By bridging the gap between ancient history and contemporary heroism, YCQ continues to empower the next generation with the tools to be Jews with both Torah skills and inspiration to succeed in the future.

National Unclaimed Property Day: Why Your Estate Plan is More Than Just Documents

By Monet Binder, Esq.

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very year on February 1, we observe National Unclaimed Property Day, a reminder of the staggering $60 billion in forgotten assets currently held by state governments. We aren’t just talking about spare change; these are life insurance policies, retirement funds, and bank accounts that have simply lost their connection to their rightful owners. I often witness how easily assets become “lost” when an estate plan is treated as a one-time document rather than a living process.

How Assets Become “Lost” It happens more easily than you’d think. If you became incapacitated tomorrow, would your family know where to find every account you’ve ever opened?

Without a comprehensive asset inventory, your loved ones are left searching for needles in haystacks. This is the flaw in “old school” planning: you sign a set of documents, put them on a shelf, and never look at them again. Because there is no map of what you own, your hard-earned wealth can easily end up in state custody instead of funding your children’s education or your family’s future.

Did you know?

Venezuela is home to the world’s largest waterfall – Angel Falls – which is a breathtaking 3,212 feet.

The Power of a Living Inventory Effective planning is a lifelong journey. My process begins with a Life & Estate Plan Design Session, where we create a clear, holistic map of your entire world.

This goes far beyond your home and basic savings; we ensure your estate plan captures everything from life insurance policies and forgotten 401(k)s to complex business interests, intellectual property, and even the modern challenges of digital assets and cryptocurrency. I don’t just help you list these; I partner with you to keep them updated through regular reviews, ensuring your assets are always correctly titled and instantly accessible to the people you love when they need them most.

More Than a Financial Transaction True planning covers what matters most. Beyond the bank accounts, there is “unclaimed property” that money can’t buy: your family photos, your stories, and

your values. Without a plan to pass these on, they too can become inaccessible.

Taking these steps is the greatest act of love you can give your family. It ensures that when the time comes, they aren’t left dealing with a legal mess but are instead supported by your clarity and care.

Your Next Step I can help you create a Life & Estate Plan that includes a complete asset inventory and a recorded interview to pass on your wisdom and love.

Call today 718-514-7575 or 732-3331854.

Monet Binder, Esq., has a practice in Lakewood, Queens, and Brooklyn areas, dedicated to protecting families, their legacies and values. All halachic documents are approved by the Bais Havaad Halacha Center in Lakewood, under the direction of Rabbi Dovid Grossman and the guidance of Harav Shmuel Kaminetsky, shlita, as well as other leading halachic authorities.

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Holocaust survivors with The Blue Card gathered on Chanukah to deliver care packages to the Consulate General of Israel in New York for 20 hostages who were recently released from Hamas captivity in Gaza

Racing with Energy at YOSS

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he seventh grade students at the Abraham & Sara Silber Middle School at Yeshiva of South Shore were buzzing with excitement as they de-

signed rubber band racers, learning how elastic potential energy and potential energy change into kinetic energy during motion.

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Yidden Across the Globe Learning Amud HaYomi With Dedication and Depth They Never Thought Possible

By Chaim Gold

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ometimes the beauty of a revolution is that it becomes so mainstream that you don’t even realize that a complete transformation has taken place! This aptly describes the transformation in Klal Yisrael as a result of Dirshu’s increasingly popular Amud HaYomi program that has, baruch Hashem, tens of thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands of lomdim all over the globe, learning the daily amud with a dedication and depth that they never thought possible.

The Amud HaYomi program which was launched two years ago in Vienna at the Sofiensäle Hall, the same hall in the same city where the Daf HaYomi had been established at the Knessiah Gedolah one hundred years previously, is now almost completing its fourth major masechta, Maseches Pesachim.

Currently, there are more than a thousand Amud HaYomi shiurim across the globe from Brooklyn to Be’er Sheva, Melbourne to Lakewood, Antwerp to Mexico City…wherever you go, Yidden are learning the Amud HaYomi, attending shiurim on Amud HaYomi and enjoying the slower paced limud that enables them to digest, review and truly gain a kinyan in the amud.

A Transformative Opportunity In fact, an amazing opportunity is available for anyone who has not yet joined. On Sunday, 14 Shevat/ February 1, the Amud HaYomi will begin Perek Arvei Pesachim, the perek that contains all the geshmake Gemaras about the seder night. If you start Arvei Pesachim with the program, you will finish before Pesach! What an amazing opportunity to truly “live” the seder.

When one learns the Gemaras about a mitzvah, it transforms the way one fulfills the mitzvah and the way that one

transmits that mitzvah to his children or grandchildren. This especially applies to the seder. The seder night is the night of chinuch, the night when Hashem endows each Yid with the ability to truly inculcate the foundations of our emunah into his children and grandchildren. When this is done after a couple months of intensively learning all the mitzvos that we perform on the seder night, the segulah of that exalted night is so much more potent!

Another perk is that Masechta Shekalim comes right after Masechta Pesachim. The Mishnah teaches us that in the beginning of Chodesh Nissan, the new shekalim were brought. Thus, it is an opportune time to learn about the mitzvah of bringing the shekalim exactly during the time when the shekalim were brought. Chazal teach us that learning about a mitzvah is a substitute for performing the mitzvah during our times when the mitzvah cannot be performed due to the fact that we don’t have the Beis Hamikdash.

Slower Pace of Learning Connects Jews To Torah HaGaon HaRav Avraham Salim, shlita, Rosh Yeshivas Me’or HaTorah and one of the senior and most prominent Sephardic roshei yeshiva in Eretz Yisrael, recently said, “We live in a generation in which we see that, baruch Hashem, there is a thirst for Torah! Not only is that thirst evident in those who spend their entire day immersed in learning, but it is also evident when observing the rest of Klal Yisrael. In recent years, I visited numerous countries outside of Eretz Yisrael and wherever I go, I see baalei battim deeply engaged in learning! Similarly, we see this in the way that the Amud HaYomi has become so popular. The slower pace of learning truly connects Jews to Torah. The fact that they can understand what they learn at a deeper level intensifies their bond with Torah in a profound way.”

Did you know?

Amerigo Vespucci gave Venezuela its name because he thought it reminded him of Venice. “Venezila” in Italian means “little Venice.”

Perhaps HaGaon HaRav Dovid Cohen, shlita, Rosh Yeshivas Chevron, best encapsulated why the Amud HaYomi became so popular in such a short span of time, by giving hashkafic insight into its entire purpose. Rav Cohen recalled how, when the foundational meetings were held to establish the Amud HaYomi, “I shared an important thought. Rav Meir Shapiro had tremendous zechuyos when he established the Daf HaYomi. Many people have, baruch Hashem, completed the entire Shas through learning with the Daf HaYomi and that is wonderful. Nevertheless, the fact is that for those who learn the daf in a half hour or 45 minutes, it is nearly impossible to learn it properly.

When Rav Meir Shapiro established the Daf HaYomi in Poland, Yidden after a day of work or before the workday started, spent not a half hour learning, but hours learning the daf. They were able to review and truly achieve a havana in the sugyos they were learning.”

“We must understand,” Rav Cohen explained, “Daf HaYomi is not like the limud of chok! If a person does the Daf HaYomi in a half hour, that is not the Daf HaYomi of Rav Meir Shapiro. Rav Meir Shapiro envisioned Yidden throughout the world being able to talk together in learning that day’s daf. He dreamt that they would be so well versed in the daf that they could discuss it and argue over it with fellow Yidden wherever they were.

If someone can learn the daf and know it in accordance with that august vision of Rav Meir Shapiro, that is wonderful!

Tavo alav bracha! The question is, what happens if a person learns the daf without really understanding it? Rav Elyashiv told me that learning without understanding is worth very little. It is better to learn less but to really understand. Thus, if the Amud HaYomi will ensure that a person can learn less but understand, then this is not minimizing the daf!” Rav Cohen thundered, “It is strengthening the entire purpose of the Daf HaYomi. The Amud HaYomi is NOT minimizing the daf by cutting it in half into an amud! It is clear as light that the Amud HaYomi is strengthening the yesod upon which Rav Meir Shapiro built the Daf HaYomi!”

Indeed, HaGaon HaRav Yitzchok Sorotzkin, shlita, has encouraged lomdim to undertake Amud HaYomi saying, “HaGaon HaRav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro, zt”l,

HaRav Dovid Cohen giving divrei chizuk at a previous Amud HaYomi siyum in his home

Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Be’er Yaakov, would often bemoan the fact that avreichim do not have a wide ranging bekius in Shas. He would advise avreichim to take time during bein hasedarim or night seder to learn an amud yomi. My father, Rav Boruch Sorotzkin, zt”l, also had an amud yomi seder every afternoon.”

Kuntress Called Iyun Ha’Amud Another way that Dirshu is facilitating a greater understanding and depth when learning the Amud HaYomi is with its monthly, marvelous kuntress called Iyun Ha’Amud compiled by great talmidei chachomim. These kuntreissim have been extremely well received by the lomdim. The kuntress really gathers so much of the important “reyd” on the sugya in the Rishonim and Acharonim and adds so much to the geshmak. It also includes the pages of the Gemara, explanations and supplements, marei mekomos and practical applications of the halachah.

One member of the Dirshu team put it succinctly when he said, “Everyone knows that already now, in January, the women are busy thinking about Pesach.

Perhaps we men should echo that special zerizus and zehirus and start to prepare for Pesach by embarking on the limud of Arvei Pesachim beginning Sunday, 14 Shevat/ February 1.

The message of Dirshu is to upgrade your limud haTorah in any way possible.

That is the raison d’etre of Dirshu. Even if you have not joined yet, now is the time to join the Amud HaYomi. You will see that if you do, your life will never be the same!

To join the Amud HaYomi and to complete Arvei Pesachim by this coming Pesach contact Dirshu at info@dirshunj. org or at 1-888-5Dirshu.

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Looking Ahead: Bikur Cholim of Far Rockaway + Five Towns Prepares for 2026

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his past year was one of remarkable growth and meaningful impact for Bikur Cholim of Far Rockaway+ Five Towns. Guided by a deep commitment to supporting individuals and families facing illness and crisis, the organization, led by Leah Fink along with Tzippy David, continued to expand its reach, strengthen its programs, and deepen its presence throughout the community.

The meal program remained a cornerstone of Bikur Cholim’s work. This year, Ricki Muller, Faygie Rosenberg, and Batsheva Ruzohorsky joined the meal coordination team, working alongside longtime leaders Cheryl Brecher, Daphna Biederman, Aviva Mendlowitz, Faye Metz, and Toby Walfish, who have coordinated meals for more than a decade.

With the addition of two fully stocked freezers, coordinated by Devorah Singer, Bikur Cholim is now able to respond even more efficiently to urgent and last-minute meal needs, ensuring families receive nourishment with dignity and care.

Access to essential support continued

to expand. A second equipment storage location was added in Woodmere, complementing the Far Rockaway site, increasing availability for families across the community. To further ease the burden during difficult times, equipment is now delivered directly to homes. The transportation program also saw significant growth, providing three times as many rides as the previous year and ensuring patients and caregivers could reach medical appointments safely and reliably.

Bikur Cholim’s home-visiting program doubled the number of individuals visited this year, expanding its reach and impact across the community. Significant strides were also made at the 5 Towns Premier Rehab with the opening of a beautiful new Bikur Cholim room, dedicated by Simi and David Greenbaum.

Chasdei Devorah, in memory of Devorah Shocket A”H, enabled the space to become a warm and welcoming hub, hosting daily visitors, holiday programming, weekly school group visits, and meaningful Rosh Chodesh programs. Thoughtful

touches, including fresh flower deliveries before Shabbos, bring moments of joy to residents. In addition, the donation of a piano, in memory of our dear Rebbetzin Batya Goodman A”H, a devoted lifelong leader of Bikur Cholim, continues to enhance the atmosphere and uplift all who enter.

A new Mental Health Advisory Board, led by Rebecca Soffer and Frumi Walkenfeld, and its dedicated support team, Estie Blau and Leah Solomon, have revamped the mental health initiative and strengthened this critical area of care. In addition, seven women completed chaplaincy training and are now serving families with compassion and professionalism during times of illness and loss.

Youth engagement continued to flourish through Bat Mitzvah projects, weekly Shabbos visits, school partnerships, Chesed programs, and collaborative initiatives with community organizations.

The launch of Be the Light created new opportunities for single girls living at home to build connections while engaging in meaningful acts of chessed.

SKA Hosts Informative Career Day for Students

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n January 1, SKA hosted a meaningful and engaging Career Day for all current students, offering inspiration, reflection, and practical insight into a wide range of professional pathways.

The day began with a powerful keynote address by Dr. Aimee Baron, founder of I Was Supposed to Have a Baby, an organization dedicated to providing support and care for women experiencing infertility and pregnancy loss. Dr. Baron’s words were deeply moving and resonated strongly with the students. She spoke candidly about life’s unexpected challenges and emphasized an important message:

we do not need to have everything perfectly figured out. Instead, success comes from developing the skills, resilience, and versatility needed to navigate life’s inevitable curveballs. The students especially appreciated her honesty and encouragement.

Following the keynote, students broke into smaller sessions based on their individual interests. These sessions were led by an impressive group of presenters, many of whom were SKA alumnae who returned to share their career journeys and advice. It was a special and meaningful moment to see graduates standing at the front of the room, offering guidance to students who are now sitting in the

very same seats they once occupied.

The range of professions represented was both broad and impressive, including medical professionals, engineers, small business owners, educators, and more.

Each presenter provided valuable insight into their field, answering questions and offering real-world perspectives that helped students envision the many possibilities ahead of them.

Career Day was an informative experience, one that highlighted the strength of the SKA community, the power of mentorship, and the importance of preparing students not just for a career but for life itself.

The year also marked important growth in leadership and infrastructure.

A new Executive Board was formed, including Tovi Herskovits, Rachelle Hornung, Tali Miller, and Ricki Molinsky.

New positions were introduced to support the organization’s expanding work, including Creative Director Raizy Beren working alongside our Marketing Team TMI, Social Media Director Esti Winter, Volunteer Coordinator Rachelle Wrubel, and Community Liaison Keved Mayer.

Throughout the year, hundreds of women were inspired by engaging speakers including Mrs. Jackie Bitton, Rabbi Joey Haber, Rabbi Asaf Haimoff, and Mrs. Amit Yaghoubi.

As Bikur Cholim looks ahead to a very busy 2026, the organization invites the community to stay tuned for upcoming programs, including GlowWell II, a Summer BBQ concert & fundraiser, the Annual Brunch, and additional volunteer initiatives. For more information on how to volunteer or show your financial support, visit the new website at www.BikurCholimFR5T.org.

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Around the Community

HAFTR Invitational Scott Satran Memorial Tournament

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his past weekend, HAFTR proudly hosted the 39th Annual HAFTR Invitational Scott Satran Memorial Tournament, a celebration of basketball, community, and shared purpose. As the longest-running invitational in the Yeshiva League, the tournament once again lived up to its legacy, bringing together competition, connection, and inspiration in a way that extended far beyond the court.

Twelve teams from across the country, including schools from Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York, gathered for a weekend filled with high-level basketball and meaningful moments.

While the games were intense and exciting, the true spirit of the tournament was felt in the friendships formed and the unity created, especially over Shabbat, when players came together around

shared values, reflection, and ruach.

A highlight of the weekend was Friday night’s inspiring address from Rabbi Dr. Josh Joseph, Executive Vice President of the Orthodox Union. Drawing on his own experiences as a basketball player, Rabbi Dr. Joseph connected deeply with the students, sharing messages about motivation, perseverance, and striving for excellence. These messages resonated both on and off the court.

On the court, HAFTR’s team rose to the challenge with determination and heart, finishing the weekend with a strong 4–2 record. The Hawks advanced to the Tier 2 finals and secured an impressive 66–49 victory over Berman Hebrew Academy. The weekend also served as a special moment to honor HAFTR’s seniors, recognizing their years of dedication, leadership, and commitment to

the program.

The Tier 1 championship game delivered its own excitement, as North Shore Hebrew Academy defeated Jewish Culture School 61–54 in a thrilling and hard-fought matchup, capping off an unforgettable weekend of competition.

Reflecting on the tournament, HAFTR Athletic Director and Head Basketball Coach Joey Hoenig shared, “This tournament is always about more than just basketball, resharing the story and impact of Scott Satran, celebrating his legacy with his family, and being reminded of how important it is to stay motivated and strive for success.”

HAFTR is immensely proud to host this meaningful tournament year after year. Heartfelt thanks go to the Satran family, our host families, maintenance staff, volunteers, and the enthusiastic

fans who filled the gym with energy and ruach, helping make the weekend so special.

As the final buzzer sounded, the 39th Annual Scott Satran Memorial Tournament concluded with lasting memories of teamwork, inspiration, and unity.

HAFTR looks forward to continuing this cherished tradition, celebrating the values that make this tournament and our community so extraordinary.

Giving Food a Second Chance How Bubby’s Kitchen is Nourishing the Five Towns and Far Rockaway Community

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t the end of every bar mitzvah, wedding, or celebration, there is frequently an abundance of delicious, untouched food left behind. Too often, it goes to waste. At the very same time, families within our own community are quietly struggling to put wholesome meals on the table. Bubby’s Kitchen exists to change that reality.

Bubby’s Kitchen is a community initiative dedicated to rescuing surplus food from simchas and events and redistributing it—safely, respectfully, and with dignity—to families in need. Our mission is simple: ensure that good food feeds people, not trash bins.

The process is intentionally easy.

Bubby’s Kitchen places dedicated refrigerators on site at event venues and participating shuls. When hosting a simcha, the host simply tells the caterer to place any surplus food into the Bubby’s Kitchen refrigerator at the conclusion of the event. The caterer then scans a QR code located on the refrigerator, alerting our team. From there, Bubby’s Kitchen takes over. Our volunteers promptly pick up the food, carefully repackage it, and distribute it to families throughout the community in a way that preserves dignity and respect. There are no extra respon-

sibilities for the host and no complicated logistics—just one small act that makes a meaningful impact.

Every tray of food rescued represents more than a meal…it signifies compassion without embarrassment, generosity without fanfare, and a community that looks out for one another. Families receive prepared, quality food in a way that feels normal and respectful, allowing them to maintain their pride while receiving support.

While Bubby’s Kitchen gives food a second chance, it also strengthens the bonds of our community. By simply asking a caterer to place surplus food into the refrigerator on site, every celebration becomes an opportunity to help another family.

Together, we can celebrate our happiest moments while ensuring that no good food—and no neighbor—is left behind.

Three Easy Steps to Help Bubby’s Kitchen 1. Let your caterer know to place all surplus food into Bubby’s Kitchen refrigerator on site 2. Caterer scans QR code located on refrigerator 3. Bubby’s Kitchen then picks up the food and takes care of the rest

You Can Find Bubby’s Kitchen Refrigerators at the Following Locations Aish Kodesh Beis Haknesses of North Woodmere (BKNW) Beth Sholom Island Shul Kay Shul K’hal Nesiv HaTorah Kehillas Bais Yehuda Tzvi Kehillas Bnei Hayeshivos (KBH) Mesivta Netzach HaTorah – Simcha Hall Oak Event Space Shaaray Tefila The Sephardic Temple The Sands The Oasis The White Shul

Young Israel of Lawrence–Cedarhurst Young Israel of Woodmere Join the Bubby revolution in giving food a second chance. www.bubbyskitchen. org

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Krias Shema al HaMittah

By Yisroel Besser

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ven though the mitzvah of Krias Shema shel Arvis has already been fulfilled through the recitation of Krias Shema during Maariv, a Yid ends his day by reciting Krias Shema once more.

During the early years of his leadership, R’ Shlomo Halberstam of Bobov would personally circulate between the classes in the cheder he had established and farher the boys on their learning.

One week, the Rebbe entered a classroom in which the boys were learning the words of the Mishnah (Bava Kamma 2:6): “Adam muad l’olam, a person is always considered as if he has been forewarned in regard to causing damage, bein eir bein yashein, whether he is awake or asleep.”

The Rebbe shared a story about his grandfather, the first Bobover Rebbe, who maintained good relations with the local police chief in the town of Bobov.

The Rebbe once had to discuss a certain matter with the official, and he asked when the police officer was off duty.

“If I am awake, I am wearing this uniform, and I belong to the Kaiser,” the officer replied. “I am never off-duty unless I am asleep.”

The Bobover Rebbe heard the answer, and when he returned to his yeshiva, he shared it with the bachurim. “That might be true for officials of the Kaiser,” the Rebbe said, “but by us, we are on duty even when we are asleep, and we have to train ourselves to sleep like servants as well.”

Now, his grandson, the Bobover Rebbe, R’ Shlomo, repeated the story to the cheder children in New York. “Krias Shema al HaMittah,” he told them, “is our proclamation that we belong to our ‘Kaiser’ whether we are sleeping or awake!”

It is this statement, Shema Yisrael, and the associated pesukim, with which we end the day, because this is the sum total of all our knowledge, the goal of every intellectual pursuit.

In the summer of 1985, MENSA, an association for intellectually gifted individuals, held its annual convention in Cleveland, Ohio. There were all sorts of attendees, among them a brilliant biochemist who hoped that joining the convention would satisfy his eager mind and thirst for knowledge. He circled the room like a hungry animal, searching only for sparks of cerebral stimulus.

When one of the other guests learned that he was Jewish, he told the scientist that in Wickliffe, not far from the hotel

Dor L’Dor Learning at SHS

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n January 1, the SHS multipurpose room was packed with fathers, grandfathers, and uncles, learning alongside students. Rabbi Jonathan Muskat led the dynamic session focusing on whether it’s possible to be both a good Jew and a good American.

Through chavrusa learning with sources

prepped for the participants and a shiur that followed, they explored the priorities that halacha demands and how best to integrate these dual loyalties. The Torah learning and delicious buffet from Le Chocolat warmed body and soul despite the icy weather outside.

in which the convention was being held, there was a world-renowned Jewish institution of higher learning whose dean was a recognized genius.

The young scientist did not know very much about Judaism, but he felt that this was worth exploring, and he found his way to the Telshe Yeshiva. He walked around on the campus, being greeted pleasantly, and eventually, he was introduced to the dean himself, R’ Mordechai Gifter.

The Rosh Yeshivah welcomed his guest with great warmth, inviting him to sit down in his humble dining room and enjoy a cold drink. In an impeccable English, the rabbi chatted with his visitor, then asked what brought the young man to Cleveland.

The scientist explained that he belonged to MENSA, an organization for intellectually gifted people, and that the annual convention was taking place.

R’ Gifter pulled his chair close and looked his visitor in the eye. “My friend, let me ask you a question: Do you believe that there is a G-d Who created this entire world and that He alone sustains us all?”

The visitor held the Rosh Yeshivah’s gaze. “No, Rabbi, I do not believe that.”

“Then, my dear friend,” the Rosh Yeshivah said in a voice that was both sym-

pathetic and warm, “I am sorry to tell you that you are not gifted at all!”

Hashem echad is not just information — it is the source of all information, the gift that allows us to live with meaning, fulfillment, and joy.

Reprinted from Krias Shema al HaMittah By Yisroel Besser with permission from the copyright holder, ArtScroll Mesorah Publications.

BY5T Mother-Daughter Melava Malka

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he annual BY5T elementary school mother-daughter Melava Malka event was a huge success!

The girls enjoyed a paint night activity where both mothers and daughters painted individual canvases and later connected the two to form a gorgeous

scene of Kriyas Yam Suf. While the girls ate a delicious buffet, they had fun posing at the BY5T photo booth and finding their friends on the baby photo display.

Every girl left smiling with their beautiful painting and personalized BY5T hair ribbon.

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oshav Nachalim, Israel — The hundreds of bachurim who took part in the historic Shabbos Buneinu this past Parshas Va’yeitzei will not easily forget the inspiring and uplifting weekend they spent in the presence of fellow yesomim and dozens of Buneinu staff, volunteers and chinuch experts.

Buneinu, a branch of Tov V’Chesed, led by the world-renowned Rabbi Shisha, has long established itself as the premier relief mission standing beside children who have lost a parent in every way possible; emotionally, financially, socially, etc.

Most popular are the Buneinu centers, now totaling eight locations, where yesomim can come by every afternoon and whenever there is no school to eat a nourishing meal, spend quality time with peers and mentors, enjoy shiuirum and activities, and get away from the challenges at home.

But among its many activities, the annual Shabbatons have earned unique acclaim for giving the bachurim an opportunity to experience a joyous and love-filled Shabbos and be provided with chizuk for the long year ahead. As in recent years, due to increased demand, a separate Shabbaton was held two weeks prior for the younger yesomim and the bachurim.

The 400 bachurim invited to the

Shabbos are all well known to the Buneinu team, and a special kesher exists between each of them and their mentors in the organization. These Shabbatons have become an opportunity for them to strengthen these bonds, and to open up in ways they otherwise don’t.

After weeks of preparation, Friday morning saw buses and shuttles leave from all across Israel to deliver the children to the resort that was beautifully set up to accommodate the big getaway.

Rabbi Shisha and Rabbi Meir Aker, who direct the Buneinu program, greeted each child with warmth and welcomed them to a Shabbos that would be filled with lavish meals, inspiring workshops, song and dance, and an opportunity to leave difficult life at home behind, where they rarely got to enjoy a normal Shabbos.

After receiving their welcoming package and enjoying a tasty to’ameha with musical accompaniment, the uplifting Kabbolas Shabbos was kicked off by fiery chizuk and emunah speeches from Rabbi Shisha and Rabbi Aker preparing the boys for this momentous and elevated Shabbos.

During the lengthy davening, the bachurim linked arms in uplifting dancing.

It was heart-wrenching to hear more than 60 fresh yesomim saying kaddish together, and yet they gathered the courage to dance and express gratitude to HKB”H

for this moment.

After davening, the attendees returned inside for an unforgettable and hours-long seudas Shabbos that was followed by a song-filled buteh under the stars that filled the night with niggunei Shabbos.

After that, the bachurim gathered for a fascinating symposium that ran until 3 AM where questions about how to deal with the unique challenges of orphanhood were posed to the experienced chinuch experts from Buneinu — questions collected from the yesomim themselves over the course of the previous weeks.

Right in the morning, another jampacked day began, filled with stimulating programming. A kiddush was held after davening, filled with nearly two hours of chizzuk and speeches giving children the tools necessary to thrive, today and in life ahead.

The Shabbos day seudah lasted right before Mincha time. This led into the highlight of the Shabbos, the tear-soaked Shalosh Seudos in the dark, where songs of tefillah and dveikas mixed with the pain of these broken neshamos shook the gates of Shomayim. Rabbi Aker once again rose to speak words of hisorerus, and in the darkness, the audible cries of the yesomim could be heard throughout the room.

Motzei Shabbos saw dozens of minya-

nim Maariv held at once so that all the bachurim who are in the year R”L can daven and say kaddish. A lavish melava malka was held, with the food catered by the organization’s own Hakramim Hall, which hosts weddings nights for yesomim free of charge.

As part of the melava malka, a siyum was held on the entire Shisha Sidrei Mishnah, learned by the bachurim in their free time in honor of their deceased parents.

It is hard for mere words to describe the feeling in the room as hundreds of innocent young boys recited kaddish together in memory of the dear father and mother in shomayim.

The evening then featured exciting singing and dancing deep into the night.

The clock showed early morning when the attendees boarded buses and received their Shabbos souvenirs and nosh bag for the way home.

It did not take long until the calls and messages from their widowed mothers and others began streaming in with feedback on the great spirits in which the boys returned from the Shabbos. The effects of this short but meaningful experience is sure to positively impact the bachurim for many months to come—and beyond!

To learn more about Tov V’Chesed and Buneinu’s efforts on behalf of yesomim, visit https://www.tovvchesed.com.

JANUARY 8, 2026 | The Jewish Home

400 Orphaned Bachurim Experience An Unforgettable Shabbos Buneinu Organized By Tov V’chesed’s Buneinu Project

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Vivvi Visits HALB

L YOSS students recognized for their outstanding achievements receive student of the month awards

ast week, HALB Middle School students had the incredible opportunity to hear from Vivvi Lewis Byer, a proud alumna of HALB. She shared her personal journey of growing up with a disability, navigating school, overcoming bullying, and discovering

her own strength and voice. Through her story, Vivvi emphasized resilience, self-advocacy, the importance of kindness, inclusion, and believing in every student’s potential. The students were so moved by the experience.

New “Upstander” Initiative at Mercaz Academy

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new social-emotional learning initiative at Mercaz Academy is turning older students into powerful role models, encouraging younger children to become “Upstanders” by learning directly from peers who model and teach positive communication and social support.

The initiative, developed and supervised by school counselor Stephanie Bobroff, recently launched in third grade classrooms and is set to expand to fourth grade. It features sixth graders visiting younger classes to perform short, student-written skits about kindness, inclusion, and standing up for others. One

skit, framed as a game show titled “Who Wants to Be an Upstander?”, opens on a playground scene in which a new student is excluded from a game. As classmates dismiss him, a sixth grade character steps in, names the behavior as unkind, and helps bring the group back together – demonstrating how one person’s small act of courage can make a big difference.

After each performance, the sixth graders lead small group discussions, helping younger students reflect on what they saw and how they might respond in similar situations. Together, they talk through concrete ways to be an “upstander,” from using kind words and includ-

ing others to seeking help from a trusted adult. The younger students then write and perform their own skits reinforcing what they’ve learned.

Mrs. Bobroff had the idea to include sixth graders in the program after she observed that the lower grades naturally look up to the most mature students in school. “We’ve seen that younger students often want to emulate the older ones and make them proud,” she said.

“By using sixth graders as ‘teachers’ to inspire and guide them, the lessons resonate more deeply than if they were taught by an adult alone.”

She added, “It is so easy to hurt one

another, but we wanted to equip our students with knowledge and skills to support and build each other up.” The resulting effort strengthens each classroom community, encouraging a culture of kindness and inclusion across groups and grades.

JSL Winter 2026: Week 2 Recap

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eek 2 of the JSL Winter 2026 season by FM Home Loans delivered everything we love about JSL action — overtime thrillers, clutch buzzer beaters, elite goaltending, and huge individual performances across every division. It was the second week of JSL but the first week of the regular season. As teams continue to settle in, the intensity is already ramping up early in the season.

K/P Hockey Yeled LI Panthers edged Maidenbaum 6-5 in an overtime classic. Ben Pearlman delivered the dramatic OT winner to seal a hard-fought victory. Smash House took down Exclusive Cabinetry 5-2, led by Eitan Koegel, who recorded a hat trick and set the tone offensively.

Demo & Cleanouts squeaked past MoldPro 6-5 thanks to a hat trick from Yona Wegh, who came up big when it mattered most. SD Shades defeated Marciano 6-2 behind a massive 5-point performance from Aryeh Klestzik, who was everywhere on the ice.

K/P Soccer Arise Realty earned a 3-0 win over 5 Towns Central, with Ovadiah Aryeh scoring two key goals to lead the way. Sunflower Cafe and SR Whee battled to a

2-2 draw, as Meir Seif and Meir Goldman each netted two goals in an evenly matched contest.

1st Grade Hockey Posh Home & Bath rolled to an 8-3 win over Zlotowitz Law, powered by an electric performance from Moshe Gruin, who scored six goals in a dominant showing.

2nd/3rd Grade Hockey Newman Dental shut out Growtha 2–0 behind outstanding goaltending from Ephraim Shapiro, who was lights out between the pipes. Styles Design Interiors earned an 8–2 victory over TNB Architecture, with Akiva Schreier standing tall in net and limiting scoring chances all game. Built By Nate defeated Remsen Auto 3–1 thanks to a strong performance from goalie Sam Smith, who came up with timely saves throughout. Town Appliance topped J Works Construction 5–3, led by Ezra Gruin, who found the back of the net four times.

4th/5th Grade Hockey Wieder Orthodontics held on for a tight 2–1 win over BlueBird Insurance, with Joey Gordon delivering a phenomenal performance in net. Smash House defeated Styles Design Interiors 6–1 behind a standout goaltending effort from Jacob

Cohen, who shut the door repeatedly.

Extreme Vent Cleaning earned a 3–1 win over J Works Construction, led by excellent goalie play from Akiva Fogel.

6th–8th Grade Hockey Town Appliance beat SD Shades 5–2, with Tzvi Greenspan in midseason form, locking things down in net. Emporio secured a 6–4 win over Sperling Productions, thanks to a clutch goal from Chaim Baldinger at the most important moment.

Twillory powered past Wieder Orthodontics 11–4, led by Gabriel Levine, who sparked the offense while also stepping up defensively.

1st Grade Basketball Posh Home & Bath defeated Seasons 24–14, capped off by a buzzer-beater from Yitzy Pelman that brought the crowd to its feet. The Shoppe beat Marciano PD 18–10 behind a strong offensive showing from Manny Gefen.

2nd Grade Basketball Wieder Orthodontics rolled past 5 Towns Landscaping 22–9, with Ruby Wieder and Yaakov Grossman each scoring 10 points. Rita’s edged White Glove Concierge 6–4 in a thriller, as Eli Lopiansky drilled a buzzer-beater for the win.

3rd Grade Basketball Seasons Express topped Elegant

Lawns 8–4, led by the high-energy twoway play of Mordechai Berkowitz. Tikva Fire defeated Central Pizza Co. 14–4 behind Dani Grabie, whose skill set was on full display.

4th/5th Grade Basketball Newman Dental earned a big win over Zlotowitz Law, with Dovid Bauman doing it all on both ends of the floor.

Wieder Orthodontics defeated Tal By Luxe, led by Yitzchok Bornfreund, who impressed with his all-around play.

6th/7th Grade Basketball Maidenbaum edged Elegant Lawns 31–28, as David Putter caught fire and shot lights out in the close win. TNB Architect squeaked past Twillory 31–30, with Elazar Gropper proving to be the difference maker down the stretch.

Men’s Basketball Altbanq made a statement with a dominant 92–55 win over Smash House, featuring five players in double figures in a complete team effort. Kol Ve’or defeated Maidenbaum 75–65, behind Shimi David’s massive 38-point performance in a game where he was simply unstoppable.

Town Appliance topped Twillory 90–54, powered by Effie Freundlich’s gamehigh 28 points.

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Around the Community

BY5T’s Trip to Israel

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Y5T preschool took an exciting journey to Eretz Yisroel this week in honor of the month of Teves, where each child wrote a heartfelt tefillah

to Hashem to be placed on the Kosel wall.

At BY5T, we’re always looking to help our talmidos grow in ahavas Hashem.

SAFE TAG Talmidah Initiative

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orah Academy for Girls Ganger Early Childhood launched its SAFE TAG Talmidah initiative.

The girls are learning how to be safe when going on a bus or in a carpool. And most importantly, they are remembering to act with derech eretz. They also made thank

you cards for the drivers who bring them to and from school safely to show their hakaras hatov.

Look out for cars driving around town with our new S.A.F.E. TAG Talmida magnets.

When Proximity Changes Everything

By Aron Schoenfeld

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spent last weekend re-reading Eric Greitens’ The Warrior’s Heart. I first read it about five years ago, but something pulled me back to it.

Greitens’ path was anything but typical. Duke University. Rhodes Scholar.

PhD from Oxford studying how international humanitarian organizations serve children in war zones. He could have chosen any number of comfortable, prestigious careers. Instead, he spent years in places most people actively avoid: refugee camps in Rwanda and Bosnia, war zones in Cambodia, street children in Bolivia, disaster areas across Albania, Mexico, and India.

He photographed suffering. He provided aid. He worked to ease pain.

But the people he met kept asking him the same thing: Can you keep us safe?

And he couldn’t. Not as a humanitarian worker. Not as a documentarian. Not as a scholar. He could arrive after violence had occurred and try to help people survive the aftermath. But he couldn’t protect them from the violence itself.

So at age 26, he enrolled in Naval Officer Candidate School. At age 27, he started BUD/S training with Class 237 in Coronado, California, joining at the last moment he was eligible. He graduated in February 2002 and went on to deploy four times across Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, and Southeast Asia. He commanded an al-Qaeda targeting cell.

He was wounded in a chlorine gas attack

in Iraq and returned to duty three days later. He earned a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.

The comparisons between his journey and mine stop there. My training was different. My service was different. My deployments looked nothing like his.

But the catalyst was identical: proximity to people who needed help.

When you stand close enough to see what people actually need, when you hear their stories firsthand, when you shake hands with families who have been displaced or soldiers who protect them, something shifts. Giving stops being a concept and becomes a compulsion.

That’s what happened to Greitens in those refugee camps. That’s what happened to me when I started spending time in Israel’s periphery communities.

That’s what led me to draft into the IDF at 44. And that’s what drove me during my time serving with Alog 99 near Gaza and continues to drive me every night I work on Smiles for the Kids.

As we enter 2026, I’m thinking about what creates real commitment. What

turns casual interest into sustained action. What makes people give not just once, but again and again.

The answer is always the same: getting close enough to care.

The miluim families struggling to make ends meet while their primary earners serve for months on end. The soldiers who need basic equipment their units can’t provide. The widows navigating loss while raising children alone. The orphans trying to find stability in chaos. The kids who just want one moment of joy during endless uncertainty.

Seeing them changes you.

I can write fundraising emails all day. I can share statistics about the 40,000 soldiers and 15,000 families we’ve served. I can talk about the 80 carnivals we’ve run for evacuated communities. But none of that compares to standing in someone’s living room, hearing what they need, and knowing you can help.

That proximity created this organization. That proximity keeps it running with zero overhead so 100% of donations reach recipients directly. And that prox-

imity is what I’m asking you to create for yourself in 2026.

You don’t need to move to Israel. You don’t need to enlist. You don’t need to spend your summers in refugee camps like Greitens did.

But you do need to get closer.

Choose a cause. Learn the names.

Understand the specific needs. Give your time if you can. Give your money if you can. But most importantly, give your attention.

Because once you do, you won’t be able to look away.

And that’s when your service truly begins.

Aron grew up in Woodmere, NY, and served as an IDF reservist with Alog 99.

He founded Smiles for the Kids in October 2023. Since its founding, the organization has supported over 40,000 soldiers, 15,000 miluim families, and hosted 80 carnivals for displaced communities.

The organization operates with zero overhead, ensuring 100% of donations reach recipients directly.

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In Memory

Leadership Through Self-Sacrifice Remembering Rabbi Yehuda Kelemer, zt”l

By Rabbi Jordan Ginsberg

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he Mishnah at the end of Sotah teaches that after the passing of Yossi ben Yo’ezer and Yossi ben Yehuda, the “Ashkulos” ceased. The Gemara (Sotah 47b) explains that an Ashkul is an “Ish shehakol bo” — a person in whom everything resides.

At Rabbi Yehuda Kelemer’s levaya five years ago, his mechutan, Rabbi Elya Chaim Swerdloff, the Rosh Yeshiva of Patterson, referred to this teaching in his hesped. Rabbi Kelemer, he said, was hakol bo: a towering talmid chacham fluent in Shas and poskim; a master of mussar, chassidus, lomdus, and halacha; a leader of leaders; a rav’s rav. His chesed, his middos, his ahavas Yisrael, his ayin tovah were unmatched. Each person felt that he had a special word meant just for them.

But Torah greatness alone does not define leadership. For that, we turn to the Alter of Kelm, who asks why the Torah gives no résumé when Moshe Rabbeinu is chosen to lead Klal Yisroel. Instead, it offers three short scenes — Moshe defending a Jew from a Mitzri, intervening between two Jews, and rescuing strangers in Midyan. From these short episodes, the Alter teaches, we learn the essence of a true leader: Moshe was a person who could not simply live for himself. He cannot watch pain and pass by. He is a man of nosei b’ol chaveiro, one who instinctively carries the burdens of others.

This was the leadership of Rabbi Yehuda Kelemer.

He possessed the brilliance that would have allowed him to sit immersed in Torah day and night and become world-renowned for his psak halacha and his sefarim if he wanted to. Yet he chose a different mission: to live amongst his kehilla, stand with them in joy and grief, and make

their spiritual lives his responsibility. His greatness of mind was matched only by his greatness of heart.

I’d like to share a few short stories that (attempt) to portray the greatness of this holy tzaddik.

A rav from a neighboring community recounted that Rabbi Kelemer had called him regarding a couple relocating from Rabbi Kelemer’s community to his own.

Their shalom bayis was fragile, but their commitment to halacha was complete, and many sensitive taharas hamishpacha shailos arose. Rabbi Kelemer gently explained that while halacha remains absolute, the posek must also see the whole human being. When possible, he sought legitimate leniencies not from weakness but from compassion and responsibility for the delicate emotional fabric of a Jewish home. Just days later, the new rav received such a shaila, one that, in isolation, clearly warranted stringency. However, because of that phone call, he understood the whole picture and guided the couple with a perspective of halacha in addition to shalom bayis.

His loyalty to people transcended time and geography. One Chol HaMoed Pesach in West Hempstead, I watched as Rabbi Kelemer had his secretary, Wendy, anxiously call all the funeral homes in Baltimore to confirm the time of a levaya.

When they finally learned the funeral had already concluded, Rabbi Kelemer’s face fell as if he had just heard about the tragedy. I asked Rabbi Kelemer who had passed away. I was certain from the reaction that it had been a family member or a close friend. He explained that the brother of a former congregant from Brookline, MA, from over thirty years ago, had passed away. Had the levaya not taken place yet, he would have driven for hours, during

the busiest time of a rav’s year, simply to stand beside that family. Because if you had once been under his care, you stayed there forever.

So much of his greatness was unseen.

While serving as a rav in Brookline, he had a congregant whose father loved learning but was confined to a hospital bed. Every night, at 11:30 p.m., Rabbi Kelemer came to learn with him, unnoticed, unannounced, unrecorded. Only after the patient’s passing did a nurse ask the family who the mysterious nightly chavrusa had been. Who teaches a person to live that way? No manual exists for such devotion.

But for Rabbi Kelemer, this wasn’t heroic; it was natural.

Even moments of true hardship were embraced with serenity. On one Erev Shabbos, while supporting a family through a medical crisis at Columbia Hospital, time slipped away. He stayed until the last possible moment, then stepped into a taxi and rode as far as halacha allowed, finally getting out in Queens and walking home to West Hempstead for hours in the rain.

Later he remarked, without drama, that the walk had been precious because it allowed him to resolve a difficult question of Rabbi Akiva Eiger in Meseches Pesachim that had troubled him for years.

Rabbi Swerdloff’s hesped focused on one central question, a question that has been asked by many: where did Rabbi Kelemer find the strength for such a life of self-sacrifice?

He suggested, based on the Kuzari, that all of creation is broken up into four basic categories: inanimate, vegetative, animal, and human and above them stands Klal Yisroel, whose essence is to live as spiritual beings housed in a physical form. The Chofetz Chaim taught that our avodah is to crown the neshama over

the body, to live “neshamadig,” to see the physical world as a garment rather than an identity. This, in truth, was Rabbi Kelemer. When a person lives from the soul, nothing is too hard. Torah is not a burden.

Chesed is not a strain. Empathy is not effort. It is simply the expression of who the person is.

Rabbi Kelemer never thought he was doing anything special; simply fulfilling the responsibilities of a neshama. Perhaps this is why the gematria of Yehuda Kelemer (345) is the same as “haneshama.”

And that is why he could love endlessly, give tirelessly, guide patiently, and lead each person individually — because he saw every Jew as a soul first.

We live in a world saturated with gashmiyus. The essential question of life is not only what we do but who we become. Are we living gufdig or neshamadig? Do we choose comfort or calling? Convenience or commitment?

Rabbi Yehuda Kelemer showed us what a life led by the neshama truly looks like.

A life of Torah. A life of sensitivity. A life where leadership means carrying the burdens of others with love.

And when a person lives that way, the impact is endless.

Rabbi Jordan Ginsberg grew up in West Hempstead and developed a close bond with Rabbi Kelemer. He is currently a rebbe in DRS High School for boys. Rabbi Kelemer zt”l’s fifth yahrtzeit falls out this week.

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1. *

TJH

Centerfold

“How Cynical are You Anyway?” Trivia 1. When someone tells you, “No rush,” you immediately envision: a. Genuine flexibility b. Patience c. Low priority d. A silent countdown

4. When your phone buzzes, your first assumption is that it is: a. Something important b. A friend c. A reminder d. An attempt to sell you something

2. “This will just take a minute” really means: a. One minute b. Two minutes c. Five minutes d. Clear your schedule – this is going to be a while.

5. You finally sit down to relax and immediately: a. Exhale b. Unwind c. Enjoy the moment d. Think that someone is definitely going to ring the doorbell in 30 seconds.

3. “We should do this again sometime” generally means: a. Soon b. Sincerely c. With planning d. OK, that was bad!

6. When someone says that they are “100% sure,” you: a. Believe them b. Think they are being accurate c. Think that they believe what they are telling you

d. Assume the person is 100% wrong 7. The phrase “this should be easy” guarantees: a. Simplicity b. Speed c. Success d. Complications Answer Key: Answered A to most questions?

Congratulations, Miss Sunshine, you are as naïve as you seem!

Answered B or C to most questions? You have a healthy dose of cynicism, but you are still way too naïve.

Answered D to most questions?

You probably just answered D because you are trying to be cynical.

You Gotta Be Kidding Me! A tourist from Australia is flying down the Belt Parkway and gets pulled over. The police officer asks him why he’s speeding.

The cop replies, “Sir, did you come here to die?”

“Oh, officer, I just rented this car, and I wanted to see how it takes the curves of the Belt Parkway.”

The Australian responds, “No, yester-die.”

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 

Andrew Cuomo will announce a run as dog catcher, only to lose that race as well.



logo to something minimalist and soulless, and

spend the next month explaining why customers are

The Mets will pick up a B-level player and claim

wrong for hating it and then will undo the change.

that with this addition, “This is our year to go all

the way!” and they will once again finish last in the league.



People in New York City will



Another 42 restaurants will open



You will spend a total of 250



Bernie Sanders will announce his 2028 bid for president, making him the oldest person to run for president…by 84 years.

talk about how Bill de Blasio as

mayor was the “good old days.”



The last three people in



People will insist this election

the world that don’t have

podcasts will start them.

in the Five Towns (because, after

all, don’t we need variety?).

is “the most important one of

our lifetime,” again, for the 117th time.

hours stuck in Rockaway Turnpike traffic and the

politicians will still tell you that they are fixing the problem (riiiight…by approving another few Amazon warehouses).

 

A once-beloved brand will rebrand, change its



A public figure will say something outrageous, apologize, clarify the apology, apologize for the

clarification, and then blame it on having mistakenly

Trump will announce that he is running in 2028,

taken a hallucinogenic instead of Vitamin C.

just to see some people’s heads pop off.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will announce that they still won’t go back to England and still

don’t want to perform any royal duties and everyone in England will say, “Good, because we STILL hate you.”

 

Tucker Carlson will blame everything on the Jews. Oh wait, he already does.

Now that she will finally retire, Nancy Pelosi will get a job playing herself as a wax figure at Madame

Tussauds wax museum.

Riddle Me This A 6-foot-long horse is attached to a 24-foot chain and wants an apple that is 42 feet away. How can the horse get to the apple?

JANUARY 8, 2026 | The Jewish Home

10 Predictions for 2026

Answer: Easy. The chain is not attached to anything other than the horse

The Jewish Home | JANUARY 8, 2026

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Voice N

tes

Midwinter Break Why the Return Matters as Much as the Break By a Longtime Educator and Parent

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s we reflect on the lessons we take with us from Chanukah, this moment of transition takes on added meaning. We celebrate not only the miracle of the oil but the rush to return—to the Beis HaMikdash, to avodah, to consistency—after disruption and upheaval. The light did not only burn longer than expected; it was kindled at the first opportunity, without delay. That movement—from pause back to purpose—is precisely what the days following Chanukah represent for our children. How we return matters as much as the break itself.

Every year, as midwinter break approaches, families look forward to a much-needed pause. The days are short, the pace of life is demanding, and time away together can be restorative and meaningful. Vacations are healthy. Family time matters. That much is clear. But there is one part of the break that deserves more reflection than it often receives, and that is the return.

When students come back late after midwinter break, they are losing out.

Learning—whether Torah learning in a yeshiva or structured limudim in a girls’ school—does not stop because a few extra vacation days are added. The days immediately following a break are especially significant. Rebbeim and teachers use that time to review, to reestablish expectations, and to lay the groundwork for what comes next.

A student who is not there feels the difference right away. Instead of reentering the classroom alongside peers, he or she walks into learning that is already in motion, and suddenly the experience is about catching up rather than settling back in.

But the impact goes beyond the child who is absent. When a noticeable number of students are missing, educators are often placed in an impossible position. If they

move forward as planned, those who return late come in with their heads still in vacation mode and are now expected to reorient themselves while also making up what they missed. If, on the other hand, the teacher holds back and fills the time with “extras,” whether that means review games, lighter material, or even educational videos meant to bridge the gap, the students who are present see right through it. Sitting in a classroom with rows of empty desks, they understand immediately that this is not the real learning they would normally be doing, and the unspoken message they take away is, “There was no real reason for me to come back on time.” That feeling lingers, and it weakens the seriousness with which the return to school is taken.

It is important to be clear about what this conversation is not about. It is not about who has and who doesn’t, who can travel and who cannot, or what kind of vacation a family takes. Those are different discussions. This is about shared responsibility within a Torah community. Rebbeim and teachers invest tremendous time, energy, and heart into preparing their lessons.

Many of them would much rather have longer vacations with their own families, but they make the effort to be back on time so they can be ready for their students. Many families do the same, cutting trips short so their children can return when school resumes. When some return late, it quietly but meaningfully shifts the balance for everyone else.

We also recognize that for many families, this is not simple. There are households with children in multiple schools, sometimes with boys’ and girls’ schools on different calendars, different start dates, and different expectations. Coordinating those schedules can be challenging, and the strain that creates is very real. That

complexity deserves understanding. At the same time, those challenges make communication and thoughtful planning even more important, because regardless of the reason, the effect of a late return on a classroom or yeshiva remains the same.

Children are deeply attuned to fairness, even when they do not articulate it. A student who returns on time and sees many empty seats may quietly wonder why the effort mattered. Why rush back if others did not? Over time, that question weakens the shared sense that being on time is important and that learning is something we commit to together. Schools thrive when there is a feeling of achrayus, of mutual responsibility, and that feeling is built through consistency and presence.

There is also a common assumption that missing “just one day” cannot make a real difference. In practice, those first days back are rarely ordinary days. They are transition days, when routines are reset, expectations are clarified, and learning regains its rhythm. In Torah education especially, momentum matters. When a child misses the moment when the classroom recenters itself, even a single absence can create a feeling of being out of step that lingers far longer than the day itself.

Late returns also have very real consequences for the flow of learning. When teachers delay starting new material, students who are present lose valuable time, and the sense of bitul Torah—or wasted learning opportunity—is felt. When teachers move forward, students who return late face unnecessary stress and discouragement. Neither option is ideal, and both stem from the same root issue: the absence of a unified return.

None of this diminishes the value of breaks. They are necessary. They give families space to rest and reconnect, and they help students recharge. But being part of a Torah community means recognizing that our individual decisions ripple outward. A late return affects not only one child but also classmates, educators, and the overall rhythm of the school.

From many years of experience in classrooms and schools, two practical suggestions stand out. First, if a family knows that a vacation will extend beyond the official school break, it is generally far better to leave early rather than come back late.

Missing the end of a unit is usually easier to manage than missing the beginning of a new one. Those first days often establish the foundation for weeks to come, and without that foundation, everything that follows is more difficult.

Second, communication matters.

Reaching out to the rebbi or teacher ahead of time makes a real difference. It allows for planning, understanding, and support.

Open communication builds trust, and that trust ultimately benefits the child.

Returning on time after midwinter break is not about rigidity or lack of sensitivity. It is about kavod haTorah, respect for educators, consideration for classmates, and care for our children’s learning. When everyone returns together, it sends a quiet but powerful message: what we do here matters, consistency matters, and we are all part of something larger than ourselves.

Enjoy the break. Use it well. Spend time together. And when it ends, try to return together, on time—bringing the light back into the routine. The rest of the year is stronger when we begin it that way.

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Torah Thought

Parshas Shemos

By Rabbi Berel Wein z”l

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he change in eras is sudden, unexpected and unpredictable.

The Jewish people have lived in Egypt for over a century in the land of Goshen in affluence and security. They are apparently very well integrated into Egyptian society and are comfortable in their future there. And then there arises a new king, a different era of eighty years of slavery and death, persecution and torture. Where did this new king come from? How was it that no one anticipated such a scenario?

Pharaoh called for volunteers to help build and modernize the infrastructure of Egypt. The Jews, as good and super citizens of Egypt, volunteered. But slowly, they noticed that they were the only volunteers present for the work.

And eventually, they came to work on the Egyptian city fortresses as slaves.

Soon, the entire Jewish population was enslaved, except for the tribe of Levi. In a blink of an historical eye, the Jewish population went from riches to rags, from citizens to slaves, from high society to becoming non-persons.

The truth of this enormous sea change in the status of the Jews in Egypt caught the Jews by surprise. They knew that Avraham had a dream about bondage and exile, but they did not imagine that they were the generation that would

future no longer lay in living in Egypt, yearning for redemption.

Even so, our rabbis of the Midrash concluded, that most of the Jews did not survive physically and spiritually to leave Egypt. The truth is that any generation

It becomes a generation of uncertainty longing to relive its past and seemingly powerless to deal with its present situation effectively, let alone its future.

experience its realization and that Egypt was the place where it would occur. So, when it did occur, they were its victims, and they were completely unprepared for this new sad era. It would take the leadership of Moshe to readjust their thinking, to make them realize that their

that lives at a time of great unforeseen change finds itself in a difficult situation.

It becomes a generation of uncertainty longing to relive its past and seemingly powerless to deal with its present situation effectively, let alone its future.

I think that we can all agree that we

are currently undergoing a great change, economically, socially and security-wise.

While we may long for past situations which seemed so much more certain and secure, our task currently is to deal effectively with what is facing us now.

The example of Moshe must be replicated to the best of our abilities. The Torah always demands that Jews behave wisely, rationally, and with great faith and belief.

Moshe’s task is to fulfill this ideal situation of Jewish behavior and with these goals.

Moshe himself traverses the long road from being raised as a prince in the house of Pharaoh to being a hunted man and eventually the messenger of destruction to that very house in which he was raised.

The Torah does not record for us Moshe’s personal trials and angst in adjusting to situations that were completely new to him. But part of his greatness lies in his G-d-given ability to do so. So, as we begin the book of Shemos, let us resolve to hang in there and deal with our current problems to the best of our abilities. Better days are surely on the way.

Shabbat shalom.

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From the Fire Parshas Shemos

Staying Strong

By Rav Moshe Weinberger Adapted for publication by Binyomin Wolf

A

s we transition from Bereishis to Sefer Shemos, the Torah repeats the names of Yaakov’s sons and concludes (Shemos 1:5), “And it was that the descendants of Yaakov who went down to Egypt were seventy souls, and Yosef was in Egypt.” Because we already knew from Parshas Vayechi that the number of people who went into Egypt included Yosef, it is difficult to understand why the pasuk repeats that point here. Rashi, commenting on the pasuk, therefore writes, “Now were [Yosef] and his sons not already included in the seventy? What does this come to teach us? Do we not already know that he was in Egypt? Rather, it comes to teach us the righteousness of Yosef. The Yosef who was a king in Egypt was the same Yosef who shepherded his father’s sheep and retained his righteousness.”

In order to understand Rashi’s comment, we must study the explanation offered by the Alter of Kelm, zt”l. When someone hears something he finds to be completely amazing, he repeats it again and again as an expression of his wonder. So too, the Torah, as it were, continues to repeat the wondrous fact that Yosef remained

a tzaddik for so many years although he lived in Egypt, surrounded by intense impurity. That is why the Torah now repeats “and Yosef was in Egypt.”

In order to understand the wondrous stability of Yosef’s righteousness, we must examine the meaning of the word “hayah, was” in the phrase “and Yosef was in Egypt.” The Gemara in Brachos (13a) derives the rule that one may not recite the portions that comprise Shema Yisroel out of order from the pasuk (Devarim 6:6), “V’hayah ha’devarim ha’eilah, and these words [of Shema] shall be...” The Gemara derives this rule from the use of the word “hayu, and they shall be” to mean “And they shall be – they shall remain as they were at the beginning [the words of Shema should be read in their original order from beginning to end without deviation].”

We therefore see that the phrase “And they shall be,” which shares the same Hebrew root as the word “hayah, was” in the phrase “and Yosef was in Egypt” implies that the subject of the pasuk should remain as it always was. Chazal similarly derive that tefillin and mezuzos must be written in the correct order because of the word “hayu,

and they shall be.” This is the meaning of the Torah’s amazement that “and Yosef was in Egypt,” remaining exactly as he was before going into Egypt. His life followed the order he had committed himself to without any deviation.

Let us now understand Yosef’s nature when he descending into Egypt, which he retained despite the environment there. In the house of Potiphar, the Torah (Bereishis 39:3) says, “And his master saw that Hashem was with him,” which Rashi explains to mean that “the name of heaven was always in his mouth.” The Midrash Tanchuma (Vayeishev 8) teaches that “when [Yosef] would go in to serve [his master], he would whisper, ‘Master of the world, You are my trust and my Father. Grant me grace, kindness, and mercy in Your eyes, in the eyes of all who see me, and in the eyes of Potiphar, my master.”

In every interaction Yosef had, we can see many more examples demonstrating that “the name of heaven was always in his mouth.” When Yosef was tested by the temptation of Potiphar’s wife, Yosef said (Bereishis 39:9), “And how can I do this very evil thing and sin against Hash-

em?!” The Midrash (Bereishis Raba 14:3) expands on that idea, stating that “[from Yosef’s faithfulness to Hashem with respect to the wife of Potiphar] we see Yosef’s faith in [relatively] good times. How do we know that he was as faithful in hard times? As the pasuk (Bereishis 39:23) says, ‘The warden of the prison did not inspect anything that was in Yosef’s hand because he saw that Hashem was with him.’”

The examples continue. Yosef said to the butler and baker in prison (Bereishis 40:8), “Do interpretations not belong to Hashem?!” When Pharaoh asked Yosef to interpret his dreams, Yosef said (Bereishis 41:16), “It is not me. Hashem will give an answer that will provide peace for Pharaoh,” (ibid. at 24) “Hashem is telling Pharaoh what He is going to do,” and (ibid. at 32) “the matter is ready to emanate from Hashem and He is hastening to carry it out.” Yosef even names his children based on his constant thoughts of Hashem. He named his older son Menashe, saying (ibid. at 51), “Hashem has caused me to forget all of my toil and all about my father’s house.” In the following pasuk, he names his second son Ephraim,

“ki yifleh neder, when a person makes a wondrous vow...” The Ibn Ezra explains what makes the Nazir’s vow so wondrous: “The word ‘wondrous’ is used because everyone runs after their desires but this person hems in his desires. Everyone else strengthens the nature with which they were born, but when one creates a new nature for himself, it is a wonder.” Therefore, Yosef, who never wavered in his total

yada es Yosef, a new king was established over Egypt who did not know Yosef.” The Midrash in Shemos Raba (Parsha 8) explains why he was called a “new king:” The sages explain: Why did they call [Pharaoh] a “new king”? Was this not the same Pharaoh? Rather, the Egyptians said to Pharaoh: “Come, let us enslave this nation.” He said to them, “You are fools! Until now we belong to them. We eat their food.

His life followed the order he had committed himself to without any deviation.

dedication to Hashem despite everything around him, went against his nature, just like a Nazir does, by remaining exactly as he was before. This is a wonder, and that is why he was called “nezir echav, the crown of his brothers.”

However, everything in holiness has its opposite in impurity, as it says (Koheles 7:14), “Zeh l’umas zeh asah ha’Elokim, Hashem created this in balance with that.”

The Torah says (Shemos 1:8), “Vayakam melech chadash al Mitzrayim asher lo

How can we enslave them? Were it not for Yosef, we would not be alive!” Because he did not listen to them, they removed him from his throne for three months, at which point he said to them, “Whatever you want to do, I am with you.” They then returned him to the throne. That is why it says, “A new king was established...”

Whereas Yosef was someone who never veered from his values for a minute, Pharaoh was just the opposite. He buckled in the face of pressure and compromised his

basic sense of gratitude in order to appease his people. Perhaps this is why the pasuk say that Pharaoh was “a new king who did not know Yosef.” He did not know the wondrous way of Yosef, which is to uphold one’s standards and values regardless of the environment. Instead, after three months of pressure, he became a “new king.”

Our world is no different from Yosef’s.

Our own inner temptations and the outside world exert great pressure on us to follow every desire, to eat every food, to click on every link we see, and to read emails and text messages the moment they arrive and not a second later. But just like Yosef, the wondrous crown of his brothers, we too can remainas straight as we were when Hashem created us, as the pasuk says (Koheles 7:29), “Asah Ha’Elokim es ha’adam Yashar, Hashem created man straight.” Therefore, each of us has the choice to be like Yosef or like Pharaoh.

May we merit to make the right choices each day and multiply Hashem’s wonders in the world.

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

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saying, “Hashem has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”

In addition, even when Yosef had not yet revealed his true identity to his brothers, he told them (Bereishis 42:18), “Es Ha’Elokim ani yarei, I fear Hashem.” And after he had revealed himself, when comforting them regarding what they had done to him, he said (Bereishis 45:5), “Do not be sad or angry, because when you sold me here, Hashem sent me before you in order to sustain you,” and (ibid. at 8) “And now, it was not you who sent me here but Hashem.”

Finally, in his last moments of life, Yosef told his brothers (Bereishis 50:25), “Hashem will surely remember you, [and when He does], take my bones up from here.” We therefore see that through his terrible trials and the heights Yosef experienced in Egypt, he remained exactly as he was in Yaakov Avinu’s house. He remained with all of his words and chapters in order. That is why the Torah repeats, in amazement, “And Yosef was in Egypt!”

Yaakov Avinu calls Yosef (Bereishis 49:26) “nezir echav, the crown of his brothers.” The Hebrew word he uses for crown is nezir, but that Hebrew root word can also mean Nazir, one who takes a Nazerite vow to abstain from grapes and wine. The Torah (Vayikra 27:2) says about the Nazir,

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Think. Feel.Grow.

Emerging from the Waters Reborn

By Rabbi Shmuel Reichman

I

magine waking up in a hospital bed with amnesia; you haven’t the foggiest clue who you are. You try to recall your most recent memories and how you may have gotten here, but you just can’t seem to remember. After a few seconds, you come to realize that you truly have no idea who you are. Just then, a group of men enter the room and deliver some shocking news. They tell you that you are the leader of the country, and that once you’re feeling better, there are some important issues for you to deal with.

How would you feel? You’d probably hold your head up high, realizing that you are someone important. But what if instead of addressing you as a world leader, those same people informed you that you were the hospital janitor; instead of awaiting your return to the presidential office, they’re awaiting your return to the bathrooms on the second floor. How would you feel then? What would you think of yourself?

Why Water?

A central question in the story of the Mabul is why Hashem specifically chose to destroy the world through a flood. Hashem could have chosen any form of destruction, and yet, He chose water. Why? In Judaism, water is often associated with the mitzvah of mikvah, the requirement to immerse oneself in a natural water bath in order to cleanse oneself of spiritual impurity. What is the meaning behind this strange ritual? Washing oneself with water removes physical filth, but how does it affect one’s spiritual state?

In order to understand both the Mabul and the unique power of mikvah, we must first understand the spiritual concept of water.

The Maharal (Gevuros Hashem, chap.

19) explains that the fundamental nature of water lies in the fact that it is formless.

Water has no independent form; it adopts the shape of its container. The ocean is

completely formless, and unlike dry land, it has no pathways or landmarks.

This attribute of water reflects its essence. Water represents the initial stage in every creative process. Before something takes form and becomes expressed, it exists in a formless, amorphous state.

Through the creative process, physical form emerges from this intangible, formless root. This is why the Torah states that during the creation of the world, there was initially only water. Only afterwards did dry land emerge from the water (Bereishis 1:9).

This is the deep secret behind the Mabul: Hashem was not destroying the world – He was recreating it. The Dor Ha’Mabul became so corrupted that Hashem decided to start over with Noach alone. Hashem therefore immersed the world in water so that it could return to its primordial state of formlessness and void.

Only once it reverted to its original state could the dry land once again emerge

from the waters, recreated and reformed.

And only once the dry land emerged, and the world was birthed once more, could Noach leave the teivah (ark).

Personal Creation This deep nature and purpose of water explains why we are surrounded by amniotic fluids while in the womb. Just as during Creation the physical world of form emerged from formless water, each of us has our own creation story, and therefore we each emerge from our own waters; our birth is like the birth of a new world (Sanhedrin 37a).

As we previously discussed, while we are in the womb, a malach teaches us kol haTorah kulah (Niddah 30b). As the Vilna Gaon explains, this refers to the deepest realms of Torah, a transcendent Torah that lies far beyond this world, beyond the confines of space and time. This Torah is the very root of reality, and we are granted complete understanding of its ev-

National Creation A further example of water’s unique spiritual purpose is apparent in the events of K’rias Yam Suf. The commentators point out that the Jewish people’s journey through the Yam Suf appears to be pointless. After all, Chazal explain that Klal Yisrael exited on the very same side that they entered! (See Arachin 15a and Tosafos there. See also Chizkuni, Shemos 14:22.)

If Hashem simply wanted to destroy the Egyptians, there were easier ways to accomplish this. What was the purpose of such a journey?

The Maharal (Gevuros Hashem, chap.

55) explains that Yetzias Mitzrayim was the creation and birth of the Jewish people. Therefore, just as the creation and recreation of the world emerged from water, the Jewish people had to be born from water as well. They therefore entered the water and emerged reborn. In essence, the splitting of the Yam Suf was like a pregnant woman’s water breaking. They entered as individuals but emerged reborn as a nation. The entire world, the Jewish nation, and each individual person has a creation story of emerging from formless water into concrete existence.

Mikvah: A Personal Re-Creation We can now understand the unique mitzvah of entering the waters of a mikvah. When we immerse ourselves in the waters of the mikvah, we return to a pure, formless state — the original state of perfection that we possessed while in the womb. By returning to our root and reconnecting to our higher selves, we “wash” away our spiritual impurity. When we emerge, we emerge reborn. It is as if we have been recreated, taking on form and shape for the first time. The process of emerging from the mikvah is comparable to the dry land emerging from the primordial waters.

This sheds light on the unique circumstances that require immersion in a

mikvah. For example, a ger immerses in the waters of a mikvah as the final step in the conversion process (Yevamos 22a), because a Jewish convert is considered to be born anew (“ger ke’katan she’nolad dami”). The convert immerses in the waters of the mikvah, the medium of recreation, and emerges reborn. He or she entered as an old version of him or herself, but emerges anew — reborn, ready for a new way of life.

The Number 40 With this background, we can understand the prevalence of the number forty in the story of the Mabul, as well as in relation to the waters of the mikvah.

which was a reformation of reality itself.

• The Jewish people spent forty years in the Midbar as they went through the process of recreating their identity and preparing themselves to enter Eretz Yisrael.

• Chazal (Avos 5:21) state that forty is the age of binah (understanding). Knowledge is the attainment of formless facts and details; understanding is the ability to source all expressed details and facts back to their root principles and concepts, giving meaning and form to the countless scattered facts.

Fetal Fluids and the Shofar The themes of water and the number forty, which surround our formation

The entire world, the Jewish nation, and each individual person has a creation story of emerging from formless water into concrete existence.

• The floods of the Mabul lasted forty days.

• A kosher mikvah requires forty se’ah (a biblical measurement) of water.

• Chazal state that until forty days after conception, the fetus is considered “maya b’alma,” formless and like water.

What is the meaning behind these different features of forty, and what is the connection between them and water?

The number forty represents the spiritual concept of form, the point at which something formless takes on concrete form. This is apparent throughout Tanach and halacha: • The Mabul lasted forty days and nights because this was the amount of time it took for the world to transition from formlessness to its recreated form.

• A mikvah requires forty se’ah because this is the amount of water required for a person to transition from formlessness to a newly created form, a reborn self.

• Until forty days, the fetus has no form at all; only after forty days does the fetus begin to take on concrete form. (This has many potential halachic applications.

See Brachos 60a and the story of Rachel and Dinah. See also Tosafos, Sanhedrin 22a, regarding the permissibility to daven for the gender of a child before forty days.)

• Moshe spent forty days and nights on Har Sinai while receiving the Torah,

and creation, are prominent within the features of Rosh Hashana as well. The word “shofar” shares a root with “mei shafir,” the amniotic fluid that surrounds the fetus while in the womb. The shofar is a wake-up blast, meant to shake us out of our stupor and bring us back to our root self. When we hear the shofar’s deafening cry, we yearn to return to our source, to our higher self. The word “shofar” also shares a root with “l’shaper,” to perfect and beautify. When we blow the shofar, we are reminded to improve and perfect ourselves, to return to the fetal state of perfection we once knew, to return to our true selves.

Amazingly, we begin blowing the shofar on Rosh Chodesh Elul, and our final shofar blast occurs at the climax of Yom Kippur. It is no coincidence that there are a total of forty days from Rosh Chodesh Elul through Yom Kippur. These forty days are the gestation and formation of the rest of our year. Yom Kippur marks our rebirth and recreation, where we take on new form and enter the year with newfound purpose.

Recreating Our Identity Every day, we get to choose who we are, what we believe in, and how we are going to live our lives. Each morning, we get to create our identity. We are never

stuck in the patterns of our past; each day we begin anew. As Avraham Avinu says, “Anochi afar va’efer, I am but dust and ashes” (Bereishis 18:27). This is generally understood as a statement of extreme humility. However, there is a fundamentally deeper explanation of this statement as well. Ashes represent an elemental breakdown, the most basic particles of an object. Dirt is the starting point of growth, the place where seeds are planted and given life. In a deeper sense, Avraham was saying that every day he would “ash” himself, breaking his very “self” down into its elemental, root form, and he would then plant himself anew.

In other words, Avraham would recreate himself every single day. Each and every day, he looked deep within himself, examined and broke down every aspect of his “self,” and then recreated himself for the better, taking the next step in his spiritual growth. Avraham never continued living the same way simply because it was comfortable or he was used to it. Avraham challenged himself daily, constantly pushing himself to become the very best he could be.

May we all be inspired to embark on a journey of genuine “afar va’efer,” finding excitement and meaning in our constant growth and internal recreation.

Rabbi Shmuel Reichman is an international speaker, bestselling author, business coach, the CEO of SMA, and a TED Talk Speaker. His online content reaches millions of people every month, and he lectures internationally on topics of Torah thought, psychology, leadership, and business – uniquely blending many areas of Torah and wisdom together. His bestselling book, The Journey to Your Ultimate Self, serves as an inspiring gateway into deeper Torah thought.

After receiving his BA from Yeshiva University and Semicha from Yeshiva University’s RIETS, Rabbi Reichman received a Masters degree in Philosophy and Religion from the University of Chicago. As part of his Masters Degree at the University of Chicago, Rabbi Reichman received an Ivy Plus Scholarship to Harvard where he spent a year studying Religious Philosophy and Literature as an Ivy Scholar. Additionally, he received a Masters degree in Educational Psychology from Azrieli Graduate School and a Masters degree in Jewish Thought from Yeshiva University’s Bernard Revel Graduate School. As a business and leadership coach, Rabbi Reichman provides a unique 1-on-1 coaching program where he helps high-achievers, coaches, and business owners achieve their financial and personal goals. To learn more or to get in contact with Rabbi Reichman, visit his website: ShmuelReichman.com

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ery detail. Not only were you shown this level of Torah, but you learned your specific share of Torah; you were shown your unique purpose in the world and how your unique role fits into the larger scheme of the human story as a whole. You were given a taste of your own perfection, of what you could, should, and hopefully will become. And from this transcendent realm, you were birthed into the physical world, emerging from these formless waters with the mission to give form and actualize everything you were shown in the womb while in your primordial, perfect state.

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Delving into the Daf

A Humbling Metaphor

By Rabbi Avrohom Sebrow

T

he Ravens from the dark northern crags descended onto the southern plains to face the crimson-crested Falcons riding the rising wind. The two flocks circled a leather-bound prize, diving and twisting through the air, each trying to seize it before it struck the chalk-lined ground below. The Falcons slashed with sharp talons, but the dark-winged Ravens relied on cunning, weaving through the chaos and carrying the relic safely into the far sanctuary. As the final shadow stretched across the field, the Ravens lifted off in victory, while their rivals stood watching from the dust.

At first glance, this sounds like a piece of imaginative fiction. But any NFL fan would immediately recognize it for what it is, a poetic recap of a Ravens-Falcons football game. To the sports fan, the imagery is obvious and intuitive. To someone unfamiliar with football, however, it would sound like an odd and meaningless fantasy.

L’havdil, the same thing often happens when someone encounters certain fantastical aggados in the Gemara. A first reaction might be: This is nonsense. This can’t possibly be true. Yet for someone who understands the symbolic language Chazal are using, the story suddenly becomes not only sensible but deeply meaningful.

This week’s Gemara brings one such account from Rabba bar bar Channa (Rabba, the grandson of Channa). Rabba bar bar Channa relates: I once stood at the edge of the horizon and saw something astonishing—a newborn Re’em, only one day old.

Even at that age, it was no ordinary animal. Its body itself was like a land-

scape, stretching across the earth, vast and immovable like Mount Tabor. To walk from one end to the other would take 136 miles.

Most striking of all was its neck, a massive column of muscle rising ten miles into the sky, piercing the lower clouds. When the creature lay down to rest, the place where its neck met the ground covered an area five miles wide.

The force of such a creature was enough to reshape nature itself. When the Re’em relieved itself, the sheer volume fell like a landslide, crashing into the Jordan River and forming a massive barrier that stopped the flow entirely, leaving the riverbed below dry and silent.

Taken at face value, this sounds like a wild story meant to stretch the imagination. But the Vilna Gaon and others teach that beneath the surface lies a carefully constructed metaphor. The Ben Ish Chai explains that this passage appears on our daf (Zevachim 113b), even amid a largely literal discussion of the Mabul, in order to sharpen the minds of students.

No halachic or factual difficulty can be raised from the fantastical account of Rabba bar bar Channa.

So what is the story really telling us?

The Vilna Gaon explains that the Re’em is not an animal at all but a symbol. It represents a student who takes a flawed approach to Torah learning. The Re’em being “born” already enormous reflects a beginner who jumps straight into complex analysis before laying proper foundations. The creature being only one day old points to someone with very little experience who already believes he has reached intellectual maturity.

Its towering height, compared to Mount Tabor, reflects an inflated sense

of self and a hunger for recognition. Real Torah growth takes years, decades, of steady, disciplined effort. But this student imagines he has skipped every step.

Because his foundations are weak, his advanced reasoning lacks depth.

When he encounters true talmidei chachamim, he cannot prevail through clarity or truth. Frustration and jealousy follow, and these give rise to the “waste” described in the story, a stand-in for insults, mockery, and personal attacks.

This behavior “dams the Jordan.” Instead of Torah flowing cleanly and peacefully, it becomes blocked and polluted.

The atmosphere of the beis midrash suffers, clarity disappears, and ego takes the place of truth.

The Vilna Gaon’s warning is sharp: without humility and an orderly path of learning, even great intellectual ability can turn destructive, becoming a source of spiritual damage rather than illumination.

Instead of focusing on the creature’s nature, Tosafos approaches the issue from a practical perspective, inquiring: what animal is the Re’em? While it is clearly not meant to be taken literally as a 136-mile creature, it is still described as exceptionally large. In Tosafos’ time, some suggested that the Re’em might be the buffalo. Tosafos rejects this idea, noting that buffalo were not unusually large and were commonly used for farm work. The Re’em, however, is explicit-

ly described as unfit for labor, as Iyov (39:10) asks: “Can you bind the Re’em to the furrow with a rope, or will it harrow the valleys after you?”

Why does this matter? Because the Re’em is classified as a chaya, while a buffalo would likely be a beheimah. That distinction carries real halachic consequences. The blood of a chaya requires kisui hadam; the blood of a beheima does not. The cheilev of a beheima is forbidden under penalty of kares, while the cheilev of a chaya is permitted.

For example, the cut of meat known as top rib must have its cheilev removed to be eaten. If the buffalo were a chaya, this would not be an issue. Consequently, Tosafos holds that one cannot consider the buffalo to be the Re’em and thus treat it as a chaya.

In the end, the lesson is the same.

The humble student does not rush to conclusions about the Re’em or the buffalo, nor does he assume understanding before proper study. He moves carefully and deliberately, allowing patience and humility to guide him toward a more accurate understanding.

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

Headlines

89

Halacha

By Rabbi Yair Hoffman

I

am interviewing for seminary next year in Israel. During these interviews, some of the questions that are asked are of a nature that if I respond truthfully, they may not accept me. For example, “Do I like my high school?” In honesty, I can’t really say that I do, but how will that make me look in the eyes of the seminary? Therefore, I am tempted to lie. By asking such questions, is the seminary transgressing lifnei iver (the prohibition of causing another to sin) if I give in to my temptation to lie?

Rabbi Hoffman Responds: It seems that there are many authorities that clearly rule that there is a prohibition of lifnei iver regarding causing another to lie (the Turei Even on Megilah 28a, ‘Umah,”, the Tumim in C.M. Siman 32, Rav Meir Auerbach in his Imrei Binah (C.M. Siman 34).)

In this particular case, the issue may be dependent upon how a contradiction in the Gemara is resolved.

The Gemara in Nedarim 62b tells us that Rav Ashi owned a forest (avah) that he sold to a fire temple (where they burn wood for idol worship purposes). When asked about the prohibition of lifnei iver, he responded that in the majority of cases, the wood that the fire temple buys is used for ordinary heating and not for idol

worship and that he had the right to rely on the majority of cases.

However, there are other passages in the Gemara that seem to contradict the above and indicate that there is a prohibition of lifnei iver when a strong likelihood of a violation exists even if in the majority of cases a violation would not occur. In Bava Metzia 75b, we see that it is a violation of lifnei iver to loan money

will occur, and there is lifnei iver. This is the approach of the HaGaos Tosfos Anshei Shem in Mishnayos Shivi’is 5:7 and the TaZ in Y.D. 151. The Gemara in Bava Metzia 75b and 5b above indicates that in these cases there is a greater probability of a violation than non-violation and that is why they say there is a prohibition of lifnei iver (in accordance with the reasoning in Nedarim 62b).

Although a girl may be tempted to lie by the question asked, in their estimation, most girls would tell the truth.

when there are no witnesses because of the concern that the money will not be paid back. There is also an indication of the same reasoning from Bava Metzia 5b.

Three Approaches to Resolution One approach to resolving the contradiction is that whenever there is a greater probability of a violation than a non-violation, then we assume that a violation

The seminary that asks the types of questions that you are referring to may be relying on the fact that although a girl may be tempted to lie by the question asked, in their estimation, most girls would tell the truth.

Another approach is that the cases in the Gemara in Bava Metzia 75b and 5b above that say there is a prohibition of lifnei iver when there is a strong likelihood of a violation (even if there isn’t a greater

probability than not of a violation) is a prohibition of a rabbinic lifnei iver (see Tzitz Eliezer Vol. IV 5:3). The seminary that asks the types of questions that you are referring to may be relying on the fact that although a girl may be tempted to lie by the question asked, in their estimation, there would not be a strong likelihood that the girl would lie.

Rav Dovid Feinstein, zt”l, explained that if the action being performed will directly lead to a violation on the part of the recipient, and without it, the recipient would not have had the desire to violate halacha, then it is a violation of lifnei iver. According to Rav Dovid’s approach, the seminary should not be asking these types of questions.

Regarding how to answer the question, perhaps you can respond with something like, “That is an excellent question, and I try to like wherever I am. Sometimes, however, we can get frustrated with almost anything. I do very much want to grow in my year in seminary and seek to get along with everyone.”

This article should be viewed as a halachic discussion and not practical advice. The author can be reached at yairhoffman2@gmail.com.

JANUARY 8, 2026 | The Jewish Home

Are Some Seminary Interviews Lifnei Iver?

The Jewish Home | JANUARY 8, 2026

90

School of

Thought

Weathering the Banks

By Barbara Deutsch

J

erusalem’s rollercoaster weather presents an anomaly. On any given day, it’s hard to understand how a dark, cold, miserable and rainy one can morph within five minutes into one that is gorgeous, warm and sunny.

You can begin your day bundled up in scarves, sweaters and coats, and by noon, you will be stripped down to a t-shirt. In Israel, you wear layers, multiple ones, and always with a scarf. For some random reason, too many of my layering pieces did not make our aliyah cut.

To navigate Jerusalem’s climate and terrain, you need waterproof boots, a long raincoat and a warmish jacket large enough to layer; it’s best when the jacket is also waterproof. Jerusalem’s ancient drainage system makes for major floods in the streets and slippery stone slopes; it can get bone chillingly cold and really nasty.

Rain stops Israelis in their tracks; Israelis never take rain for granted and will always say the bracha. Most Israelis opt to stay indoors.

My Canadian family is all too familiar with harsh weather conditions; in Toronto, they have multiple options for keeping warm and dry. My daughter Meredith brought some Canadian waterproof apparel and goodies: Roots (sweatshirts) and Vessi (raincoat and sneakers) along with bags of Lay’s All Dressed Chips, IYKYK. Retail therapy helps to fill a lot of material and emotional gaps; mine are mostly emotional. Israeli shops feature a plethora of excellent designers and, of course, Zara; I’m more than making do to acquire what I want or don’t need.

One of the special perks of widowhood is that your financial profile morphs into an aggravation laden picture. For example, I was quietly zoning out as I got a manicure.

In my former school leader’s life, I considered a fresh manicure to be part of a put-together image. I now rarely wear polish after two gel manicures ate what had formerly been strong nails.

Disturbing my quiet enjoyment of the pampering was an alert from American Express on my always-with-me phone.

The notification jolted me with the news that my card had been decommissioned, unconditionally put out to pasture. Usually, an alert is a question about fraud that requires a follow-up call.

Right away, I called for clarification. I was informed that when Social Security informed American Express of Bob’s passing, they cancelled the card because Bob was the primary and I was the secondary cardholder – done and done.

In the last few months, any card that had been issued in both our names was cancelled. When I was single, a long time ago, I had no money, credit history, or card.

As a married couple, Bob was always the primary and I, the secondary; a very hard lesson learned.

During the drama instigated by “credit card gate,” I was left with a lone card issued by our Israel’s Discount Bank. Fearing more drama, I needed to ensure that my Israeli card did not get compromised.

The popular perception concerning Israeli banks is to stay away, to only interact with them when all else fails. From firsthand encounters, I can attest that the lowest level of people skills interactions come from dealing with Israeli bankers – they personify difficulty. When a banker is pleasant and helpful, it comes as a surprise.

When Bob and I opened our account – everyone needed one even if you don’t keep much money in the account – it was an adventure. The highlight being the time the banker told us we couldn’t deposit any money into our new account as that branch of Discount Bank doesn’t take deposits.

A bank that doesn’t take money?

What is that?

When my status changed, I was given dire warnings: “When the bank finds out about Bob, they will freeze all of the assets,” “whatever you do, don’t contact the bank.”

Weakened, but no fool, I followed the cau-

tioning voices’ advice, waited, and began to spend down what little money there was in the account.

Turns out, I am more foolish than I give myself credit for; in our internet connected world, there is no need to tell the bank what they already know from whatever Israeli Ministry that informs all institutions of a person’s demise.

Last week, for all kinds of reasons, it was time to go to the bank. My “always can be counted upon son-in-law Josh” and I slithered our way into the Discount Bank on Agripas. This branch has money. As you cannot get anything done in Israel without an appointment, my tech-savvy (particularly when ordering from Wolt) granddaughter Elisheva scheduled a time for me and Josh to go.

I entered my teudat zehut (I.D. number) into the system, got a number to denote when it was our turn, took a deep breath and prepared to face the banker. A positive about the bureaucracy of numbers is that because we had an appointment for 1:10 p.m., we did not have to wait a minute.

I came prepared with all of Bob’s paperwork: passports, teudat zehut, death certificate and whatever. We sat down in front of the white-collared t-shirt-wearing banker.

All we needed to give him was Bob’s teudat zehut. After clicking twice on the keyboard, he looked up and declared, “Hu meit,” and asked, “What do you need?”

Josh, afraid to say the wrong thing, mumbled in Hebrew, “We want to remove Bob’s name from the account.” Without blinking, the banker shrugged and responded with an emphatic “no.”

The banker then went on to explain that the way our account was set up, we had signed a paper that made me a beneficia-

ry. That signed document is enough for me to seamlessly continue using the account.

The only way to remove Bob’s name is for me to go through a costly extensive process (lawyer’s fees and about 2,500 dollars, not shekel). Alternatively, if I had an Israeli will (I don’t) I can use it to file as proof of whatever.

Banker: “Why do you need to do that?

You can use the account, no problem.”

Josh then requested that I open my own auxiliary account, one in my name.

The quick response was a hard no.

“Why not?” I foolishly asked.

“We don’t do that!”

Josh and I tried going into two more banks to open an account for me. Either it was too late in the day, banker’s hours, or I had all of Bob’s paperwork but not mine.

Everything you ever heard about Israeli banks is true!

The weather continues to be irrational and moody. For the foreseeable present, I have given up on getting an Israeli bank account in my name; I am the primary on new credit cards, and I have Apple Pay. I go out in driving rain and face the challenges of being physically and emotionally wet and slippery. It is not simple to navigate. You have to learn to adjust expectations. I try to remember to count my blessings. It’s all part of the journey, or so they say.

Barbara Deutsch is the former associate principal at HANC, middle school principal at Kushner, and Dean of Students at Yeshiva of Flatbush. A not-retired educator, she is trying to figure out life in Israel through reflections on navigating the dream of aliyah as a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and friend.

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My Israel Home

The Diplomat Who Wasn’t: Giorgio Perlasca’s Heroic Deception

By Gedaliah Borvick

I

n this column, I often explore the stories behind Israeli street names which honor historical figures who shaped our Jewish past and present. But this time, I’d like to nominate someone whose name should appear on an Israeli street but doesn’t yet: Giorgio Perlasca, the Italian businessman who risked his life to save thousands of Jews in Budapest, Hungary, during the Holocaust.

Perlasca’s story borders on unbelievable. Born in Italy in 1910, he once supported Mussolini’s Fascist regime but broke with it after Italy enacted racial laws and aligned with Nazi Germany. In 1944, while on a business trip to Hungary, Perlasca witnessed the systematic deportation of Jews and felt compelled to act. When the Spanish ambassador was forced to flee, Perlasca, armed only with an old letter from Franco’s government, bluffed his way into becoming the new Spanish consul.

For 45 remarkable days, Giorgio Perlasca posed as Spain’s top diplomat in Budapest. He issued thousands of forged Spanish protection papers, sheltered Jews in safe houses flying the Spanish flag, and stared down Nazi and Arrow Cross officials with fearless audacity. With the help of Zionist youth groups, he coordinated nighttime rescues and provided food and medical care. When diplomatic funds ran out,

he used his own money to keep operations going. By the time it was over, he had safeguarded the lives of more than 5,000 Jews.

Yet after returning home to Italy, Perlasca never spoke of what he had done. For decades, his deeds remained unknown until survivors tracked him down in the late 1980s.

remains unfamiliar to most Israelis.

And yet, the magnitude of his actions rivals those of far more well-known figures. He worked alongside Raoul Wallenberg and at times directly confronted Nazi officers, including the notorious Adolf Eichmann. In one chilling episode, Perlasca demanded the release of Jewish children from a train bound

In one chilling episode, Perlasca demanded the release of Jewish children from a train bound for Auschwitz, standing his ground even when a German officer drew a pistol on him.

In 1989, Yad Vashem honored Perlasca as Righteous Among the Nations.

A forest was planted in his name. He received medals from Israel, Italy, Spain, Hungary, and the United States. His story has since been featured in books, documentaries, stamps, and even a symphonic composition in Israel.

Despite this recognition, his name

for Auschwitz, standing his ground even when a German officer drew a pistol on him.

Today, streets in Rome and several Italian cities bear his name, as does an honorary street in Brooklyn – thanks in part to a devoted reader of this column who recently asked me: shouldn’t Israel also honor him?

It’s a fair question. In Israel, streets commemorate Jewish resistance fighters, rabbinic leaders, and Zionist pioneers. We must also remember the righteous gentiles who risked everything – despite having nothing to gain! – to save Jews when the world turned away.

Moshe Krausz, Carl Lutz, and Raoul Wallenberg all have streets named after them in Israel for their roles in rescuing Hungarian Jews. Giorgio Perlasca belongs in their company.

He acted without official authority, without support, and with no expectation of recognition. He simply did what he believed was right. Naming a street in Israel after Giorgio Perlasca would not only honor him personally but also acknowledge the courageous role righteous gentiles played during the Holocaust.

It’s time Israel gives Giorgio Perlasca the honor he never asked for but so clearly deserves.

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

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Education is the Primary Defense in Combating Hate TJH Speaks with Michael Cohen, EVP at the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation

By Eliyahu RosEnBERg With Gov. Hochul at her bill signing of the legislation to mandate a title VI coordinator on every college campus to protect Jewish students from antisemitism

TJH recently spoke with Michael Cohen, a Woodmere resident with a decades-long career in serving the Jewish community. Cohen served as the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s East Coast Director before joining the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation (AJCF) in September 2025.

As the AJCF’s executive vice president, Cohen advances the nonprofit’s global mission to combat antisemitism and hate through Holocaust education.

In our conversation, we discussed the ACJF’s operations, his current and past communal roles, and his thoughts on building alliances and fighting hate.

Michael, you’re the executive vice president of the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation, which operates in Poland and America. Can you describe the organization’s operations in Poland?

In Poland, the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation is the Jewish entity that has boots on the grounds. We have three buildings. We have our training center. We maintain the only surviving shul, which is in the town of Auschwitz. The only reason the shul survived the war was that the Germans used it as an armory, and then, afterwards, it got taken over by a carpet company. And it was still a carpet company when the AJCF bought it 25 years ago.

We do trainings — there are Holocaust education and anti-hate mandates — for a lot of nations around the European Union, particularly Germany and Austria. They send a lot of their students to our center. We see over thirty thousand students a year from Europe. And we also conduct law enforcement training for a lot of nations in the E.U., as well. We educate law enforcement on tolerance, diversity, Holocaust education, and antisemitism. When you think about the Holocaust, when you think about how the Germans were able to accomplish what they accomplished, you realize that, from the early goings, law enforcement was trained in Germany to execute all the kinds of laws and antisemitic statutes that were being enacted. So, when you look at hate in embryo, law enforcement is a very early stage, and you want to combat that and make sure that your law enforcement is trained on all these issues so that it doesn’t happen again. As such, it’s very important for us to recognize the Holocaust’s building blocks and how to combat that from day one.

We look at ourselves very much as an education-based organization. The AJCF has trained over

700,000 people since its inception. We have two pillars: education and outreach. Being able to reach out to all those kinds of communities – whether it’s law enforcement, different demographic communities, whatever it might be – and having the educational tools to be able to demonstrate to them how hate grows and manifests itself and what it can turn into in its worst form — those are really critical attributes to what we do and how we train.

We realized 20 years ago that the same applies to the military: they need to be trained and understand the same kind of lessons that we’re teaching.

The AJCF created a program called ASAP – the American Service Academies Program – which trains cadets at all service industries, predominantly in West Point and Annapolis at this point, and brings them on a 16-day training session every year to basically teach them military ethics. Out of the 16 days, before we go to Auschwitz, four days are in America to get them prepared to understand what we’re going to see and why.

What is the AJCF’s role in America?

We realized that the kind of education that AJCF has provided to so many in Europe was required to be taught here, too. We understood that we needed to look at our school system, look at our children, and understand that many students either have not heard of the Holocaust, or, if they have (most have), the details in their minds are inaccurate or sketchy.

One of the reasons you conduct Holocaust education is not just because you want to tell somebody a story of history; it’s because, in order to ensure that it’s “never again,” we first need to understand what we want to never happen again. What are the angles and attributes that we can bring to the table to demonstrate what the instigators of hate are today?

How do teachers and students feel about this program?

We’ve seen teachers really embracing the program. There’s a trepidation amongst educators and throughout the system about what the children are exposed to and how they react. The teachers want to have the tools to deal with these kinds of circumstances, because they see hate in their schools.

They see bullying. They see stereotyping. But the teachers themselves are not trained specifically on how to deal with that. They’re not trained on how to interact with their students. So they welcome our organization.

The takeaway is that we want to show the students how to be upstanders. We want to show them what tangible things they can do when they see hate and what their responsibility is to help their community. Typically, when you ask a child, “When you see offensive material on a platform you’re on, what do you do?” the standard response is: “Well, I’ll shut off my computer, so I don’t interact.” But all that’s doing is allowing for somebody else to see it; nothing else happens. So, we actually have takeaway materials for them in which we explain: here’s how you can report offensive content, how you can speak to your teachers, how to notify your educators or the appropriate officials on each of those platforms, how to interact with law enforcement to let them know this is something which is actionable in some sort of way. The goal is for the kids to understand that they can do something tangible. It’s not, “I’ve learned this. Wonderful. Goodbye.” It’s, “I’ve learned this, and now I have a responsibility to my school, to my teacher, to my friends, to do something. To be something.”

We want to educate students on hate. But not just on hate but also on how to fact-check, how to verify information, how to research. The City Council understands that the younger generation’s education is when they’re scrolling on their phones and looking at social media platforms.

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The methodologies of how hate spreads change.

For instance, in today’s world, social media is the biggest facilitator of hate that we see — whether it’s the algorithms that expose children to hateful content, whether they hear something on TikTok or Instagram. A lot of our trainings in America focus on dealing with that: how do kids recognize hate?

How do kids recognize the impact of what they do on those platforms?

One of the partnerships that we’ve recently built that we’re really proud of is with the New York City Department of Education. We’ve partnered with the New York City Council, which has funded us to be the largest educator on anti-hate programs in the New York City Department of Education. Right now, we are mandated this year to train 25-30,000 middle and high school students across the New York City public school system. We’re going to conduct between 800 and 1,000 individual class-size workshops. We’re not saying, “Let’s talk to an auditorium of 500 students”; we’re saying, “Let’s have intimate settings to really be able to connect with students.”

With Councilmember Eric Dinowitz, Chair of the City Council’s Jewish Caucus, at Riverdale Kingsbridge Academy where AJCF trained nearly 1,500 students

Are your workshops primarily focused on Holocaust education? Do you delve into current events or other atrocities?

I don’t think anybody will argue that when you want to teach about what hate can manifest into, in its worst form, that the Holocaust immediately comes to mind. For different cultures and different identity groups within the NYC public school system, there are other atrocities that affected their communities in various ways. So, we blend in other atrocities, as well, so that we can connect

designated the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation to be the one going into schools to teach hate throughout the city of New York is a testament to both their forward thinking and recognition that the Jewish community is united with all communities in combating hate. We’re not just in Jewish communities. We’re in every community in the city of New York. I’m very proud that whether we’re in Eastern New York, whether we’re in Harlem, whether we’re in Bed-Stuy or Queens or any community, it’s the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation that’s coming to provide that anti-hate messaging.

“In order to ensure that it’s

Do you plan to expand this to communities outside of New York City?

We’re currently in conversations with a number of Long Island school districts that have already heard about the program and want to talk to us about it. We’re talking to folks in New Jersey, as well. I feel very blessed that the quality of work that the AJCF is producing is attracting all of that attention and that people recognize that we’re making sure that antisemitism and all hate are dealt with.

‘never again,’ we first need to understand what we want to never happen again.”

with everybody. But there is a very significant proportion of the program that deals with the Holocaust and antisemitism. But it’s not just the Holocaust; it’s also contemporary antisemitism. It’s one of the most immersive ways that NYC public school students are learning about the Holocaust right now and seeing its effects.

For instance, when you talk about the town of Oświęcim (Auschwitz), and you discuss how the town was 60% Jewish before the war, and now it’s gone, and these were people just like you, with families, who were living and working and in school…having that kind of connection, that kind of context, really makes it something that they can bring home and understand.

Our mandate from the council is to provide anti-hate education, but we obviously make sure that the Holocaust and antisemitism are a very, very significant and prominent component of that education. I think the fact that the council

There’s a big emphasis nowadays on activism and protesting, and a lot of that comes from peer pressure. A lot of kids seem to have poor role models. How do we help our children recognize which adults to trust and which role models to admire?

What we recognized is that there are a number of different ways that you need to reach children.

There’s no one-stop-shop, so to speak. Just to give you an example, we’ve built an incredible relationship with the New Visions High School District, which is the largest non-contiguous high school district in the city of New York, with 37,000 students in 60 different public schools.

They have a superintendent, Noah Angeles, who believes in this kind of work very much. And one of the things that we recognized is that it can’t just be educators and facilitators teaching stu-

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dents — students have to be able to connect with their own peers in their own environments, too, so that they have that reinforcement once they go back to the proverbial lunchroom.

What they realized in some of their high schools is that hate incidents are predominantly happening amongst younger students: the freshmen and the sophomores. The juniors and seniors, on the other hand, were much more likely to care about, “Well, our school needs to have a good reputation because I want to apply to college.” The older students are more equipped to understand the effects of social media. But also, we teach them about their digital footprint. If you speak to a seventh grader and say, “Do you realize that your posts on social media and on your chats or wherever, that that’s going to stay with you for the rest of your life, so when you’re applying to college or for a job later, you can’t erase that? So, you have to be very careful, because it affects you in the long term” — well, the older kids understand all of this obviously a lot better than the younger kids.

The superintendent said, “Can you imagine, on top of having all these trainings, if we can build a leadership fellowship that trains the older students to mentor the younger students within the school?” So, we built a partnership with them called “The New Visions Fellowship to Combat Hate.” We launched a pilot program, starting with five schools, and we have an application process to select 11th and 12th graders who have leadership potential. There are two parts of the program during the year: during the first, we take a group of the fellows representing the main NYC public school identity groups to different educational places. For example, we took Jewish fellows to the Center for Jewish History for the Anne Frank Exhibit. And we actually had with us Leo Ullman, a Holocaust survivor who was a hidden child in Holland. He walked through the entire exhibit with them and explained his experiences. And then, after that, we had a session in the auditorium, where he answered questions from them.

The first half of the year is predominantly going through a different identity group’s environment in order to build mutual empathy with them. And the second half of the year is more about teaching them leadership skills and how to use them within their school construct.

There’s such an assumption out there that nobody’s doing anything, that the legislators don’t care, that there’s no way to partner with anybody.

But the majority of the funding for this fellowship program comes from the New York City Council. And then there are also individual Council members who give their personal discretionary dollars to ensure that these programs happen in additional schools in their own districts, as well.

So, this is a massive partnership that the NYC Council has taken on. And how do you do anything but commend them for that?

You’re on the frontlines of combating hate. I’d imagine that it’s very easy to

Auschwitz Jewish Center in Poland. Photo by Artus Rudiak

become frustrated and stressed in such an environment. How do you stay calm?

Of course. Well, whenever there’s an antisemitic attack — whenever there’s a hateful attack on any community — the first thing we all do is hear the talk, hear chatter. But I’m in a position where I’m blessed to be able to do something about it. Through the AJCF, I am able to have an impact. With our team, we can come up with new ideas on how to make a difference.

A lot of that anger and frustration that people have, in my opinion, comes from sitting in a frustrated state because they feel like there’s nothing they can do. They’re seeing injustice, they’re angry about it, and they want to see change. But, as part of the AJCF, my thought process right away goes to, “OK, here’s a situation. How did it get there? What can we do?” And you know, one of the things I love about the team at the AJCF is that we are tireless, we are relentless. There is no 9-to-5 with an hour for lunch. We are working around the clock. We

“We are working wherever and whenever we’re needed, because it’s a passion. It’s a mission for all of us.”

are working wherever and whenever we’re needed, because it’s a passion. It’s a mission for all of us.

But I think that every one of us can do something. There are different levels of things that everybody can do. And I think the more people who get involved, the more people who join the fight — I think your mindset changes when you know that you can be part of the solution.

Do you offer any programs to teach secular Jewish college students how to handle hate?

This summer, we’re actually launching a government advocacy fellowship program for college

Some cadets being trained at the AJCF’s program

students to do exactly that. It’s not just enough for them to learn about hate. They have to know what to do about it. Like we spoke about earlier, how do you take away this frustration? By giving people an outlet through which they can fight back and have an impact. And we can help them by teaching them how the government works, how the media works, how the lobby world works, and how the legal world works.

What message regarding antisemitism do you give over to your children?

My wife and I have a beautiful blended family.

We live in Woodmere. Our kids are 22, 19, 18, 17, 16, and 6. We just married one off in August. I make sure to involve our children in this life.

When I lived in Englewood, New Jersey, there was always an MLK Day march from City Hall to what was then Ebenezer Baptist Church. I had spoken to Rabbi Poupko at Ahavas Torah and said, “You know what? We need to be a part of this.” At the time, I was on the City Council. I served four terms on the City Council in Englewood. And we worked together and built a delegation to start a separate part of the march. We worked with our neighboring communities, and we started a march from the shul to City Hall, joining with their march to show that the Jewish community is partnering with them. We were very much welcomed.

On those marches, I brought my kids. They

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were all probably six, seven, eight, nine, ten, in that age range, but they were right away instilled with the understanding that “these are partnerships and things that we need to be a part of.” My children are very used to working and being a part of that space.

I had my oldest one, who just got married, intern in a program, and he was placed in the New York City Council Speaker’s office. So, he got to meet all kinds of elected officials. He became knowledgeable in the inner workings of the City Council. And I’ll never forget: when he went to Israel to Yeshiva, a New York City Council delegation once was walking down Ben Yehuda. My son was sitting at a cafe, and the delegation saw him, and they hugged him and started taking selfies with him. What was so special about that was that he had recognized how easy it was, contrary to popular thinking, to build relationships over one summer.

One of the things that I’ve always taught both my children and students is that we can’t fight antisemitism alone. We need allies. But in order to find those allies, we need to work together with them. An alliance is a partnership, not a one-way street. We need to understand all the manifestations of hate and be able to be leaders. So, I tell them to go out of their comfort zones.

For me, I learned this during the first 20 years of my career, working in Black politics. I became a senior staffer for Brooklyn Congressman Edolphus Towns, who was a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. Early on, I convinced him to put together, for the first time in a generation, a Black-Jewish Relations Conference on Capitol Hill. Of the 34 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, 24 members came, and they met with the presidents of every major Jewish organization in the country. A lot of the folks in the Jewish communal leadership couldn’t believe that 24 members of the Congressional Caucus were willing to take their morning to have this closed-door conference.

No, it was not press. It was not meant for that. It was meant to really build bridges. And it left a lot of enduring relationships.

Then, I ended up working for the New York State Senate, and I became the Chief of Staff for Senate Majority Leader John Sampson. Back then, the leadership of the Senate was both coming from the African American, Caribbean American communities. And here you have a chief of staff who has a yarmulke on his head. And the relationships, the mutual respect, the conversations — the respect they had for every part of our way of life... We had conversations about why we send our kids to yeshiva, why we need all this money for security, etc. But on the same token, answering on the Jewish side, “What’s the significance of Juneteenth,” etc. These conversations were so easy to have once you broke down those initial comfort zone barriers. By spending so many years building those kinds of relationships, by being able to go into those places which you would not conventionally believe that an Orthodox Jew would be in, it has created relationships and circumstances that

Michael with AJCF Director General Jack Simony and Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez

Michael addressing Upper East Side Forum on combating antisemitism hosted by NYS Assemblymember Rebecca Seawright

allow me thankfully to be able to have the trust and faith and confidence in all those spaces to be able to make, to be able to have those relationships with the New York City Council, with the state legislature, with the New Jersey legislature, to be able to have the trust that the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation is a place that they can trust to be able to be in all environments and all places and be the leader in teaching about fighting hate and antisemitism.

In Englewood, the Jewish community makes up around a quarter of the city. Another quarter of it is the Black community. Another quarter is the Latino community. And then the rest are a number of other communities. There was an old school leader from the Black community, who was on the council since time immemorial, and was very

Jewish kids can’t take advantage of them. What do we do about that?” — when we wanted to create an ice rink to allow for Sunday programming — he ended up becoming a fighter for our community, because we were able to build that bridge. He saw it wasn’t a one-way street.

It’s so critical, even here in the Five Towns. We have other communities right around us that are so wanting to build those relationships and open those doors. As a community, we need to come out of our comfort zones, take the time, and build those relationships.

“Your mindset changes when you know that you can be part of the solution.”

well respected as a leader within the Englewood community. I sat next to him on the council. And I remember, my first year on the council, I shocked him because I ended up realizing that the Englewood council had never passed a Juneteenth resolution. So, I ended up writing the resolution and getting it passed. And he’s looking at me, and he’s sitting on the council all these years, and it’s the Orthodox Jew who’s thinking of this. But what the respectful motion did was that when I came to him afterwards and said, “You know, in the recreation department, we’re having programs on Saturdays, but we’re not having programs on Sundays. So, the

You mentioned your many years in politics.

Can you tell about some of your other roles and positions?

I was appointed to sit on the CUNY Chancellor’s Jewish Advisory Council. So, I sit with a number of other Jewish leaders, once every six, eight weeks, with the chancellor and his leadership staff to discuss antisemitism at CUNY. I also sit on Gov. Hochul’s Hate and Bias Council, where we meet with other groups that fight hate and figure out best practices and ways to collaborate. I also serve on the New Jersey Israel Commission, which works in those kinds of spaces, as well. I was at the Simon Wiesenthal Center from late 2015 until six months ago. Originally, I worked at a lobbying firm for a couple of years, and the Wiesenthal Center was one of my clients. They saw that I was very successful in getting them involved in the spaces they wanted to enter. And they recruited me to run their East Coast operations.

We know how bad antisemitism is. We know how bad hate is. But the question isn’t about how bad antisemitism is; the question needs to be about how we can move forward, act constructively, and impactfully move the needle on those issues, moving forward. And that’s what the AJCF is doing. That’s why I’m so proud and blessed to have joined them.

And I look forward to many years of continuing to have that kind of impact.

nspiration Nation

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Motty Steinmetz More Than a Melody — a Mission

By Eliyahu RosEnBERg

W

hen Motty Steinmetz entered the music industry, he sought moral guidance from his Rebbe.

The singer, whose angelic voice would

later catapult him to superstardom, was in his 20s. A budding, young artist, Motty was an Israeli-born chassid raised in Bnei Brak’s Vizhnitz community, born to

In His Words… haKadosh Baruch hu is a tov u’meitiv. he is the essence of good. Everything he does for us is the best for us, even though sometimes we can’t see that with our eyes. sometimes, everything looks dark, like the world is ending, but when we know everything is good and haKadosh Baruch hu is behind everything, the journey looks different — because i know that hashem knows what he’s doing. so, when a person knows that hashem loves him no matter where he is, everything is easier.

When i sing, i relate and connect to every word i say. it’s like a prayer... i’m very open with my emotions. some people think that tears are a sign of weakness. i think it’s the opposite.

The goal is that the whole world should be united in worshipping the one and only. and then the world is going to be good. B’ezras hashem, Moshiach is going to come. and the whole world is going to know that hashem is the one ruling everything, and he’s the one who gives us life. and the only thing that we can do is to know this, be grateful to him, and try to make a nachas ruach for him.

a family with a musical lineage spanning generations. For many musicians, music and religion are separate, unrelated facets of their identity. For Motty Steinmetz, they go hand in hand.

“Hashem put me in a very musical family,” the now-33-year-old singer relates, detailing his great-grandfather’s contributions to chazzanus. “In Vizhnitz, music is a very, very big thing. Like the Imrei Chaim says: ‘If Klal Yisroel is the army of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, then Vizhnitz is the symphony.’”

Music was the highlight of his upbringing: Singing at the Shabbos table; hearing zemiros on yom tov; joyfully performing at family simchas. But music never played a mundane role in Motty’s life. It wasn’t about “catchiness.” It wasn’t about the “beat.” It wasn’t about any of that. To Motty, music was about the soul; it was a bridge connecting our neshamos to Hashem.

Motty, as a professional singer, has internalized that mindset, so much so that it’s become his mission statement.

At weddings, his goal isn’t to make people dance. It’s to make people feel — to bring them to tears, to, in his words, “get the chosson and kallah to realize the holiness of the moment.”

“Why tears? Because Yom Chuppah is a day that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is mechaper. It’s a Yom Kippur for the chosson and kallah,” Motty shares.

“Many don’t realize how deep and crucial this day is for their lives. So, every tear — every tefillah to HaKadosh Baruch Hu from the bottom of the heart — on that day is so big.”

Motty employs the same philosophy

for his concerts. After his performances, people should walk away with a spiritual high, with chills, with a feeling of warmth enveloping their souls. They should feel inspired to connect to G-d.

Indeed, Motty fills his sweet, soulful voice with his own emotions.

“When I sing, I relate and connect to every word I say. It’s like a prayer,” he declares. “I’m very open with my emotions.

Some people think that tears are a sign of weakness. I think it’s the opposite.”

Given the seriousness of his job, Motty sought his Rebbe’s approval from day one.

So, before he made it big in the industry, he visited his spiritual mentor, hoping for guidance or, perhaps, for permission to fulfill his musical destiny. The Rebbe gave Motty his blessing but on one condition: there must be a mechitzah wherever he performs. In accordance with their community’s standards, Motty mustn’t perform at mixed venues. The singer agreed.

A few years later, in the summer of 2019, Motty was invited to perform in the Israeli city of Afula. Motty ensured, as he did with every performance, that men and women would be separate at the concert. And in the days leading up to the show, everything seemed to be in order.

But suddenly, the plans fell apart.

It was Tisha B’Av in the afternoon.

Motty was sitting at home. And suddenly, he heard the news: a feminist group had challenged the concert’s legality in court, arguing that gender-based segregation violates discrimination laws. The court quickly sided with the feminists, ruling that the venue must be mixed.

Motty told a friend via text that he wouldn’t perform at the concert without

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Motty Steinmetz recently released his newest album, naming it Emunah u’Bitachon, a fitting title that reflects the central role that faith plays in his life. In explaining the importance of emunah, Motty relates the following well-known mussar story:

There was an exceedingly righteous family, renowned for their great Torah and chessed. Both the father and mother were faithful servants of G-d and respected members of their community.

One day, their three-year-old son tragically passed away. The city was in shock, horrified by the child’s sudden death. But before they had time to process the loss, tragedy struck again: the father suddenly succumbed to illness.

“The whole city was in so much pain.

This family had so much Torah, avodah, gemilus chassadim. Why did this happen?!” Motty recounts. “And who can imagine what the mother — the almanah — is feeling? She lost a child and a husband!”

The widow, unspeakably shaken by her tremendous loss, continuously cried for the next two years. She was inconsolable, in too much pain to stop mourning.

“One day, erev Shabbos, she’s lighting the Shabbos candles, standing by the light with darkness in her heart.

And she says, ‘HaKadosh Baruch Hu, I know You are a Rachum V’chanun. And I know whatever You do, everything is with a cheshbon. But why? Why? I want an answer. Why did I deserve this?’ And she’s crying and asking these questions,” Motty continues.

Then, her children, overhearing their mother’s painful conversation with G-d, spoke up.

They told her, “Mother, with everything that Hashem does, He’s a Rachum V’chanun. We believe that everything He does is for the best, even if we don’t see it with our eyes. You have to have emunah and understand that HaKadosh Baruch Hu loves you, and know that everything has a good reason and is the best thing that could happen to you.”

Her children’s words brought a smile to her face. At long last, she was comfort-

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

ed. That night, for the first time in two years, she went to sleep happy.

After falling asleep, her husband, from Gan Eden, came to her in a dream.

“In Heaven, Hashem saw your emunah. And the Beis Din shel Ma’alah let me explain to you why everything happened,” her husband said.

He went on to explain how he, in a past life, was a complete tzaddik. However, there was one mitzvah his gilgul didn’t do: he didn’t get married. So, his neshama returned to Earth. And once he got married and started a family, his mission was done, and his soul was free to return to its Creator.

She nodded, tears streaming down her face.

“But what about our child?” she asked. “Why did he pass away?”

“He was also a tzaddik gamur in a previous life,” he responded. “But when he was a baby, he was kidnapped from his bed. For the first three years of his

life, he was raised by non-Jews. And he had to rectify the three years of his life that he ate non-kosher. And you, as his Jewish mother, repaired that.”

He continued answering her questions, showing her that there was logic and love behind the seemingly senseless tragedies.

“The point is that nothing happens without a reason. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is a tov u’meitiv. He is the essence of good. Everything He does for us is the best for us, even though sometimes we can’t see that with our eyes,” Motty Steinmetz declares. “Sometimes, everything looks dark, like the world is ending, but when we know everything is good and HaKadosh Baruch Hu is behind everything, the journey looks different — because I know that Hashem knows what He’s doing.

“When a person knows that Hashem loves him no matter where he is, everything is easier.”

JANUARY 8, 2026 | The Jewish Home

the mechitzah, and he predicted that another court would reverse the ruling. To Motty’s shock, his friend publicized his private message.

Soon thereafter, the media picked up the story, reporting on Motty’s refusal to perform if the court’s ruling stands.

And then, the story went viral. Though it sparked nationwide debate, it also made a kiddush Hashem, as Motty showed the world that he wouldn’t compromise on his values.

Later, another judge reversed the decision, ruling that separate seating was allowed at the concert. As such, Motty performed in Afula without issue. The feminist group appealed the decision in a hurry, bringing it to the Supreme Court.

And just as the show ended — just as Motty walked off stage — the high court ruled against the mechitzah. But by then, it didn’t matter anymore. The concert was over, and it was an incredible success.

“I remember, after this, I went to a tish in Vizhnitz. And the Rebbe said to me, ‘Baruch hamekadesh Shmo b’rabim’ (blessed is he who sanctifies His name in public). That was very, very meaningful to me,” Motty recalls. “Since then, I’ve had a lot [of offers to perform at mixed venues]. It’s constantly happening. I’ve had a lot of huge offers, whether it’s on the money side or it’s huge stages.

And baruch Hashem, Hashem gives me koach to refuse everything. And I’m sure I’m not losing from it.”

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Dating Dialogue

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

Dear Navidaters,

My name is Bayla (not my real name), and I am writing from an anonymous account because I am deeply afraid of being identified.

I am in my early twenties and have been in shidduchim for over a year now,

though I have not had much luck building a connection with someone. I am told by friends and rabbanim that I am kind, warm, and serious about building a Jewish home, yet I remain single while my younger sister is already married. What hurts me most is that she and even my mother insist that the reason I have had no success is not bashert or timing, but that I supposedly have a strong body odor that drives guys away. They say this not unkindly, but they say this “constructively” as just a flaw to be corrected.

I have tried every soap, treatment, and remedy suggested to me, often at great expense and embarrassment, yet the refrain continues. I am writing because I do not know where self-improvement ends and humiliation begins, and I wonder how many girls carry similar accusations while still trying to believe they are worthy of love and a future of their own.

I would be grateful for the panel’s guidance and perspective.

- Bayla*

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

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The Panel Dear Readers, We want to offer YOU an opportunity to be part of the discussion!

Please email us at MichelleMondShadchan@gmail.com, subject line “reader’s response,” if you would like to participate in the new “A Reader’s Response” columnist spot. We will send you a question and publish your answer in an upcoming Navidaters edition.

If you have a question you would like the Navidaters to answer, please reach out to this email as well.

Looking forward!

Michelle, the “Shadchan”

The Shadchan Michelle Mond ear Bayla, First, I want you to know how brave it was to write this letter. The pain between your words is very real, and nothing about what you described makes you weak; it makes you human.

Let me say this clearly and gently. A young woman who is described as kind and serious about building a bayis ne’eman is not someone who is failing at shidduchim.

She is someone navigating a process that is often unpredictable and at times may seem deeply unfair.

I want to address the issue that has been placed at the center of your pain. A persistent body odor is not something to be dismissed, but it is also not something to be exaggerated or weaponized. There are real medical conditions that can cause changes in body scent, including hormonal imbalances, metabolic issues, dental concerns, and other treatable conditions. If you have not already done so, it would be wise to speak with a doctor who can evaluate this properly rather than relying on opinions from people who are emotionally close to you.

It is also important to acknowledge something many people forget. Since Covid, a significant number of people have a reduced or altered sense of smell. Some people barely notice scents at all. There are also men who naturally have a very limited sense of smell. Who is to say that your future husband is not someone who would never even register what others claim to notice? Bashert does not require perfection.

What concerns me deeply is not just what your mother and sister are saying but the environment it has created for you.

Living in a space where you are constantly

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scrutinized and made to feel like the problem despite all you are doing to work on yourself is not healthy. Even when comments are framed as constructive, repeated focus on a supposed flaw can slowly erode a person’s confidence and sense of worth.

Being around that kind of negativity makes it almost impossible to breathe emotionally, let alone grow.

You are at a stage in life when moving out may not only be reasonable but necessary. Creating physical distance can allow you to regain clarity and confidence.

It gives you space to hear your own voice again. Many young women find that once they are no longer living under constant judgment, they stand taller and can approach dating from a place of strength rather than self-doubt.

Self-reflection has its place. Humiliation does not. You are allowed to work on yourself without believing that something is fundamentally wrong with you. You are allowed to trust that Hashem did not create you defective and then ask you to convince someone to love you anyway.

Please remember this. You are worthy for so many reasons. Either you will figure out a medical reason for this supposed smell and find a cure, or Hashem will send a guy who simply doesn’t notice it. Your story is not over. It is still unfolding, and it deserves to unfold in a respectful environment.

Sending much hazlacha and warmth your way, Michelle

The Zaidy Dr. Jeffrey Galler s if dating is not stressful enough...

First, I am not convinced that your sister’s and mother’s claims are correct.

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Has a neutral party ever confirmed this?

Have you ever received this kind of feedback from a date or from someone who set you up?

If a persistent or noticeable odor truly existed, it is highly likely that at some point a classmate, teacher, coworker, or acquaintance would have mentioned it, even awkwardly or indirectly.

It is probable that family members are criticizing how you present yourself at home, in very informal settings, rather than when you are at your best. They are not evaluating you when you are freshly showered, well dressed, and carefully groomed for a date.

It is entirely possible that this “body odor” explanation has become a convenient family narrative, one that is far too neat and far too cruel to accept without real evidence.

Second, you have already gone to great lengths to address a problem that may not be real. Nevertheless, for the sake of completeness, here are the most common considerations: Body odor most commonly results from excessive sweating combined with normal skin bacteria and can be worsened by stress, anxiety, or clothing that traps moisture. Synthetic fabrics, such as polyester, nylon, and acrylic, tend to do this, while breathable natural fabrics, including cotton, linen, silk, and wool, allow sweat to evaporate.

Dental problems, including decay, gum disease, infections, or inadequate oral hygiene, can cause bad breath, which is sometimes mistaken for body odor. Simple measures, including proper dental care and the use of tongue cleaners, can be very effective.

Less commonly, diet can influence odors released through the skin, lungs, or digestive system. Certain foods, particularly sulfur-containing foods like garlic, onions, and broccoli, as well as strong spices, may play a role for some people.

A thorough medical evaluation can rule out some less common causes, such as hormonal changes, infections, or metabolic conditions.

Third, please understand that constant scrutiny and obsession over a problem that may not even be real can seriously undermine your self-confidence and self-worth.

There is truth in the old cliché that sometimes the attempted cure is worse than the perceived illness. For example, excessive

perfume or constant overcorrection can be just as off-putting as any imagined odor.

If there is a lingering concern here, it should be evaluated and addressed by one trusted, discreet medical doctor. After her expert input, drop it.

Try to enjoy the dating process, feel good about your many wonderful qualities, and stop thinking of yourself as a problem waiting to be solved.

Readers’ Response A Single’s Perspective Aliza Sklar, Life Coach

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i Bayla, Thanks for writing in.

I deeply feel your pain and frustration.

Being single is HARD; looking around and seeing others living the life you wish you had is so painful. What seems to be making your situation even more difficult is the unsolicited advice from those who love you.

Before I go further, I want to say that, to some extent, we all try to make sense of our situations by connecting them to things within our control. It sounds like your mother and sister are trying to take a sense of overwhelm, confusion, or disappointment in your singlehood status and turn it into something that they can understand and correct. I think many singles and families of singles do the same thing in one way or another.

When it comes to your body odor issue specifically, are you getting that feedback from anyone other than your mother and sister? Have you discussed it with your doctor? I would advise getting a professional’s advice, following it, and then internalizing that you’ve done everything you possibly could in this area.

If we were speaking directly, I might begin a deeper dive into your overall relationship with your family members and explore whether there are other areas and interactions which lead to the same sort of down-on-yourself feelings you are experiencing now. If that is the case, it might be constructive for you to work with a therapist to learn how to respond – both to them and within yourself.

As to your final points: Yes, being single, especially in a community where everyone around you is married, is difficult enough. Not knowing why and/or feeling like all your efforts are leading nowhere is

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A Therapist’s Perspective Rivka Janowski, LCPC i Bayla, What stayed with me most in

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reading your letter was not the question of whether there is or isn’t a physical issue but how painful it is to be told, again and again, that your lack of success in shidduchim is due to a personal flaw, especially after you’ve already done so much to try to address it. Hearing that message repeatedly, particularly from the people closest to you, can be deeply unsettling.

There is something profoundly painful about working so hard to “fix” yourself and still being left with the sense that it isn’t enough or that something about you is fundamentally off-putting.

Healthy self-reflection should leave a person feeling grounded and capable.

When feedback instead leads to shame, anxiety, or a growing belief that something about you is inherently wrong, it has crossed a line. Feedback meant to help should ultimately make a person feel stronger. When it leaves a person feeling ashamed, something is wrong. Even comments offered “constructively” can cause real harm when

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

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ear Bayla, I want to begin by saying that I read your letter slowly. More than once.

Not because I was looking for an answer, but because I wanted to understand what it feels like to be you inside this experience.

And what I felt was not a problem to be fixed but a young woman carrying something painful and deeply humiliating while still trying to believe in herself and her future.

You asked where self-improvement ends and humiliation begins. I don’t think there’s a universal line, but I do think there’s a very real internal one. A helpful question is not only, “Is this feedback accurate?” but “What is this doing to my sense of self?”

W h e n self-improvement le ad s to clarity, agency, and self-respect, it can be empowering. When it leads to shame, hyper-vigilance, and the feeling that your body itself is disqualifying, something important has gone wrong.

What stands out to me is that you did not dismiss this. You took it seriously. You tried remedies. You spent money. You endured embarrassment. You did exactly what young women are often told to do in shidduchim: look inward, be open to feedback, work on yourself. And yet the refrain keeps returning, unchanged, almost as though it has become a story others are holding about you.

they become repetitive, unprovable, and tied to a person’s sense of worth.

I also want to name something many women quietly carry in the shidduch world: “explanations” for why they are still single — that they’re too intense, too out-of-the-box, or even their size. These reasons are often impossible to confirm or disprove, yet they can take on a life of their own, especially when echoed by friends and family. Over time, they can shape how a person sees herself far more than any potential mate will. Many women, and men, in shidduchim face unclear or unprovable reasons for being single.

Feeling confused, frustrated, or self-conscious about it is normal and doesn’t mean they’re valid or that there is something wrong with you.

It is worth gently questioning the certainty of these claims. If a trait were truly so obvious and consistently off-putting, it would likely show up across many areas of life, in friendships, work, or social settings, not only in the dating arena.

Marriage is not built on flawlessness,

nor is it a reward for successfully eliminating every perceived imperfection. It is built on fit, timing, and shared values, much of which lies outside a person’s control. A woman’s worthiness of love and of building a Jewish home does not hinge on chemistry with every date nor on her ability to disprove an accusation about her body.

At a certain point, emotional well-being may require drawing a boundary. A person is allowed to say, I have done my due diligence and continuing to focus on this is hurting me. That is self-respect.

You have the right to focus your energy on what actually helps you, rather than chasing criticisms that only drain you.

As a community, particularly within the shidduch world, we should pause before offering explanations for someone’s singleness. Not every unanswered question needs a diagnosis. Support that actually helps builds dignity, not shame. It leaves a person feeling stronger, not smaller. Thoughtful, encouraging voices can be just as powerful as matchmaking and far less damaging than repeated critiques.

That matters.

Sometimes families, even loving ones, cling to a concrete explanation because uncertainty is frightening. “Timing” feels too abstract. “Bashert” feels out of their control. A fixable flaw feels safer. But what soothes anxiety for others can quietly wound the person being scrutinized.

I also want to say this gently and clearly: if something were truly preventing connection in a consistent, concrete way, it would usually be communicated directly, respectfully, and with clarity by someone who actually dated you. When an explanation exists mostly as second-hand commentary and ongoing speculation, it deserves to be questioned, not endlessly absorbed.

Of course, taking care of one’s health and body is important, and if there were ever a clear medical concern, it would be appropriate to address it with professionalism and privacy. But what you are describing no longer sounds like responsible care.

It sounds like repeated exposure to something that is eroding your dignity.

You are allowed to set boundaries around this. You are allowed to say, kindly and firmly, “I have taken this as far as I reasonably can, and continuing to revisit it is hurting me.” That is not avoidance. That is self-protection.

I won’t pretend to know why your path has unfolded the way it has. I don’t think anyone truly does. But I do know this: your worth is not provisional. It does not depend on perfecting your body or eliminating every possible discomfort. Love is not reserved for people who never have flaws or sensitivities.

You are not late.

You are not broken.

And you are not required to accept humiliation as the price of hope.

Thank you for trusting me with something this vulnerable. I hope you keep listening to the part of you that wrote this letter. It sounds thoughtful, self-aware, and deserving of real gentleness.

With care, Jennifer

Jennifer Mann, LCSW is a licensed psychotherapist and certified trauma healing life coach, as well as a dating and relationship coach working with individuals, couples, and families in private practice at 123 Maple Avenue in Cedarhurst, NY. To set up a consultation or to ask questions, please call 718-908-0512. Visit www.thenavidaters.com for more information. If you would like to submit a dating or relationship question to the panel anonymously, please email JenniferMannLCSW@gmail.com. You can follow The Navidaters on FB and Instagram for dating and relationship advice.

JANUARY 8, 2026 | The Jewish Home

tremendously frustrating.

Ultimately, your neshama has a specific tafkid and Hashem has a specific plan for you. You will get married when it is the right thing for your neshama and for your purpose in the world. We all try to determine how we can make it happen faster, but we cannot know what will make the difference. At the point where you feel self-humiliation and shame, I would say you’ve gone too far.

Knowing when to pull back is an art in itself. When it feels like there is nothing more you can do, remind yourself that Hashem is in charge.

Hatzlacha, Aliza

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Wired for Connecti

n

Conversation Breaks

By Michal Goldman, LCSW

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magine sitting with your spouse in the middle of a conversation and feeling more and more strongly that they just aren’t getting you. Right at the heat of that moment, you hear the words, “Let’s take a break.”

When I talk about taking breaks in heated conversations when working with couples, I almost always get two opposing responses. One person is usually relieved and will say how they have been asking for this forever. The other person is almost always unhappy with the idea of taking a break in the heat of the moment.

Both of these responses are normal, especially in the middle of a heated argument, because of the different ways people respond to conflict in a relationship.

Let’s use an example of Sara and Shmuel to explain the concept better. Sara and Shmuel had recently started marriage counseling because they often found themselves stuck in arguments that they couldn’t find a way out of. Sara would usually bring up a concern, and Shmuel would roll his eyes: “Here we go again.” Sara felt Shmuel’s resistance to having the conversation, which would make her feel anxious that it wouldn’t be resolved, and she would double down on the conversation, which led Shmuel to shut down even more, until they both ended up so tense and frustrated that the conversations would end as fights.

My goal for Sara and Shmuel is that they can turn to each other and share their fears so that the conversations can bring connection instead of creating disconnection. For example, Sara might say, “I’m afraid that my concerns aren’t going to be listened to or taken seriously.” Shmuel would empathize with Sara, and share his fear: “It’s so hard for me to hear this, because I feel like I’m failing with you, and I really want to succeed.”

When both of them are able to share and receive from each other in such a vulnerable way, the fighting will die down.

However, that goal is more of a longterm goal. In the beginning of the therapy process, or when couples are stuck in regular fighting, moving from that space to sharing vulnerably usually takes a few steps. The first step that I usually recommend is taking a break.

Breaks are important because Sara and Shmuel are stuck in a pattern, and when their nervous systems are both on high alert, a break will help them pause so they can start to shift the cycle. They haven’t yet had enough experience breaking the pattern to be able to do it as successfully without taking a break.

Like many couples, taking a break is easy for Shmuel. Shmuel didn’t want to have this conversation to begin with, and a break is a relief from hearing things from Sara that he perceives as criticism.

However, for Sara, a break feels like confirmation of her fear – that she had a real concern, and now it is pushed away and ignored again.

There are a few points that I like to tell couples at this point. Firstly, the break has to be mutually agreed on. Both partners agree (even if at the moment they don’t like it) to take a break in order to work through the conversation more successfully.

Secondly, both partners are going to have to do things that feel somewhat uncomfortable for them in the moment.

By Sara agreeing to take the break, she is already doing something very uncomfortable. Her job during the break is to remember that she is doing this to protect the relationship and to allow them to have these conversations more successfully.

It’s painful to take a break when your nervous system is yelling to do the exact opposite – to explain more and to keep talking until the conversation gets resolved. Some things that help people like Sara during breaks are exercising, journaling, listening to music, or speaking to someone who you trust (and who will

comfort you without making you feel more angry at your partner). It will also be helpful to pause to better understand what was happening for you in that moment if you aren’t yet clear.

For Shmuel, initiating or agreeing to the break itself won’t be uncomfortable.

His challenge will be during and after the break. When setting the break, there should be a timeframe when the couple will return to the conversation. Shmuel will need to commit to return to the conversation at the time that was agreed upon. In addition, during the break, one thing which can be very helpful is for Shmuel to look inwards and notice what he is feeling. It can be helpful to notice any bodily sensations like tightening, clenching, or pressure, and from there, identifying the feeling name to the sensation.

The more aware Shmuel is, the easier it will be to have the conversation without running away.

Shmuel and Sara tried taking a break at home. At first, they struggled a lot – Sara with actually going ahead with the break, and Shmuel with following up and noticing what was happening for him in the moment. However, like anything worth it, they continued trying, and by the time they came to their next session, they saw the impact it had and felt empowered, like they can break out of this cycle for good.

Try This at Home • When initiating a break, do it as a team. When people take breaks

during negative cycles, it often comes across as “I need to get away from you.”

Changing the frame to “I value our relationship and want to protect it” can make it easier and more effective.

• If you struggle with taking breaks, spend the time comforting yourself. The goal of taking a break is so that you can come back to the conversation in a more effective, connected way. Try to do things that will allow you to show up as your best self in the conversation when it restarts • If taking breaks is easy for you, make reengagement a priority. If your partner sees that you are actively coming back to the conversation engaged and ready to jump in, it’ll be much easier for them to continue to take breaks as needed moving forward.

Note: All narratives presented are composites derived from the experiences of multiple clients.

Michal Goldman is a licensed clinical social worker in Queens specializing in helping individuals and couples navigate relationship challenges. She can be reached through her website at www.michalgoldmanlcsw.org, via email at michalgoldmanlcsw@gmail.com, or by phone at 917-590-0258. If you have questions that you would like answered here, you can submit them to the email provided. This content is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a replacement for therapy.

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Health & F tness

The Brain Chemical That Makes Life Matter

By Rivka Kramer, PMHNP-BC

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opamine has a public relations problem. Somewhere along the way it was crowned the pleasure chemical and trapped inside motivational posters, social media detox videos, and self-help slogans. According to the internet, dopamine is what makes chocolate taste good, phones addictive, and success feel rewarding. Reduce your dopamine, and you will apparently become enlightened. Increase it, and you will conquer life.

Psychiatry knows better.

Dopamine is not simply about pleasure. In fact, pleasure is only a small part of the story. Dopamine is about curiosity, focus, desire, belief, effort, meaning, and sometimes madness. It is the chemical that whispers this matters inside the brain. When dopamine goes quiet, the world feels flat. When it speaks too loudly, reality itself can bend.

If serotonin is about emotional tone, dopamine is about direction. It points

the mind somewhere and says pay attention.

Dopamine Is a Messenger, Not a Mood Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, a chemical messenger used by brain cells to communicate. But unlike neurotransmitters that spread widely, dopamine works through a few tightly organized circuits. These circuits act less like floodlights and more like spotlights, illuminating certain thoughts, actions, and perceptions while leaving others in the dark.

This precision explains why dopamine can be involved in such different psychiatric experiences. It can shape motivation in one moment, movement in another, and belief itself in another.

The same chemical is involved, but the message changes depending on where it is delivered.

Dopamine does not tell you this feels good. It tells you this is important.

The Brain’s Meaning Maker One of the most powerful ways to understand dopamine is to think of it as the brain’s meaning maker. Every second your brain is flooded with information. Sounds, sights, memories, body sensations, internal thoughts. Most of it is irrelevant. Dopamine helps decide what rises above the noise.

When dopamine signals increase, the brain flags something as significant.

It could be a reward, a threat, a goal, or a pattern. This is how learning happens.

You notice what matters and adjust your behavior accordingly.

In healthy brains, this system is flexible. It updates constantly. In psychiatric illness, it can become distorted.

When Dopamine Assigns Meaning Where There Is None Psychosis offers one of the clearest windows into dopamine’s power. People

experiencing psychosis often describe a feeling that the world has changed before they can explain how. Ordinary events feel charged with significance.

A stranger’s glance feels intentional. A song on the radio feels personal. A coincidence feels like a message.

This experience is not random. Psychiatry understands it as a problem of salience. Dopamine is assigning importance to things that do not deserve it.

Once the brain feels that something matters deeply, it demands an explanation. Delusions form not because the person is irrational, but because the brain is trying to make sense of an overwhelming sense of meaning. Hallucinations can emerge when internal thoughts are misidentified as external signals, again driven by faulty dopamine signaling.

In this way, dopamine does not create psychosis out of nothing. It amplifies significance until the mind builds a new reality around it.

Why Antipsychotics Target Dopamine

Dopamine and Depression Depression is often described as sadness, but many patients will tell you that sadness is not the hardest part. The hardest part is emptiness. The inability to care. The sense that nothing feels worth the effort.

This is where dopamine enters the picture.

Dopamine is critical for anticipation.

It fuels the ability to look forward to things. In depression, this system often falters. Even when pleasure is still possible, the motivation to seek it is gone.

The future feels blank.

Some antidepressants work partly by enhancing dopamine activity, especially in brain regions linked to drive and focus. In treatment resistant cases, medications that directly affect dopamine can help restore energy and engagement. Not happiness in a superficial sense, but the capacity to move toward life again.

Addiction and the Hijacked Signal Few psychiatric conditions demonstrate dopamine’s influence as dramatically as addiction. Substances that cause addiction share a common feature. They produce rapid and powerful dopamine release in reward circuits.

At first, this feels like pleasure. Over time, something else happens. Dopamine begins to fire not in response to

the balance tips into suffering.

More Than a Chemical Imbalance Modern psychiatry no longer views dopamine as a simple on-off switch. It interacts with stress, trauma, social context, genetics, and other neurotransmitters. Early adversity can sensitize

When dopamine works well, life feels engaging without being overwhelming.

of willpower. It is a disorder of learning and motivation. Dopamine has been trained to care about the wrong thing.

Attention, Focus, and the Chemistry of Staying on Task Dopamine also plays a major role in attention. In conditions like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dopamine signaling in prefrontal brain regions is often reduced or inefficient.

The result is not a lack of intelligence or effort but difficulty sustaining focus and regulating impulses. Tasks that do not provide immediate feedback fail to hold attention. The brain struggles to decide what matters.

Stimulant medications increase dopamine availability in a controlled way.

Instead of creating excitement, they stabilize attention. They help the brain hold a signal long enough to complete a thought. In this context, dopamine is not about pleasure at all. It is about clarity.

Dopamine and Personality Dopamine also shapes temperament.

People with more sensitive dopamine systems often seek novelty, risk, and exploration. They are drawn to new ideas and experiences. This can fuel creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation.

On the other side, lower dopamine sensitivity is associated with caution, consistency, and routine. These traits are just as valuable. Problems arise only at the extremes, when dopamine driven exploration becomes impulsivity or when low dopamine becomes apathy.

Psychiatry does not aim to erase these differences. It intervenes when

dopamine systems. Chronic stress can exhaust them. Social connection can restore them.

Dopamine responds to the world as much as it shapes it.

This is why medication alone is rarely enough. Therapy, structure, purpose, and meaning all influence dopamine in-

directly. The brain learns from experience, and dopamine is the teacher.

Dopamine is not the pleasure chemical. It is the relevance chemical. It tells the brain what to notice, what to pursue, and what to believe. In psychiatry, dopamine sits at the crossroads of biology and experience, chemistry and story.

When dopamine works well, life feels engaging without being overwhelming.

When it falters, the world can lose its color or become unbearably intense.

Understanding dopamine is not just about treating illness. It is about understanding how the mind decides what matters.

And that may be one of the most human questions of all.

Rivka Kramer is a Board Certified Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner. She has a psychiatric private practice based in Cedarhurst, NY. She serves as a member of the board of JANPPA, the Jewish American Nurse Practitioner Psychiatric Association. She can be reached at 516-945-9443.

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The earliest effective antipsychotic medications all shared one property.

They reduced dopamine signaling. This discovery transformed psychiatry and cemented dopamine’s central role in psychotic disorders.

By dampening dopamine activity, these medications reduce the sense that everything is meaningful. Voices fade.

Delusions lose their emotional grip. Reality regains its boundaries.

But there is a cost. Dopamine is not only involved in psychosis. It is also involved in motivation, pleasure, movement, and emotional expression.

Blocking it too strongly can leave people feeling slowed, flat, or disconnected from themselves. This is why modern psychiatry constantly balances symptom relief against quality of life.

Newer medications try to soften this trade off by modulating dopamine rather than silencing it completely. The goal is not to remove meaning from life but to restore proportion.

the drug itself but in response to cues associated with it – places, emotions, people, stress, boredom.

The brain learns that the substance matters more than anything else. Dopamine shifts from reward to craving. The person may no longer enjoy the drug yet feel compelled to seek it.

This is why addiction is not a failure

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Health & F tness

Foods, Flare-Ups, and Eczema How Diet Affects Your Skin

By Aliza Beer MS, RD, CDN

E

czema is a chronic inflammatory skin condition characterized by dry, itchy, red, and sometimes cracked or oozing skin. While the exact cause of eczema is not fully understood, it is believed to result from a combination of genetic predisposition, immune system dysfunction, skin barrier impairment, and environmental triggers.

Individuals with eczema often have a weakened skin barrier, which makes it easier for moisture to leave the skin and for irritants or allergens to get in. This can cause more inflammation and make the skin more sensitive. Eczema is also often linked with conditions like asthma, seasonal allergies, and food allergies, indicating the impact the immune system has in the condition.

Eczema is mainly an inflammatory skin condition. In people with eczema, the immune system often reacts too strongly to things that are usually harmless, such as allergens or irritants. This overreaction causes ongoing inflammation in the skin, leading to symptoms like itching, redness, swelling, and skin damage. While genetics and environmental factors play an important role, internal factors such as diet and gut health may also influence how the immune system behaves.

Recent research has shown a connection between the gut and the skin, known as the gut-skin axis. The bacteria in the gut help regulate the immune system, and an imbalance in these bacteria may increase inflammation throughout the body, including the skin. Since diet strongly affects gut health, it may indirectly influence eczema symptoms. This connection has made nutrition an important area of interest in the management of eczema.

How Diet May Affect Eczema Diet does not cause eczema, but it may influence symptom severity, frequency of flares, and overall skin health in some individuals. The impact of diet varies greatly from person to person, which is why there is no universal “eczema diet.” However, several dietary mechanisms may help explain why food choices can matter.

First, certain foods may promote inflammation, while others have anti-inflammatory properties. Diets high in processed foods, added sugars, and unhealthy fats can increase inflammation in the body and may make eczema symptoms worse. In contrast, diets rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy fats provide antioxidants and phytonutrients that help regulate inflammatory pathways.

Second, food sensitivities or allergies may act as triggers for some individuals, particularly children. In these cases, consuming a trigger food may worsen eczema symptoms, though true food allergies are less common in adults with eczema. Lastly, nutrient deficiencies, such as low intake of essential fatty acids, vitamin D, or zinc, may impair skin barrier function and immune regulation, indirectly affecting eczema.

A cross-sectional study titled “Dietary modifications in atopic dermatitis: patient-reported outcomes” was completed to investigate patient-reported outcomes and perceptions regarding the role of diet in eczema; 169 patients with eczema reported using dietary changes to manage their skin condition.

Nearly 87% had tried eliminating certain foods, most commonly junk foods,

dairy, and gluten. The greatest self-reported skin improvement was associated with removing white flour products, gluten, and nightshades. Nightshades are a group of vegetables that includes tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, and peppers and that contain natural compounds which may trigger inflammation in some individuals.

Additionally, about 80% of participants reported adding foods or supplements to their diet, particularly vegetables, fish oil, and fruits, with the most improvement seen from increased vegetable intake, organic foods, and fish oil.

Although the vast majority of patients believed diet should be discussed as part of eczema management, fewer than onethird had spoken with their dermatologist about dietary strategies. Overall, the findings highlight that dietary modification is widespread among patients and underscore the need for healthcare providers to address diet, including its potential benefits and nutritional risks, during patient care.

Common Dietary Triggers and Food Sensitivities Some individuals with eczema report symptom flares after consuming certain foods. Commonly reported triggers include cow’s milk, eggs, soy, wheat, peanuts, shellfish, and tree nuts, particularly in children. In adults, triggers are more variable and less likely to be true allergies. It is important to distinguish between food allergies, which involve an immune reaction, and food sensitivities or intolerances, which may cause symptoms without a classic allergic response.

Elimination diets are sometimes

used to identify potential triggers, but they should be approached with caution. Unnecessary food restrictions can lead to nutrient deficiencies, increased stress around eating, and reduced quality of life. Elimination of food without clear symptoms or medical guidance is not recommended. Instead, dietary changes should be individualized and ideally guided by a registered dietitian or healthcare provider.

Anti-Inflammatory Nutrients and Foods Certain nutrients have been studied for their potential role in supporting skin health and reducing inflammation in eczema. Omega-3 fatty acids, found in fatty fish such as salmon, sardines, and mackerel, as well as in flaxseeds and walnuts, may help modulate inflammatory responses. Some studies suggest that higher omega-3 intake may be associated with reduced eczema severity, though results are mixed.

Antioxidants, including vitamins A, C, and E, help protect the skin from oxidative stress. These nutrients are abundant in colorful fruits and vegetables such as berries, leafy greens, carrots, and sweet potatoes. Zinc, found in foods like meat, legumes, nuts, and whole grains, plays a role in wound healing and immune function and may support skin integrity.

Vitamin D has also gained attention due to its immune-regulating properties.

Low vitamin D levels have been observed in some individuals with eczema, particularly in regions with limited sun exposure. While supplementation may be beneficial for those who are deficient, it

to supporting gut health are generally preferred when tolerated.

The Gut Microbiome and Eczema

Practical Tips

The gut microbiome has emerged as an important factor in immune health and inflammation. A diverse and balanced gut microbiota helps regulate immune responses and may reduce the risk of inflammatory conditions, including eczema. Diet plays a central role in shaping the gut microbiome.

Fiber-rich foods, such as fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains, provide fuel for beneficial gut bacteria.

These bacteria produce short-chain fatty acids that have anti-inflammatory effects throughout the body. Fermented foods, such as yogurt with live cultures, kefir, sauerkraut, and kimchi, may also support gut health by introducing beneficial bacteria, though tolerance varies among individuals with eczema.

Probiotics and prebiotics have been studied for eczema prevention and management, particularly in infants and children. While some evidence suggests potential benefits, results are inconsistent, and probiotics are not considered a standalone treatment. Food-based approaches

• Aim for balanced meals that include protein, fiber-rich carbohydrates, and healthy fats.

• Prioritize whole foods over ultra-processed foods.

• Include fatty fish at least 1-2 times per week if tolerated.

• Eat a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables daily to support antioxidant intake.

• Support gut health with fiber-rich foods and fermented foods when tolerated.

• Avoid eliminating major food groups without clear symptoms or medical guidance.

• Work with a registered dietitian to personalize dietary strategies and avoid nutrient deficiencies.

Sample Meal Ideas While there is no single diet that works for everyone with eczema, meals that support gut health, reduce inflammation, and provide skin-supportive nutrients may help some individuals manage symptoms more effectively. Below are sample meal ideas that align with an

anti-inflammatory, whole-food approach and can be adapted based on individual tolerance and preferences.

Breakfast Options • Oatmeal with berries, ground flaxseeds, and slivered almonds • Eggs with sautéed vegetables and avocado toast on whole grain bread Lunch Options • Salmon and kale salad • Lentil and vegetable soup Dinner Options • Baked chicken with roasted vegetables • Sweet potato, black bean, and avocado bowl

Lifestyle Factors That Work Alongside Diet Diet is just one piece of eczema management. Other lifestyle factors interact closely with nutrition and skin health.

Stress, for example, can worsen eczema flares and also influence eating behaviors and gut health. Stress-management strategies such as mindfulness, adequate sleep, and physical activity can complement dietary interventions.

Hydration is another often overlooked factor. While drinking water does not directly “hydrate the skin,” adequate fluid

intake supports overall physiological function and skin health. Additionally, topical skincare, avoidance of harsh irritants, and adherence to prescribed medical treatments remain essential components of eczema management.

Eczema is a complex, multifactorial condition influenced by genetics, immune function, environmental exposures, and lifestyle factors, including diet. While diet is not a cure for eczema, it may play a supportive role in managing inflammation, improving skin barrier function, and reducing symptom severity in some individuals. By focusing on anti-inflammatory foods, supporting gut health, ensuring adequate nutrient intake, and applying changes thoughtfully, individuals with eczema can use nutrition as one tool within a comprehensive management plan. Collaboration with healthcare providers and registered dietitians can help provide practical, sustainable strategies that support both skin health and overall well-being.

Aliza Beer is a registered dietitian with a master’s degree in nutrition. She has a private practice in Cedarhurst, NY. Patients’ success has been featured on the Dr. Oz show. Aliza can be reached at alizabeer@gmail.com, and you can follow her on Instagram at @alizabeer

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should be based on individual needs and medical guidance.

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Health & F tness

Exercise: A Cure or Cause of Body Dissatisfaction?

By Sara Weissman

I

n high school, there were a handful of girls who restricted themselves to the most extreme diets I had ever seen. They stacked the restrictions of the gluten-free and vegan diets and avoided strawberries because they had “too much sugar.” These girls seemed comfortably within the “healthy” range of the BMI. Still, to punish every ounce of visible fat, they deprived themselves of food.

It’s no secret that there is a body image issue in America. Some studies suggest that rates of body dissatisfaction could be as high as 72% among women and 61% among men in North America.

While many people can benefit from weight loss, negative attitudes about appearance are not conducive to positive outcomes. Body dissatisfaction is strongly linked with low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety. Ironically, the feelings assumed to motivate weight loss might have the opposite effect. Some studies suggest that body dissatisfaction can cause overeating, even in individuals at healthy weights, creating a cycle of self-hate. Increasing confidence in our own skin is a crucial part of fostering a healthier society.

People who want to change their bodies often flock to diet and exercise.

The physiological benefits of exercise are regularly celebrated, but what’s often undervalued is how exercise changes how we view our bodies. One interventional study observed the effects of fencing classes on the body image of girls in their early teens. Before starting, most of these girls had negative body images.

However, after nine months of fencing classes, their perspectives changed. They felt better about the function of their bodies and their bodies as a whole.

Other studies have shown that when asked how they felt about their bodies, men and women who participate in sports and exercise rate their bodies more positively and focus more on functionality. For example, instead of saying,

“I love how thin my waist is,” they might say, “I love how fast I can sprint” or “I love how much I can lift.” While men tend to do more weight training and women more cardio, the underlying concept is the same. Focusing on the body’s function results in greater positive

sports, whose success relies solely on objective performance.

Additionally, improvement in body image depends on the motivation behind exercise. One study found that the positive effect of exercise weakened when the motivation was appearance-based.

Increasing confidence in our own skin is a crucial part of fostering a healthier society.

thoughts and feelings toward the body.

However, some sports are better than others for improving body image. Athletes in sports that focus on appearance, such as gymnasts, dancers, and figure skaters, report higher rates of body dissatisfaction and eating disorders than other athletes. Alarmingly, one study found that about 16% of ballet dancers suffer from an eating disorder. Success in these sports depends on judges scrutinizing aesthetics, adding a layer of pressure to look the part. This contrasts heavily with athletes in non-aesthetic

Unfortunately, disliking one’s body is often what attracts people to exercise.

Individuals with eating disorders are four times more likely than the general population to become addicted to exercise. Addicts will exercise dangerously and often without proper recovery to the point that it negatively affects their health and social life. Exercise can also be used as a socially palatable cover for pursuing an unhealthy net loss of calories. While exercise generally improves body satisfaction, it is important to consider populations it might not suit.

Along with reducing stress, depression, and anxiety, exercise is a powerful weapon in the fight against body dissatisfaction.

Personally, what protected me from my peers’ weight loss obsession was pride in my volleyball skills. As long as I could serve aces, why would I starve myself for thinner thighs? Not having Instagram also helped. Most social media content focuses on the aesthetics of the body, stripping away its actual function. Exercise can help us reimagine our bodies as more than just colorful pixels in a post. This is especially critical for young children who are still developing ideas around what makes a body “good.” However, as with anything, there is no one-size-fits-all. Why you exercise matters, and with the wrong intentions, the benefits can diminish. Confidence in your body comes from playing a sport you love, not from punishing yourself for what you ate. Loving your body is easiest when you’re proud of what it can do, not when you’re desperately trying to change its shape.

Here are some ways to implement these tips into your own life: encourage kids to play sports that they enjoy and focus compliments on their performance (e.g., “wow, you were really fast out there!”); explore what exercise/sport you love and can feel proud of; pursue performance goals (e.g., improving your 5K time) rather than aesthetic goals (e.g., a target weight).

There’s no point in sitting idly while the world turns bodies into still objects.

Meaningful movement lets us see our bodies as the miraculous machines that they are.

Sara Weissman is a high school psychology teacher, biochemistry researcher, former adjunct professor of biology, and distance runner. Follow her running adventures on Strava @Sari Weissman. If you have feedback or suggestions for future articles, contact Sara at sara.lifshitz18@gmail.com.

School of

Thought

JANUARY 8, 2026 | The Jewish Home

By Etti Siegel

Q:

Dear Etti, I am really distraught. I just found vapes and a can of Red Bull in my teenage son’s room, and I honestly feel sick about it. We obviously have family values that are opposite of this kind of behavior. I truly thought he understood that, so finding the vapes feels like a punch in the gut. And the Red Bull, it may sound small compared to vaping, but to me it feels like another sign that something is slipping.

I know peer pressure is real, and I’m trying to be realistic. But I’m scared. Also, if the school finds out, he could be suspended, and that would be public and make him into a bigger problem. I don’t want to overreact, but I also don’t want to underreact and send the message that this is okay. I feel angry, worried, and unsure what the right next step is. What do I do now?

- SOS

A:

Dear SOS, First, take a breath. You signed your letter SOS, but parenting is often more about being intentional and slow than about crisis “swooping in” moments. What you are feeling makes complete sense, but it’s important to slow this moment down before it spirals. Finding vapes in your child’s room is alarming and it should be taken seriously, but it does not automatically mean your son has rejected your values or that you have failed as a parent.

It means he is a teenager growing up in a world where vaping is normalized, energy drinks are marketed as harmless, and peer influence is powerful.

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rather than punishing. The Before you say anything, goal isn’t to scare him straight; give yourself the space to apA simple, steady it’s to help him understand proach him calmly. This is risks, responsibility, and exone of those parenting moopening like, pectations, and to put strucments where the tone matters tures in place that reduce the as much as the content. If you “I found these chance of this becoming a come in shocked, angry, or in your room, pattern. Overreactions often panicked, your son will likedrive behavior underground. ly shut down, minimize, or and I need to Kids become sneaky as they get defensive. What you want understand continue their risky behaviors. right now is not a confession or a showdown. You want unThoughtful follow-through what’s going on” derstanding. A simple, steady keeps it in the open, where you communicates opening like, “I found these can actually influence it. in your room, and I need to Regarding school, try not both seriousness understand what’s going on” to let fear of “what might hapcommunicates both seriouspen” dictate your response. and safety. ness and safety.

Right now, this is a home isIt also helps to be very sue, and that’s actually a gift. intentional about separating You have the opportunity to who your son is from what he address it seriously and prodid. Teenagers often hear disactively before it becomes appointment as rejection, even when that’s not what something larger or public. Focus on supervision, we mean. Let him know clearly that this discovery communication, and follow-up rather than worst-case doesn’t change how you feel about him, but that it scenarios. does concern you, and it does matter. That distinction And one final thought: adolescence is not about getallows him to stay emotionally connected instead of ting everything right; it’s about learning how to make feeling labeled or written off. better choices over time. Your son is practicing deciOnce you’ve listened, this is the moment to be clear sion-making in a complicated world. Your role isn’t to and grounded about your values. Not in a lecture, and raise someone who never stumbles but someone who not as a debate, but as a calm statement of what your knows how to recalibrate with guidance, honesty, and family stands for. You can acknowledge peer pressure support. If handled thoughtfully, this moment can and curiosity while still holding firm boundaries. strengthen your relationship and reinforce your values Teenagers actually feel safer when adults are steady far more than silence or panic ever could. and predictable, even if they push back in the moment.

Hatzlacha!

As for consequences, think in terms of teaching - Etti

Mrs. Etti Siegel holds a MS in Teaching and Learning/Educational Leadership and brings sound teaching advice to her audiences culled from her over 35 years of teaching and administrative experience. Etti is an Adjunct at the College of Mount Saint Vincent/Sara Shenirer. She is a coach and educational consultant for Catapult Learning, FACTS Education Solutions, Brienza Academic Advantage, Yeled V’Yalda; is a sought-after mentor and workshop presenter around the country; and a popular presenter for Sayan (a teacher-mentoring program), Hidden Sparks, and the Consortium of Jewish Day Schools. She is a frequent contributor to Hamechanech magazine and The Journal for Jewish Day School Leaders and has a weekly column in The Jewish Home.

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Parenting Pearls

Connection and Consequences

By Sara Rayvych, MSEd

I

t can be confusing to understand how the different parts of parenting work together. For example, what role do consequences, affection, and communication have, and how do they interact with each other? One article will never be able to fully clarify the issue, but we can at least work through the intersecting role of consequences and the parent-child bond.

Behavioral psychology historically placed a tremendous role on reward and punishment as the keys to controlling human behavior, including that of children.

An overly simplified description might explain, “Behaviors that are rewarded will increase, while those that are punished will decrease.” There is a lot to be said for the ways positive and negative responses will change behavior. We use rewards with children, and we know that a compliment or even a little sticker will be encouraging. We also know the deterrent of doing things that will have negative repercussions. Despite the truth behind these realities, there is more to children’s behavior than just reward and punishment. We all know how children can act in completely unpredictable ways, often against this reward-punishment theory.

Parents often hear about the parent-child bond, and it’s something I often stress in my articles. If so much is simply reward and punishment, then why would it be so important to focus on connecting with our children? Someone might argue, “Why does it matter what my kid thinks of me if all I need to do is reward-punish my way through their childhood?”

Connection Makes Things Happen Parenting does not happen without connection. It’s who we are to them, and how much they know we love them, that makes our words meaningful. Our ability to inspire, guide and even discipline our children comes from the bond we’ve built with them.

A certain percentage of this connection emerges naturally from our role as their caretakers. We provide for them and ensure their basic needs, giving us ample opportunity to build this bond daily. Despite this, we still need to continuously and actively nurture the connection with them. Communication, physical affection, and positive messages are some of the ways we build this bond.

Since we are their parents, they have

an inherent emotional need to connect to us and feel loved in return. Sadly, we can often learn the positive from the negative. Even adults that were mistreated by their parents as children will often still crave a bond with the very parents who neglected them instead of loving them.

From this, we can only imagine how strong that need for connecting truly is.

While today’s topic is focusing on the role of connection with behavior modification or discipline, the parent-child bond is crucial for many areas of child development and is beyond the scope of this article. In many ways, it is this bond that is one of the main components of healthy emotional development.

Punishment and Consequences Punishment is seen by some as the key to parenting. They will tell you, “Punish the right way, and your kid will behave!”

While simplicity in life is nice, it doesn’t work here. You can’t punish your child into becoming a good person or having proper middos. Often, punishment is a deterrent and not actual chinuch. There is definitely a place for “actions have consequences,” but it’s important to under-

stand its actual role.

I’d like to clarify the difference between “punishment” and “consequences” as I use them. Punishment is angrier, often demeaning or degrading. It may be given to put down or lower the child and may have no connection to their actual behavior. Consequences are a response that is connected or linked to the child’s behavior. It is not given in a degrading or shameful way Consequences can be parent-imposed, but ideally, they are a direct result of the child’s actions. These natural consequences are an ideal means for a child to learn from their behavior. A little one needs to clean the wall after their latest marker portrait. They don’t get ready in time, and they miss the beginning of the party. A favorite pen goes missing when it’s not put away. A child who is aggressive gets removed from the play area until they calm down.

Parents can certainly impose restrictions that are consequences of a child’s behavior. For example, children can lose privileges by abusing them or not taking proper responsibility. A teen who drives irresponsibly will lose access to the car keys. A child who doesn’t come home

Bringing It Together “Might makes right” only goes so far, and it’s our connection to our children that makes them truly listen to us. With little children, we can just pick them up and place them somewhere else. With babies, toddlers, and very young children, that is often necessary as they get

try it. We shouldn’t need to frequently use power to get them to listen to us.

We also can’t punish children – especially teens – into obedience. Besides the negative environment that is created by frequent punishment, it can be perceived as a sign of weakness on the part of the parent. There are also children

Our ability to inspire, guide and even discipline our children comes from the bond we’ve built with them.

into trouble and can’t get themselves out of it. We often do need to physically remove them from whatever danger they are seeking or fight they’ve gotten themselves into. This type of physical intervention is often necessary because saying “stop” to a little one is insufficient and they will keep on doing it. When they get older, it is a bit more tricky. You can’t lift your teenager and physically carry them somewhere – nor should you

that are “unpunishable.” These children can be given any punishment, and they won’t care. No matter what you try, they are strong-willed enough to not give in.

These parents may continuously feel the need to get harsher and harsher, as their child’s behavior continues to deteriorate, further damaging their relationship with this cycle.

Natural consequences teach children lessons, causing them to think first

about the future result of their actions.

Not every action has a natural consequence attached to it. There are times when parents will need to speak with their child or impose a consequence. It is at these times when the importance of the parent-child bond comes out strongest. We can only speak meaningfully with them or enforce something if we have established an emotional bond with them.

True learning and behavior modification usually happens when the child is calm – not when they’re being yelled at or upset over a punishment. Children are most open to learning when it’s presented with warmth and clear direction.

They are also most open to learning from someone they love and respect – both outcomes of the parent-child bond.

Sara Rayvych, MSEd, holds a master’s degree in general and special education. She has been homeschooling for over 15 years. Sara provides personalized parent mentoring services, addressing a variety of general and specific parenting concerns. She can be contacted at Sara.Rayvych@gmail.com with comments, questions or for private consultations.

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promptly from their friend’s house when they are told to will not be permitted to go next time.

These types of consequences are educational and encourage children to understand how there are consequences to their actions. Their behavior is linked to the results. They learn to think before doing something and decide if they will like the future result. As adults, we often work with natural consequences. We will not have a job if we show up late or fail to fulfill the required tasks at work. We will lose friends if we are rude to them.

There are also positive consequences to behavior. Those who are pleasant make friends, and those who are responsible get promoted at work. Children also learn from having positive consequences to their actions. When they show responsibility, they earn more privileges and gain our trust. Children who take care of their possessions have parents motivated to buy them things. As adults, we know how much more motivated and accomplished we are when we have a positive relationship with our employer and are in a pleasant work environment. Naturally, we’d like our children to listen to us because they want to please us and not because they fear punishment.

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Shmooze & Muse

Putting the Uch in Shidduch Calls

By Mordechai Schmutter

P

eople are often surprised that we have kids in shidduchim.

They ask, “Are your kids ready to go out?”

I don’t know if we’re ready to have kids who go out. Some of the basic questions mechutanim ask, we don’t have an answer.

“Where do they daven on Shabbos?”

I daven in four shuls. I have a place I like Friday nights because they have a seder before Maariv, a place I like Shabbos morning because they have hashkama, a place I like Shabbos Mincha because it gets me home in time to eat Seudah Shlishis with my family, and a place I like for Maariv because I enjoy davening in living rooms.

Should I put all that on the shidduch resume?

But yes, we have a daughter in shidduchim, and now also a son. (Pause for all the calls to come in for the son.)

But we don’t know whether we’re ready. We’re definitely not ready to

make phone calls. I hate being on the phone. My #1 priority, when I’m on the phone, is to make it clear to the other person that I cannot wait to finish our conversation. That’s not a good message when you’re talking shidduchim.

And I don’t know anyone that these people listed under “references.” And some of them are the wrong kind of references to ask certain questions.

Like some of them are “family friends,” who always start with, “We don’t know the girl, but it’s an amazing family.”

“Oh, you say this family you’re super close with is amazing? I’ll take your word for it. I’m done.”

But what else do we ask? We don’t even have time to think. With girls, if someone gives you a boy’s name, you have one day before they bother you again. Even if that day is the middle day of a three-day yom tov.

“So, did you do finish doing research?”

The boy’s family approved of you.

Why are you dragging your feet on this?

You can’t just trust their judgement, these people you don’t know? They had who-knows-how long, and they think it’s a good idea. For goodness sakes, how long does it take to find out his entire life story? More than two days? Look, if you can’t find anything you don’t like in two days of calling people they have carefully selected, who don’t always pick up the phone, why not spend the rest of your life with this guy?

I feel like when you’re putting together a resume, you should maybe pick references based on who would actually pick up the phone for a number they don’t know. But usually you pick them based on who you would trust to call you afterward to say, “Yeah, someone called to ask about your daughter. I told them only the good things.”

“Only good things, or only THE good things?”

So if you have a daughter, you have

no time to think – you’re just calling people in a mad rush so that the shadchan doesn’t tell the boy’s family, “Forget your months of research. This is taking her two days. There are other girls out there.”

There’s a process: First we look at the list and say, “We don’t know these people. These are all their people.” So we call some people we know who live in the same town, so they can say, “We don’t know the guy, but his family seems nice. I see his father in shul sometimes.”

So now what? Now we ask our person, “OK, here’s the list of names we got of people who live in the same town as you. Do you know any of them, at least?”

“Yeah, I think I know her friend’s father.”

“And how’s her family?”

“Amazing!”

So we stare at the list of references, and then we just pick a name and hope for the best.

Everyone is happy to help. Or at least

questions that may or may not mean he cares, and you take the best out of nine.

Like, “Does he use paper plates or real dishes?” Because paper plates equals less bitul Torah, unless he doesn’t wash the dishes anyway, because his mother does. What if his mother ties his shoes?

So you really don’t know anything.

sidish?”

But I mean, instead of getting half “I don’t know for sure” answers from neighbors, why not call the parents, who actually helped write the resume?

“So what did you mean when you wrote six feet? Is he really six feet?”

“I mean he’s not five feet.”

Instead of getting half “I don’t know for sure” answers from neighbors, why not call the parents, who actually helped write the resume?

So one idea that my wife has is that if we’re on the girl’s side, we don’t even have to call his references. We can call our references and ask, “What kinds of questions did his parents ask?”

This is why it’s great to go second.

My wife also likes asking, “What does he do for fun?”

She asks the guy’s chavrusos. And every single one says, “Um, I don’t know.

We just learn.”

You’re not going to get in trouble here. This isn’t a trick question. What about when he’s not learning?

“He’s always learning.”

“Oh, OK, thank you. That’s too intense for our daughter.”

“Nowaitwaitwait! He’s not always learning.”

“OK. So what activities does he do?”

“I don’t know. All I do is learn.”

Right.

“Wait, did we interrupt your learning? Hang on, is he sitting across from you right now?!”

“No, he’s washing his hands.”

I have this great idea, where you call the boy himself and pretend you’re asking about one of the references on his list and see what kind of answers he gives.

“I’m calling about Refoel Schwab.”

“My married friend?”

“No, I mean Nochum Kagan.”

“OK. But I think he’s engaged.”

Or, I don’t know, why don’t we call the parents themselves? You know – the parents who have the child’s best interests at heart and have handled yeshiva farhers and PTA meetings about the child?

“No, that’s too weird. Isn’t that chas-

“Also, did you ever teach him how to tie his shoes? No one else knew.”

Instead of two sets of infinite phone calls, why not do it in one? One extremely stressful call that if we mess up and say the wrong thing, there’s no one else we can call to try again?

It’s not like with references, where

if the conversation doesn’t go great, you can always call the next reference.

There are only two parents. And for all you know, the whole time you were talking to one parent, the other parent was sitting right next to them. Maybe it’s the kind of parent that can be completely silent while their spouse is on the phone – you don’t know.

Or maybe the shadchan should make the calls. This is a person who is not afraid to talk on the phone, who already has the resume – why not give her your list of questions and she gets back to you? And if it doesn’t work out, she has those questions answered for the next person?

“No, I don’t trust the shadchan. I want to ask the questions myself. But also I don’t.”

Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia and other magazines. He has also published eight books and does stand-up comedy. He can be contacted at mschmutter@gmail.com.

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when they finally call back. But not everyone helps as much as they think.

Firstly, they’re always on their guard. Their first thought is, “We don’t want to say anything to mess this up.

Even if we have to lie.”

Be honest! If it’s not the right shidduch, we don’t want them to go out. No one gains anything by flying in from Chicago because the references were afraid of an awkward phone conversation.

But the reference’s goal is, “Even though we don’t know you, we want that first date to happen no matter what.”

That way, they can say, “I was part of it!

I was a shliach!”

Just like there are shluchim to make the shidduch, Hashem can be sending shluchim to mess up the shidduch.

“I was a shliach! I messed things up with all the previous girls!”

Sure, the reference doesn’t want to say anything bad, but something the reference would consider bad isn’t necessarily something the boy or girl would consider bad. We’re not marrying you.

I think that’s why people come up with ridiculous questions. They’re just trying to get honest answers.

For example, if someone asks whether the boy wears laced shoes or slip-ons, the answer to this isn’t making or breaking the shidduch. From what I heard, they’re really trying to ask, “Does he care about bitul Torah?” Because if you ask that directly, the reference will always say he does. So instead, they figure, “I’ll ask about shoes. If he wears laces, then every time he takes his shoes off in middle of seder and puts them back on, he has to go wash his hands.

That’s bitul Torah.”

Well, why’s he putting them back on in the first place? Is it not because he needs to get up anyway? Also, if he’s sliding off his shoes in middle of seder, what does that say about his willingness to be mevatel the people around him?

And what if he has laced shoes but he does a little dance to slip them on?

So maybe that question has nothing to do with bitul Torah. Maybe they’re asking about his mental capacity: “Can he tie his own shoes? We have low standards here.”

And the reference has no idea which of these two questions you’re asking, so he doesn’t automatically know which one’s the “right” answer, and he answers honestly. And now you have an ironclad answer to the question you were trying not to ask! For your sake, I hope you have at least eight more of these

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F

d for Thought

Libbi

By Nati Burnside

A

s the kosher restaurant scene has evolved and expanded over time, I now find myself being asked for recommendations for restaurants that are “an experience.”

Usually, the person is asking me for something that is beyond the scope of the food. Their request is for something having to do with the ambiance, and their usual target is something that has a kind of party atmosphere. Live music, perhaps.

Or a restaurant where the chef will flambé something tableside to the delight of the dining room’s patrons.

And while those are the kind of things that the kosher restaurant world now has in 2026, the restaurant I find myself featuring today is a different kind of experience.

Libbi is the new sister restaurant of Abaita. For the unaware, Abaita is a very successful high-end dairy Italian restaurant in Midtown East. So what’s the difference between the two sisters other than a trip 30 blocks north?

“Abaita and Libbi share the same foundation — respect for ingredients, discipline in execution, and care for the guest’s experience — but the expression is very different,” said Hannah Donagrandi, one of the owners. “Abaita is about warmth and simplicity, about feeling home; Libbi is more artistic, more expressive, more layered, and experiential.”

When I was invited to have the Libbi experience, I was surprised at the length of the menu. Libbi has one of the smallest menus of any restaurant I’ve ever visited, and by far the smallest for any dairy spot. Six starters, four pizzas, five entrées, and that’s it – though I guess that might be fitting as the dining room also only holds about 40 guests.

That said, I had to start with the Lotus Soup. Made from the Asian root vegetable known for its deep flavor, the Libbi version is enhanced with braised creamer potatoes and chanterelle mushrooms. As somebody who loves soup, this was the

best way to start a meal full of interesting flavors. The warmth of the broth and the flavors really did the job of welcoming me to the restaurant on a winter night. The potatoes had a positive effect on the texture and the mushrooms made for a nice burst of flavor when I got one on my spoon.

The other appetizer that stood out to me was the Big Eye Tuna. The tuna itself was cut super thin like a carpaccio, though it was plated in a slightly non-traditional way. Usually, a carpaccio would be laid directly on the plate with some sparse toppings for you to enjoy. Here, there was a collection of diced vegetables (cucumber, daikon, jalapeño, scallion) that were covered by the tuna, with a small amount on top to go along with microgreens, lime, soy, and tahini. The result was something between a carpaccio and a salad. Whatever it was, it was delightful. Super fresh, a bit of heat, creaminess from the tahini, and the delicate slices of tuna that melted in my mouth? Sign me up for more dishes like that.

Next up, pizza. But once again, this pizza isn’t your usual pizza. Libbi’s pies are personal in size and have the fluffiest crust you’ve ever seen. How fluffy? I’d say around 50% of the surface area is devoted to the crust. And while most might say that sounds like a bad thing, it works here. I’d favor the Spicy Tomato Pizza where the center had a tomato sauce with the slightest of kicks, mozzarella, garlic chili oil, and some shiitake mushroom slices. Nothing too extravagant, but it was certainly memorable to bite into the crust and to chew the dough that took days to prepare in order to accomplish that consistency.

Virtually everything at Libbi is made in-house and that includes their pastas. I had the Green Mafaldine, and it was one of the best pesto pastas I’ve ever tasted.

The parmigiano cheese and extra virgin olive oil were classic pairings to go along with the base flavor of the basil. But the real focus here was the pasta as mafal-

dine is an interesting shape that helps really grab the sauce, plus there’s just nothing like freshly made pasta to contrast with how much of the alternative we usually consume.

One thing that has been changing a bit in the kosher restaurant world is the types of fish that you will see on restaurant menus. For a long time, the standard was salmon, tuna, and branzino. At Libbi, my choices were salmon, snapper, and bass. The top choice for me was the Wild Local Striped Bass. Not only was the fish cooked perfectly so that the filet was light, flaky, and moist, but the rest of the plate was a masterful combination of braised baby leeks and lentils. While I love leeks, lentils aren’t usually my thing.

But these lentils were so tasty (especially rolled up inside a leek) that I may have to rethink my stance.

Lastly, it’s not a dairy restaurant without some great dessert. Libbi has options that range from cakes to gelato to truffles…all made (unsurprisingly) in-house.

You probably can’t go wrong by picking anything on the menu, but I recommend the Apple Caramel Gelato. The flavor was a perfect cool end to a night that began

with a nice hot soup.

Keep in mind that Libbi is extremely dedicated to the use of fresh local ingredients. This means that the menu might have small tweaks every few days, medium changes in the week to month range, and might look pretty different by the season. So if something I recommended above isn’t there, that only means that they replaced it with something of similar value.

Libbi is a restaurant that you experience, but there’s no loud music or fire.

From the fluffiness of the pizza crust to the tuna carpaccio, from the house-made pastas to the crafted desserts, everything at Libbi is light in nature. Not only that, but the small, artisanal menu will make you feel like you’re experiencing something special crafted just for you.

Dairy - Waiter Service

205 East 81st Street New York, NY (646)-809-3232 OK Kosher (Cholov Yisroel)

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In The K tchen

Salmon Dumplings Serves: 4-6

By Naomi Nachman

The last few months, I have become obsessed with du mplings.

When I see them on menus in restaurants, I order a double batch. I decided to make my own using salmon. You can try and exchange the salmon for minced chicken.

Ingredients

floating on the top for 3 minutes. Remove each carefully with a slotted spoon.

◦ ¼ cup finely chopped water chestnuts

Cook’s note: You can also pan-fry the dumplings a few minutes on each side in a

◦ ¼ cup finely chopped bamboo shoots

sauté pan. Alternately you can steam them in a bamboo steam basket.

◦ 1 pound skinless salmon, minced

◦ ¼ cup finely chopped scallions

Serve the dumplings with dipping sauce or soy sauce mixed with minced ginger.

◦ 2 cloves garlic, minced ◦ 1 Tablespoon dark soy sauce

Dipping Sauce

◦ ½ teaspoon sesame oil

Makes: 1/3 cup

◦ ¼ teaspoon salt ◦ 2 cups water ◦ 1 package round wonton wrappers

Preparation 1.

Prepare the salmon and vegetables: Toss salmon and vegetables with remainder

Ingredients

◦ 4 Tablespoons soy sauce ◦ 1 Tablespoon honey ◦ 1 Teaspoon sesame oil ◦ 1 Tablespoon rice vinegar

ingredients and seasonings (excluding water and wrappers).

◦ 2 teaspoons ginger, minced

2. Place one tablespoon of the mixture in the middle of each wonton wrapper. Lift

◦ 2 teaspoons fresh cilantro leaves, chopped

the edges of the circle and pinch the top together. (You may want to use a cornstarch/ water mixture to make sure it sticks.)

3. Gently lower the dumplings into a medium pot with the boiling water and boil for 3 to 5 minutes. The dumplings are done when the skins are clear and have been

Preparation

Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Mix together well. For best results, blend

ahead of time to allow all flavors to blend. Store in a sealed container.

Naomi Nachman, the owner of The Aussie Gourmet, caters weekly and Shabbat/ Yom Tov meals for families and individuals within The Five Towns and neighboring communities, with a specialty in Pesach catering. Naomi is a contributing editor to this paper and also produces and hosts her own weekly radio show on the Nachum Segal Network stream called “A Table for Two with Naomi Nachman.” Naomi gives cooking presentations for organizations and private groups throughout the New York/New Jersey Metropolitan area. In addition, Naomi has been a guest host on the QVC TV network and has been featured in cookbooks, magazines as well as other media covering topics related to cuisine preparation and personal chefs. To obtain additional recipes, join The Aussie Gourmet on Facebook or visit Naomi’s blog. Naomi can be reached through her website, www.theaussiegourmet.com or at (516) 295-9669.

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Notable Quotes “Say What?!”

The stinking Kiev [loser] is trying to derail the settlement of the conflict. He wants war. Well, now at least he’ll have to stay in hiding for the rest of his worthless life.

- Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and now a senior figure on the country’s security council, on X, threatening Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky

It’s in part for good luck. But when I see a good-looking tuna, I cannot resist… I haven’t sampled it yet, but it’s got to be delicious.

- Japanese sushi chain owner Kiyoshi Kimura after shattering all records and paying $3.24 million for a single bluefin tuna at Tokyo’s annual New Year’s fish auction

For two years, the world bent itself into pretzels justifying a terrorist group kidnapping a 10-month-old Israeli baby – “resistance,” right? Now, suddenly, the overthrow of a mass-murdering Venezuelan dictator is an illegal kidnapping. The moral gymnastics are gold medal levels.

- Michael Rapaport

The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now call it the Don-roe Doctrine.

- Pres. Trump noting that his actions in Venezuela (which he dubbed the “Donroe Doctrine”) are based on the Monroe Doctrine, which was Pres. James Monroe’s warning to European countries not to interfere in countries in the Western Hemisphere.

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For about 200 years, the Chaplain Corps continued its role as spiritual leader of our service members, serving our men and women in times of hardship and ministering to their souls. But sadly, as part of an ongoing war on warriors, in recent decades, it is recognized that its role has been degraded. In an atmosphere of political correctness and secular humanism, chaplains have been minimized, viewed by many as therapists instead of ministers. Faith and virtue were traded for self-help and self-care.

- Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announcing this week that he will reform the military chaplain program to strip “secular humanism” out of the messaging

If you need proof, just look at the current Army Spiritual Fitness Guide.

In well over 100 pages, it mentions G-d one time. That’s it. It mentions feelings 11 times. It even mentions playfulness – whatever that is – nine times. There’s zero mention of virtue.

- ibid.

The guide relies on new age notions, saying the soldier’s spirit consists of consciousness, creativity, and connection. The guide itself reports that around 82% of the military are religious, yet ironically, it alienates our war fighters by faith by pushing secular humanism. In short, it’s unacceptable and unserious. So we’re tossing it.

- ibid.

I lived with Trump Derangement Syndrome. It’s toxic, it’s chaotic, and it’s sometimes frightening.

- Former Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway, who is divorced from George Conway who has severe TDS

They are arresting people simply for the offense of being in the country illegally. That’s not necessarily something that should cause deportation.

- Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.)

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How come the “Free Palestine” crowd seems to have zero interest in Freeing Iran?

- Pres. Trump addressing House Republicans at their yearly retreat, talking about how Melania doesn’t like when he dances in front of audiences

– Tweet by John Ondrasik

He gets up there and tries to imitate my dance a little bit, but he’s a violent guy!

- ibid. talking about Nicolas Maduro

Of course, [Democrats] weren’t briefed. They would have run straight to the media!

- Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) responding to Democrats’ complaints that they were not briefed before the U.S. captured Maduro

There is a new sheriff in town. He has put life into the Monroe Doctrine. If I were the leader of Iran, I would go pray in the mosque.

- U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in an interview with Axios

For the first time in years, the Democrats are opposed to a Venezuelan criminal entering our country.

- Tweet by Rob Jenkins

You demand more money, but we’ve already exhausted everything we had. You want high salaries without taxes, then tell me, where should this money come from when our oil is under sanctions and we’re pushing ourselves toward crisis?

- Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in a speech aimed at the protesters

7 dollars of subsidy for every Iranian. 1,800 dollars monthly salary for every terrorist member of Hezbollah, from the pocket of Iranian. That’s it.

- Tweet in Farsi by Israel’s Foreign Ministry X account

I say about Elon, he’s 80% super genius and 20% he makes mistakes. But he’s a good guy. He’s a well-meaning person.

- Pres. Trump when asked about his New Year’s eve dinner with Elon Musk

A recent video clearly raises concerns that they are not meeting our standards and values. As such, we are taking immediate action to remove this hotel from our systems. Hilton is—and has always been—a welcoming place for all. We are also engaging with all of our franchisees to reinforce the standards we hold them to across our system to help ensure this does not happen again.

- Statement by Hilton Hotels announcing that they ended a franchise relationship with a hotel in Minnesota that refused to allow ICE agents to stay there

JANUARY 8, 2026 | The Jewish Home

She hates when I dance. She’s a very classy person. She said, “Darling, it’s not presidential.” But I said, “I did become president.”

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Political Crossfire

Trump is Riding High on Venezuela.

It Might Not Last.

By David Ignatius

N

othing is more intense for a president than using America’s awesome military capabilities. You could hear the exhilaration in President Donald Trump’s voice Sunday night as he talked to reporters about the previous day’s operations in Venezuela.

But this sense of raw power carries with it a hubris that has destabilized nearly every presidential administration for three decades. It’s a slippery slope, especially for a leader like Trump who believes he’s smarter and tougher than his predecessors. He seems convinced that he can take what he wants – presidents, countries, resources – without paying a price. The world doesn’t work that way.

After the stunning special-forces operation that snatched President Nicolás Maduro from his bunker early Saturday morning, Trump talked as if his power has no limits. Cuba “looks like it’s ready to fall.” Colombia is “run by sick man, not going to last very long.” He loves Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, but “cartels are running Mexico,” and he wants to send in U.S. troops. As for Greenland, territory of NATO ally Denmark, he wants it, but he says he can’t talk about it for 20 days.

The presidency is seductive. It leads even cautious politicians to overreach, and Trump is the opposite of cautious. He is seeking to reorder the world, at home and abroad, top to bottom. It’s easy to say that this kind of thinking is delusional, or narcissistic, or dictatorial. But Trump seems convinced that he’s on a roll, and most other countries – China and Russia are the notable exceptions – haven’t figured out a strategy for containing him.

Venezuela illustrates one often overlooked fact about Trump. He launches his campaigns with the bravura of Teddy Roosevelt, but his follow-through is sometimes weak and disorganized.

The strange truth is that despite America’s stunning display of military power, there hasn’t been regime change in Caracas. The same group of narco traffickers and left-wing political operators still run the country, albeit without its former kingpin.

That’s either the best aspect of this operation or the worst, depending on your perspective. Yes, Maduro is sitting in a federal prison in Brooklyn. But the Trump administration is advertising the fact that it’s working with his handpicked successor, Delcy Rodríguez, who said Sunday night, “We invite the U.S. government to collaborate with us on an agenda of cooperation.”

The Trump administration has been talking quietly with Rodríguez about a post-Maduro transition in Venezuela for months, according to a report Monday in the Financial Times. The paper quoted an assessment by Ali Moshiri, a former Chevron executive who’s now hoping to invest in Venezuelan oil projects: “She is very well qualified, knows the oil business well, and also the flexibility that investors need. She could lead a transition administration, but she needs help from the U.S., especially on sanctions relief.”

Rodríguez has power, nominally, and the ear of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, dubbed the “Viceroy of Venezuela”

by The Post. But the boots on the ground in Venezuela still belong to Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López and Interi-

or Minister Diosdado Cabello. Both are named as co-conspirators in the drug trafficking indictment of Maduro and his wife that triggered their arrests.

Trump must hope he can intimidate these narcos into cooperation by the threat of what he calls a “second wave” from the U.S. military. But are they really going to be America’s partners in transition to what may be distant democratic elections? Are Trump and Rubio really consigning the democratic opposition headed by María Corina Machado to a spectator’s role? That seems like a misuse of American power.

“My sense is that they made the decision wrongly that the opposition was not competent to run the country and they were better off working with Rodríguez.

To what end is unclear to me,” says Elliott Abrams, who oversaw Latin America policy during the Reagan administration and is now a senior fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Jack Devine, a former senior CIA officer for Latin America, supports Trump’s Venezuela policy but told me that true regime change there would have required more time and extensive coup planning and an ability to win over a decisive force within the military. He foresees a “strained but necessary transition phase” until eventual elections.

“We don’t have the power to put the democratic opposition in power immediately, but the military and security forces don’t have the power to resist Trump,” he argues. For now, he says, “we’re playing the cards day by day, but the current government will fold under continued pressure.”

The most unrealistic aspect of Trump’s policy may be his expectation that Venezuela’s vast oil reserves can be quickly taken by U.S. companies. Several experienced oil executives told me that ignores how long and costly it will be to boost Venezuela’s battered industry – and how few companies will want to take on this challenge.

The Trump administration has already begun contacting oil companies to urge them to invest in Venezuela.

And the administration is said by one industry executive to have given Rodríguez a deadline of a few days to rewrite Venezuela’s petroleum law to provide favorable access.

But a former industry CEO cautioned me Monday that given the instability, “boards of directors can’t responsibly approve investment in Venezuela.”

Trump may offer military protection for oil companies, but CEOs aren’t likely to approve any plans that put their employees at risk, he noted.

Trump has launched a violent process of change in Venezuela that will have repercussions he can’t control. In New York, his actions were condemned at U.N. Security Council by some U.S. allies, including France.

Nicolo Machiavelli, the supreme realist, observed that “people may go to war when they will, but cannot always withdraw when they like.” That’s a precept written in blood in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Trump had proclaimed it as a cornerstone of his foreign policy. But he seems fated to learn the lesson for himself. © 2025, Washington Post Writers Group

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Political Crossfire

JANUARY 8, 2026 | The Jewish Home

The 10 Worst Things Trump Did in 2025

By Marc A. Thiessen

S

ince Donald Trump took office in 2016, I have offered annual lists of the best and worst things the president did each year – a tradition I continued for Joe Biden. Now, once again, I’m keeping tabs on Trump.

Trump’s first year back in office was remarkable, and (spoiler alert) my list of the best things he did will be extensive. So let’s begin with the worst:

10. His administration sought to shut down America’s “Freedom Radios.”

Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, Radio Farda and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty are the United States’ greatest low-cost, soft-power counters to authoritarian adversaries such as China, Russia and Iran, which spend tens of billions on their insidious anti-American propaganda.

(Disclosure: I serve without compensation on the board of RFE/RL.) Under the chaotic leadership of Kari Lake, parent organization U.S. Agency for Global Media has tried to shutter these services. That backfired when Trump bombed Iranian nuclear sites, and Lake had gutted America’s ability to get information to the Iranian people.

9. He moved to more than double the number of visas for Chinese students.

On taking office, the Trump administration announced plans to “aggressively revoke” visas of Chinese students, whom the Chinese Communist Party systematically seeks to recruit to conduct espionage and steal “technologies needed to advance China’s national, military, and economic goals,” according to the FBI. Then Trump reversed course, announcing he would more than double the number of Chinese students attending American universities to 600,000. He was right the first time.

8. He accepted a new Air Force One from Qatar.

There is nothing illegal about accepting the donation of a Boeing 747-8 aircraft, but Qatar is a nexus of terrorism and anti-Americanism in the Middle East – a country that funneled more than $1 billion to Hamas, provides safe haven to terrorists, and funds media platforms spreading antisemitic, anti-American, pro-terrorist hate. Trump should not accept gifts from such a regime.

7. He issued unjustifiable pardons.

Trump campaigned on a promise to pardon the Jan. 6, 2021, rioters, but his decision to include those convicted of violence against police officers will remain a stain on his presidency. Trump also pardoned the former president of Honduras who was convicted of trafficking tons of U.S.-bound cocaine even as the administration is blowing suspected Venezuelan drug boats out of the water in the Caribbean.

6. He ordered federal agencies to ease marijuana restrictions.

THC content in cannabis has surged, yet Trump is seeking to lower the classification of this dangerous psychoactive drug, which would further reduce the stigma of marijuana use and reduce banking and tax risks for growers. As Sen. Ted Budd (R-North Carolina) and 21 Republican colleagues told the president in a letter, numerous studies link marijuana use to “increases in industrial accidents, injuries … absenteeism” and “the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration warns that marijuana users are more likely to be involved with car crashes.” Trump wants to reindustrialize America, and educational

test scores are plummeting. Encouraging marijuana use is a terrible idea.

5. He violated U.S. law on TikTok. His administration repeatedly refused to enforce the law that Congress passed banning the social media app from operating in the U.S. without a deal divesting it from ByteDance, which is subject to the influence and control of the Chinese Communist Party. The deal Trump eventually brokered does not actually separate U.S. TikTok from China. The platform will remain fueled by code from China, and thus subject to continued Chinese state influence, in violation of the law.

4. His administration bungled the release of the Epstein files.

Attorney General Pam Bondi raised expectations of a big reveal, declaring she had Jeffrey Epstein’s client list “sitting on my desk right now.” Then the Justice Department released a memo stating it would not be releasing any files, causing a needless confrontation with Republicans in Congress, who forced the administration to do so.

3. His tariffs slowed economic growth.

While tariffs did not unleash the recession some predicted – to the contrary, third-quarter gross domestic product grew at a strong 4.3 percent – according to the Yale Budget Lab, the Tax Foundation and other analysts, they will slow real U.S. GDP growth by as much as half a percentage

point. That means the equivalent of about half-a-million fewer jobs created annually.

Tariffs are a wet blanket on Trump’s agenda for economic renewal.

2. He underfunded defense buildup.

Yes, his One Big Beautiful Bill added a one-time $156 billion boost to defense spending, but his 2026 budget proposed just $893 billion for defense – far less than the record $1 trillion he promised – and would have been a net cut in the regular defense budget after inflation (Congress eventually added $8 billion more). The U.S. is now set to spend just 3.2 percent of GDP on defense, less than the average under Barack Obama, and far less than the 1980s Reagan buildup.

1. He is allowing the sale of the most advanced artificial intelligence chips to China.

The familiar communist aphorism goes “the Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” Trump is proving that right by allowing Nvidia to sell its H200 AI chips to China in exchange for a 25 percent kickback to the U.S. government. This would be like Ronald Reagan selling advanced nuclear missile technology to the Soviets during the Cold War. We are in an AI arms race with Beijing! Why on earth would Trump help China?

That’s the bad. But it is far outweighed by the good Trump did in his first year back in the White House. In my next column, I’ll give you the best things he did in 2025. © 2026, Washington Post Writers Group

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Political Crossfire

The 20 Best Things Trump Did in 2025

By Marc A. Thiessen

P

female athletes it harmed with past Title IX violations.

resident Donald Trump has had such a consequential start to his second term that my normal list of 10 could not capture the full scope of what he accomplished. So, here is my list of the 20 best things Trump did in 2025. (In my previous column, I discussed the 10 worst.)

14. He ended collective bargaining for a million federal workers.

His executive orders gutting public worker unions mean many federal departments can terminate union contracts and hire and fire based on merit.

20. He delivered justice for the Abbey Gate bombing.

After terrorists killed 13 U.S. service members during President Joe Biden’s catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden promised, “We will not forgive.

We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.” He left office three years later having made no one pay. It took Trump less than six weeks to capture what he described as a “top terrorist” responsible for the attack.

19. He created “Trump Accounts” to give every American child a trust fund.

The federal government will put $1,000 into a tax-advantaged investment account for every American child born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028, to be locked until they turn 18. The Treasury Department estimates the accounts could grow to between $3,000 and $13,800 in 18 years and to as much as $1.9 million by age 28 if fully funded with additional contributions and left untouched, giving every American child a financial foundation as they begin adulthood.

18. He drove illegal migration to a virtual halt.

Biden claimed he needed legislation from Congress to secure the border; Trump shut down the border in weeks with no new congressional authority. Encounters at the border are at record lows, apprehensions are 95 percent lower than the daily average

13. He scrapped Biden-era policies intended to force people into electric cars, and unleashed oil and gas production.

under Joe Biden, and no illegal migrants have been released into the United States for seven months.

17. He used tariff threats to strike new trade deals.

In his first term, Trump offered the European Union a zero-for-zero trade deal, but the E.U. failed to take him up on the offer. Seven years later, Trump struck a deal that includes a 15 percent baseline tariff on most European exports to the U.S., while most U.S. exports to the E.U. will be duty-free. What changed? Trump’s trade war.

He also used tariffs as leverage to reach deals with Britain, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and Cambodia.

16. He brought many of the nation’s elite universities to heel.

He forced Columbia University to sign a $220 million settlement over diversity, eq-

uity and inclusion and over antisemitic civil rights violations on campus, and reached similar settlements with Brown, Cornell, Northwestern, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Virginia, with more potentially on the way.

15. He took on radical gender ideology and protected women’s sports.

He signed an executive order and issued new regulations to stop U.S. hospitals from engaging in the chemical and surgical mutilation of children and ordered that federal funds be rescinded from any educational institutions that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities. As a result, the NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic committees changed their policies to ban men from competing in women’s sports, and the University of Pennsylvania agreed to restore women’s school records, post the definition of a woman on its website, and apologize to

Trump is rolling back Biden’s fuel efficiency and tailpipe emissions standards, and signed legislation ending California’s electric vehicle mandate, policies intended to coerce Americans into buying electric vehicles. Trump also lifted Biden’s pause on natural gas exports, dramatically increasing U.S. exports, opening up millions of acres in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling and mining, approving record numbers of drilling permits, rolling back climate regulations and revoking Biden-era orders that blocked oil and gas drilling in most U.S. coastal waters.

12. He made our nation’s capital safer by sending in the National Guard.

After Trump took federal control of the D.C. police and deployed the Guard, crime in the District dropped by double-digits in virtually every category.

11. He dramatically cut taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security.

His One Big Beautiful Bill also made his 2017 pro-growth tax cuts permanent.

10. He forced Panama to crack down on Chinese influence over the Panama Canal.

9. He added $156 billion to the defense budget.

As part of his One Big Beautiful Bill, Trump made a downpayment on the second Trump defense buildup, including funding for his “Golden Dome” defense shield to protect America from ballistic missile attacks, which will fulfill the vision Ronald Reagan put forward with his Strategic Defense Initiative. But he still needs to increase regular defense spending to deliver on his promise of “peace through strength.”

7. He fixed the military recruiting crisis.

After suffering years of severe recruiting shortfalls under Biden, the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Space Force all met or exceeded their 2025 recruiting goals, many of them months ahead of schedule.

6. He has eliminated dozens of suspected Venezuelan drug boats.

Trump launched the largest deployment of naval assets to the Caribbean since the U.S. invasion of Panama, and is taking out the speedboats and submarines the narco-terrorists use.

8. He shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development.

5. He is standing up for persecuted Christians in Nigeria.

Eliminating USAID as an independent agency has been a conservative goal since the 1990s. While permanently abolish-

He warned that he would send the U.S. military into Nigeria “guns-a-blazing” to wipe out Islamic terrorists en-

gaged in mass killings of Christians, and on Christmas Day he delivered, carrying out “multiple” strikes against Islamic State targets in northwestern Nigeria.

intelligence for strikes deep into Russia.

And he is offering Ukraine a NATO Article 5-style security guarantee as part of a potential peace deal.

4. He forged one of the greatest peacemaking records in U.S. history.

2. He got NATO allies to meet and raise their defense spending promises.

He has made progress toward lasting peace in conflicts between India and Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, Cambodia and Thailand, and Armenia and Azerbaijan.

He also brought the war between Israel and Iran to an end after 12 days and brokered a deal to end the Israel-Hamas war that secured the release of all remaining hostages. He also helped avert conflicts between Kosovo and Serbia and Egypt and Ethiopia, and got Kazakhstan to join the Abraham Accords. Russia’s war on Ukraine has proven more intractable, but this is an unprecedented record worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize.

Today, all allies are on track to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense this year, and at a triumphant NATO summit in the Netherlands, Trump got allies to agree to raise their spending to 5 percent by 2035 – more than double their previous commitment. As NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte wrote to Trump, this is “something NO American president in decades could get done.”

3. He is doing more to help Ukraine than Biden ever did.

Trump is sending new weapons worth billions of dollars to Ukraine – paid for by European allies, not American taxpayers – and is providing Ukraine with targeting

1. He obliterated the Iranian nuclear program.

Four presidents promised to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, but only Trump took decisive action to halt it.

Launching Operation Midnight Hammer is possibly the most important and courageous foreign policy decision any president has made in the past half-century.

© 2026, Washington Post Writers Group

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Under pressure from Trump, Panama replaced Huawei telecommunications infrastructure installed at 13 sites with secure American technology, pulled out of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and scrapped its contracts with a Hong Kongbased company to manage port facilities.

ing USAID requires an act of Congress, Trump has folded its functions into the State Department, eliminated wasteful programs and made sure that U.S. aid decisions support U.S. foreign policy objectives.

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The Jewish Home | JANUARY 8, 2026

Political Crossfire

Venezuela, Trump and the End of the Liberal World Order

By Jonathan S. Tobin

A

s with much of the criticism of just about anything that President Donald Trump does, many, if not most, of the lamentations about the U.S. capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro are highly predictable.

The Marxist left immediately took to the streets in defense of the now-imprisoned leader of the narco-terrorist regime in Caracas with the same speed and determination with which they sought to support the Hamas-led Palestinian attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, or to oppose the Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear program last June. The isolationist far-right, like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-Ga.), denounced the president’s actions as a sign that Trump was implementing a neocon foreign policy. Antisemites on both ends of the

political spectrum also echoed the reflexive claim by Maduro’s second-in-command and putative successor, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, that the American strike had “Zionist undertones.”

A Debate That Transcends Trump A bitter debate about the American effort to both halt the flow of drugs from that country and to end the oppressive rule of a regime that has turned a once-prosperous and democratic nation into a failed state from which millions have fled has ensued. However, it is about more than just the usual knee-jerk opposition of the left to the president or conspiracy theories rooted in Jew-hatred.

The issue isn’t just whether Trump has started something he can’t finish or the legalities involved in the American

arrest of a foreign leader, albeit a corrupt and tyrannical drug smuggler who stole elections, in his own capital. At stake is whether the administration’s unilateral actions are destroying the establishment of what is generally referred to as the “liberal world order.” That order is considered by many to have ended the anarchic great power rivalries that led to two world wars in the first half of the 20th century.

The president is clearly seeking to topple a hostile government of a weaker nation for motives that may be as economic in nature as they are about stopping the flow of drugs to the United States, let alone restoring democracy in Venezuela. And that reminds some commentators of a bygone era of “imperialism” and the lack of international restraints on such actions.

But that’s a tipoff that Trump is on the right track.

It’s important to understand the context for the American effort in Venezuela as transcending the usual hand-wringing from the left or Trump-deranged establishment liberals about an out-of-control MAGA administration.

To the contrary, Trump seems to be responding to problems that the supposedly more responsible foreign-policy elites have not only failed to solve but have actually aided and abetted because of their belief in multilateralism. The complaints of the editors of The New York Times, whose editorial denounced the administration for a policy that was both “illegal and unwise,” aren’t really about the erosion of congressional checks on the use of force abroad. Nor are they about the growth of executive power, which dates back to the 1960s, or sensible reasons for concern about the ways the

Post-War Myths There are serious concerns about what happens next in Venezuela or in related news about whether Trump’s talk of acquiring Greenland will lead to a messy and unnecessary confrontation with Denmark. But the laments for a situation in which both the United Nations and America’s NATO allies are powerless bystanders while Washington exerts its influence and power are misguided. The notion that the post-war order and the multilateral institutions that are part of it are indispensable to preserving peace holds enormous appeal to many around the globe who loathe or fear the United States. It also appeals to those who believe in it as an ideal apparatus for global governance. That remains the conventional wisdom embraced by the chattering classes and the foreign-policy establishment that views most of what Trump has done on the world stage with distaste, if not horror.

But they are wrong. The liberal orthodoxy that unilateralism is inherently misguided is the real problem, not Trump’s willingness to use American power, whether or not anyone else approves.

While many on both the left and the right wrongly thought his embrace of the slogan “America First” amounted to isolationism, they clearly misunderstood what he meant by it. Far from withdrawing from the world, Trump is determined to defend American interests abroad, though correctly understands that structures created for that purpose in the late 1940s are obsolete.

What Trump is doing amounts to a

return to what historian Niall Ferguson accurately analogized to the “gunboat diplomacy” and “big stick” foreign policy of President Theodore Roosevelt in the opening decade of the 20th century.

This was made clear in the administration’s National Security Strategy published in November, which essentially was the blueprint for freedom of action to defend American interests in South America, whereby the Monroe Doctrine is being updated and strengthened into a new “Donroe Doctrine.”

The assumption of the foreign-policy professionals during the last 80 years was that such behavior was just the sort

sian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz about war being “the continuation of policy by other means” or end great power politics. Nuclear weapons just made the cost of escalating direct confrontations too costly to consider.

NATO served a purpose in ensuring that the Soviet aggression of the late 1940s was halted. So, too, did the U.S. resolve in Korea, when the South was invaded by the Communist North. But what the architects of the United Nations failed to realize was that the structure they created could be taken over by the very forces opposed to Western ideals.

That the United Nations is today a bastion

If you don’t want rogue regimes to be allowed to export illegal drugs that kill Americans or to be used as bases by Iran or China, the only answer is for Washington to act.

of high-handed great power actions that led to disaster in 1914 and again in 1939.

They thought that the high-minded ideals of world governance and collective security articulated in the U.N. Charter and the rhetoric of post-war American presidents could ensure that aggressors could be stopped and wars avoided.

They point to the fact that the great powers never went to war against each other from 1945 to the fall of the Berlin Wall—and even to the present after the Soviet Union collapsed—as proof that the liberal world order was not just preferable but an absolute necessity.

The creation of the United Nations, and a few years later, NATO, made sense as the planet emerged from the nightmare of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The West then faced the need to resist the aggressive expansionism of Soviet communism. But neither the world body nor the fashioning of a Western alliance that sought to prevent Moscow from bringing other nations inside its totalitarian Iron Curtain prevented World War III from ever being fought. It was, instead, the possession of nuclear weapons by both rival global superpowers that deterred them from war, even when confrontations, like the one over the Soviets installing missiles in Cuba in 1962, took them to the brink. The new order didn’t abolish the basic truth uttered by Prus-

of antisemitism—and it and its agencies spend so much of their efforts and energy undermining and attacking Israel—is not an anomaly. It’s the natural outcome of a world body that is largely controlled by nations and movements that are opposed to Western ideals and values.

Winning the Second Cold War The simple and unavoidable truth is that the only way to defend those values, American interests, as well as the existence of Israel, is to go around or supersede multilateral institutions. Their preservation cannot be allowed to depend on the ideas of a now bygone era.

The United States, as Ferguson has also accurately noted, is locked in a new Cold War; only this time, against China and its allies in Moscow, Tehran and Caracas. It should learn from the past, but it won’t win this conflict solely by working with the tools, like NATO, that were invented to cope with the challenges of the last one.

It’s only to be expected that the assertion of American power in South America or elsewhere, such as Iran—where Trump joined the Israeli campaign to destroy its nuclear program and which he has now also threatened should it violently suppress protests—will be opposed by ideologues who think international institutions are more important than national sovereignty. The point being is that if you

don’t want rogue regimes to be allowed to export illegal drugs that kill Americans or to be used as bases by Iran or China, the only answer is for Washington to act.

Waiting for a global organization to undertake operations that most of its members oppose or the assent of NATO allies is almost always going to lead, as it has on so many fronts, to inaction.

Some administrations, like that of Barack Obama, turned that dependence on multilateralism into something of a fetish. The result was, among other things, the catastrophe in Syria (where Obama walked back his 2013 “red line” threats) and the 2015 Iran deal that set Tehran on a course to have nuclear weapons, with which it could dominate the Middle East and threaten the rest of the world.

The argument that American unilateralism will encourage Beijing to attack Taiwan is nonsense. As Russia showed in Ukraine and Iran proved when it fomented its multifront war against Israel on the watch of a Biden administration that was similarly wedded to multilateral myths, it was U.S. weakness—not tough-minded Trumpian strength wielded unilaterally— that is likely to lead to more wars.

It may well be that Trump’s every utterance and act will continue to send liberals and leftists over the edge, no matter how sound or reasonable his policies (such as his success in halting illegal immigration) may be. It’s equally true that there are no guarantees that American intervention in Venezuela will work. Although by not committing to a full-scale invasion, Trump appears to be heeding his own criticisms of the George W. Bush administration’s blunders in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The most important conclusion to be drawn from this latest instance of Trump’s freelancing while the global establishment clutches its pearls is that it is only by Washington’s willingness to act on its own that the threats to America, the West and the State of Israel can be effectively met. Far from the greatest peril being an erratic Trump let loose on the world stage, the president’s single-minded belief in defending American national interests is the best hope for fending off the machinations of enemies of the West.

A mindless belief in the transcendent importance of the solutions that were believed necessary in 1945 to prevent another global war is not going to protect us in 2026 and the years to come.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate).

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American effort could go wrong.

Their real argument is about a belief that the United States must always bow to the constraints enforced upon it by the United Nations or the fears of its NATO allies. That also comes from columnists like the Times’ David French, M. Gessen and Michelle Goldberg, who thinks Trump is no different from a superpower mafia don.

It is for this reason that those who believe that the current priority must be to defend the West against both the redgreen alliance of Marxists and Islamists that the Maduro regime was an integral part of and the growing geostrategic threat from the Communist government of China should be cheering for Trump.

And that goes double for those who rightly worry about the way that the international community and its institutions have sided with the ongoing war against Israel by those who seek its destruction.

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The Jewish Home | JANUARY 8, 2026

Forgotten Her es

Two Jewish Heroes Edmund Myers and Richard Jessel

By Avi Heiligman

The sabotage at Gorgopotamos Viaduct

A

pproximately 1.5 million Jews served in uniform with the Allies during World War II, driven by both patriotism and the urgency of defeating the Nazis. Of this total, nearly half a million served the Soviet Union, while 550,000 of them were in the American Armed Forces. The rest were with other Allied countries including Great Britain, Canada, Australia and other European nations, such as Poland and France, before they were occupied

by Germany and the Axis powers. Here are the stories of two courageous Jewish British officers who fought to liberate Europe and the rest of the world.

Edmund Charles Wolf “Eddie” Myers was born in London and served as a British Army officer during World War II. His father, Charles Samuel Myers, a psychologist with the British Expeditionary Force during World War I, is often credited with coining the term “shellshock.” Eddie started his military career by attending the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich and became an officer in the Royal Corps of Engineers. In 1936, he was sent to the British Mandate in Palestine to assist in the Arab Revolt and was noted for his services.

During World War II, Myers was involved in several operations, including secret missions in Greece and serving as acting chief engineer for the 1st Airborne

Division during the Battle of Arnhem.

In October 1942, he was sent to Greece by the SOE (Special Operations Executive) to head a mission to coordinate resistance groups in sabotage against the Axis. On November 25, 1942, Myers led a team during Operation Harling in Greece to destroy a railway viaduct important to Axis logistics. Greek resistance factions ELAS and EDES, who were normally at odds with each other, cooperated with Myers against a heavily guarded target: the Gorgopotamos Viaduct. Forces were deployed to block the railway, and the demolition team led by a New Zealand engineer, Major Tom Barnes, placed the explosives on the viaduct. The target was destroyed and caused major supply delays for General Rommel’s forces in North Africa. This wasn’t Myers’ only sabotage job for the SOE, as he was also involved in the destruction of the Asopos Viaduct in central Greece in June 1943.

He was ordered to leave Greece when he became too involved in resistance politics.

Myers retained a significant role within the British Army. Being airborne-qualified, he was selected as the Commander Royal Engineers (CRE) for the 1st Airborne Division. During Operation Market Garden in September 1944, he assisted a trapped glider pilot after landing on the battlefield. Five days later,

Eddie Myers

he was sent to cross the Rhine to make contact with the 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade. Myers surveyed the area and organized the Polish crossing of the river despite inadequate equipment. The next day, he helped other units cross the river, though it soon became apparent that the operation was a failure. Leaning on his engineering and leadership skills, Myers orchestrated the evacuation of the remainder of the 1 st Airborne Division. Myers was wounded in the fighting during the operation.

He stayed in the British Army after the war and worked his way up to the senior rank of brigadier. For his bravery and dedication to the service, Myers was awarded several medals and citations including the Distinguished Service Order and the American Legion of Merit.

Royal Navy officer Commander Richard Frederick Jessel was another Jewish serviceman recognized for bravery in action. Born in London, he came from a family prominent in British political and judicial circles for generations, known both for their philanthropy and their involvement in Zionist causes. At the age of 13, Jessel entered the Royal Navy during World War I and spent his early naval career on destroyers and training roles. He rose through the officer ranks in the 1920s and 1930s, holding several posts including the command of the de-

stroyers HMS Sabre and HMS Vanoc. In 1936, he commissioned and commanded the G-class destroyer HMS Glowworm.

While escorting King Edward VIII’s yacht in Greece, Jessel sustained significant leg injuries from the propeller of the king’s motor launch. Despite the injuries that almost ended his time at sea, Jessel went on to train cadets before World War II broke out in 1939.

Two months before England joined the war against Germany, Jessel was assigned to the battlecruiser HMS Hood.

He left the Hood to command the L-class destroyer HMS Legion in 1940. A year later, the battlecruiser was sunk in a battle with the German battleship Bismarck, and almost the entire crew was lost. While in command of the Legion, Jessel and his crew went on patrols looking for German U-boats and supported commando operations on islands off of occupied Norway. Called Operation Claymore, the British force sank ten boats including one from which valuable Enigma information was recovered.

On April 13, 1941, the Legion was called to the waters off Iceland to rescue survivors of the armed merchant cruiser HMS Rajputana. A total of 283 crew members were picked up by the Legion after the merchant ship was sunk by a U-boat. A month later, the Legion took part in the hunt for the Bismarck, which

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was finally sunk on May 27 after a massive pursuit by some of the largest and most powerful ships in the Royal Navy.

Destroyers were often assigned to escort duty for convoys, and in September 1941, the Legion was in the Mediterranean to patrol for submarines threatening Malta-bound cargo ships. On September 30, the Legion tracked down and sank the Italian submarine Adua. Jessel was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for this action. The Legion was also involved in rescuing survivors from torpedoed ships including the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal. On December 13, 1941, the Legion was heavily involved

JANUARY 8, 2026 | The Jewish Home

Richard Jessel

HMS Legion

in sinking two Italian light cruisers that were transporting aviation fuel to the Axis forces in North Africa. Jessel received the Distinguished Service Order for his leadership in this decisive action.

He earned a bar to his Distinguished Service Cross in early 1942 after fending off large Italian ships that were attacking another Malta-bound convoy.

In March 1942, the Legion’s historic run came to an end when it received heavy damage during an air attack. Jessel ran the ship aground so she could be saved, but when the Legion was towed into Malta’s harbor, the ship was sunk by two bombs by a subsequent air raid.

Jessel sustained a broken leg during the action but only left the doomed ship after the rest of the crew had evacuated.

While being sent back to England, Jessel’s transport grounded during the trip. He was taken prisoner by the Vichy French to Algeria but was released during Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa in late 1942. For the rest of the war, Jessel oversaw officer training before commanding the destroyer HMS Mackay. He spent the last year of the war commanding the destroyer HMS Zealous and evacuated hundreds of Norwegian civilians off a German-occupied island.

The service histories of Myers and Jessel are two of the many stories of Forgotten Heroes from the Allied nations.

It is history that is rarely told, although their bravery, dedication and sacrifice were an integral part of the war effort.

The contributions of Myers and Jessel deserve to be remembered alongside other well-known names in the conflict.

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.

The Jewish Home | JANUARY 8, 2026

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HELP WANTED DELIVERY PERSON NEEDED to deliver this Newspaper every Thursday morning to locations in Brooklyn. Must have Mini van or SUVand availability to work Consistently every week.

Good pay - Please email gabe@fivetownsjewishhome.com or call (917) 299-8082 REGENTS EXPERT Tutoring regents in Algebra and Geometry A Darchei Torah instructor. Guaranteed results Text 347-491-8045 WhatsApp 347-767-1755

UNDER CONTRACT

SOLD OFF MARKET!

HELP WANTED

ARE YOU A DOULA?

YESHIVAT KOL YAAKOV

Or have a passion to be? Come join

In Great Neck, NY, is seeking

our great referral group and get access

general studies teachers for both the

to a vast new clientele through

elementary and middle schools, for

Medicaid.

the upcoming academic year.

JUST CALL 347-668-7886

Mon-Thur afternoons. Competitive salary, warm and supportive

BOOKKEEPER

environment. Send resume to

A Five Towns Real Estate Company is

m.kalati@kolyaakov.org

seeking a full-time Bookkeeper. The right candidate must be proficient

SEEKING ELEMENTARY TEACHERS

with QuickBooks and Excel.

and assistants for General Studies

They must also be self-motivated,

for the ‘25-’26 year. Assistants should

organized, detail oriented, reliable,

have skills to take over for teachers

and able to work independently or

if needed. Far Rockaway area boys’

as a team player. Warm, frum office

school, M-Th, PM hours, strong

environment with excellent salary &

support. Excellent salary.

benefits. Please email resume to

Send resume to

HR@capsprop.com

teachersearch11@gmail.com.

CHESSED OPPORTUNITY

SARAH ‘CHAYA’ ISAACS TOP SELLING BROKER IN THE FIVE TOWNS Licensed Real Estate Salesperson Realty Connect USA (917) 587-5704 Sarahcisaacs@gmail.com

HELP WANTED

D

SOL

Local Purim Costumes gemach is in desperate need of a yearly storage space and a distribution venue for Purim 2026.

If you have an available basement, storefront or other area and are able to support our gemach:

CEDARHURST

Brand new luxury home in the heart of Cedarhurst! 7 beds, 6 baths, dream kitchen 2/ Wolf & Sub-Zero, wine closet, butler’s pantry, spacious yard—must see! IMPROVED PRICE $2.98M

102 Monroe Street A charming center hall colonial in a prime location —

FOR SALE

SOLD OFF MARKET!

LAWRENCE

FAR ROCKAWAY

LAWRENCE

PLEASE TEXT Shoshana at 347 885 0280 or Chava at 917 703 2780 or EMAIL BFRpurimcostumesgemach@gmail.com

Move-in ready colonial in the heart of Lawrence! Featuring 5 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, and a driveway on a private street, set on a 9,585 sq. ft. property— a must-see!

ASKING $2.49M

503 Reeds Ln, An oversized property in one of the area’s most desirable blocks !

Tisku l'Mitzvos

JANUARY 8, 2026 | The Jewish Home

classifieds@fivetownsjewishhome.com • text 443-929-4003

The Jewish Home | JANUARY 8, 2026

132

Classifieds

classifieds@fivetownsjewishhome.com • text 443-929-4003

HELP WANTED

HELP WANTED

HELP WANTED

MISC.

DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANT

HASHAVAS AVEIDA Apple airpods found on Wednesday morning on the way to the Woodmere dock.

To claim, 516-351-8105.

ORTHODOX SYNAGOGUE

MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN

In Atlantic Beach seeks a warm,

Someone special’s life!

engaging youth leader for

Great com/hab opportunity available!

Shabbat & holiday groups.

Excellent Pay!

Competitive pay & perks!

*Valley Stream: *Female to escort

Send resumes/inquiries to

young lady in the community on

youth@jcabshul.org MDS REGIONAL NURSE 5 Towns area Nursing Home

Sundays.

Call: 718 -252-3365 ext:102 renay@specialcarefor.com

management office seeking a

A multi-tasker needed for general office work. The ideal candidate is someone who is detail-oriented, responsible, and can take ownership.

your choice to be careful on lashon

to learn, and expand his/her skill set

hara. Be a part of the 1,000

MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

to work in our office.

Be a Direct Support

Must be an RN. Regional experience

Professional

independently and as part of a team.

F/T & P/T and

Experience with Excel required. Five

with good computer skills required.

Position is Full Time but Part Time can be considered.

flexible positions available Brooklyn, Queens and 5 Towns

Great Shomer Shabbos environment

$18.05-$18.30 per hour

with some remote options as well.

855-OHEL-JOB or

Email: officejob2019@gmail.com

resumes@ohelfamily.org

Text 516-303-3868 with a time slot of

Looking for someone who is eager

Regional/Corporate level MDS Nurse

preferred. 2-3 years MDS experience

SHMIRAS HALASHON

while possessing the ability to work

Towns location. In-office position only, not remote. Please send resume to 5tpart.timecareer@gmail.com

people for klal yisroel!

BEIS HAMEDRASH CONG. Chasdei Uvois Oshpitzin Talmidei chachomim are willing to learn mishnayos, say kaddish and be the shliach tzibbur to daven for the umid on the yartzeit yom hashanah of your parents or close relatives or loved ones To arrange please call Rabbi Miller 917-445-6220

FR- SALTMEADOW TOWNHOMES

CEDARHURST

CEDARHURST

133

2 family luxury townhouses on the beach, private balconies, access to private beach and dock.

5 oversized bedrooms and 4 full bathrooms on an expansive lot of just over 17,000sf Chana (516)449-9692 $2,999,999

Center-hall colonial, 8 bdrms, 7 bths, pool, with 6,400sf of living space, on a 9,700sf lot, Don (347)992-6343,Tamar (917)902-0613 $3.2M

JANUARY 8, 2026 | The Jewish Home

Ayelet (516)993-9561

STARTING AT $1.15M

27 Frost Lane Lawrence, NY 11559 (516) 374-4100 www.ftmr.com

We put the “Pro“ in

Property!

FAR ROCKAWAY

Tamar Miller

Hollywood, Florida (954) 300-3142 MillerRealtySouth.com

FAR ROCKAWAY

Open House 1419 Minton St Sunday Jan 11th 2:00-3:30pm

Newly renovated, legal 2 Family, 5 bedrooms 3 bath townhouse.

Ayelet (516)993-9561 $899K

Commercial office spaces 8 individual office spaces for lease.

Chana (516)449-9692 Starting At $600/M

5 bdr 5.5 bth Elegant custom colonial on nearly ¾ acre with pool and outdoor kitchen Bryna (516)322-4831 $16,500/M

2br/2bth spacious condo with private porch, easy access to the shoreline.

Chava Rina (929)352-3858 $529K

Move right into this beautiful 4br home in heart of N. woodmere on an oversized lot.

Sarah (347)524-9147 $1.199M

4Bdr 3Bth, high-ranch features a grand entrance, soaring ceilings, and an open layout Avigail (516)316-3452 $1.219M

Spacious Colonial home for rent featuring 5 bedrooms and 4 full baths on a 6,060sqft lot Moshe (516)455-5364 $6,000/M

Colonial home for rent featuring 3 bedrooms and 2.5 baths on a 5,000 sq ft lot Bryna (516)322-4831, Don (347)992-6343 $6,500/M

1br 1bth charming first floor co-op. in prestigious building.

Chana (516)449-9692 $359K

One of a kind colonial 7 Bedrooms, 7 full baths and 3 half baths on a 14,318sqft lot.

Avigail (516)316-3452 $5.9M

New construction! 5 bds, 4 bth. with an additional 2 bds, 1.5 bths in the basement.

Avigail (516)316-3452 $3.29M

HOLLYWOOD

HALLANDALE BEACH

DEERFIELD BEACH

Olympus Condo- 1 bdrms, 1 baths, 1,000sf Kayla (347) 729-9863 Chana (516)449-9692 $199K

Multi units: 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1000sf Kayla (347) 729-9863 Starting At $239K

HEWLETT NECK

NORTH WOODMERE

WOODMERE

Don Miller

HEWLETT

FAR ROCKAWAY

ATLANTIC BEACH

LAWRENCE

Contract Pending

6 bdrms, 3.5 baths, 4,200sf, lot size 14,736sf Kayla (347) 729-9863 $1.995M

Beautifully maintained 3-bedroom, 2.5-bath home is the perfect starter home Malka (516)967-1967, Raizie (917) 903-1778 $799K

NORTH WOODMERE

CEDARHURST

NORTH WOODMERE

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The Jewish Home | JANUARY 8, 2026

Life C ach

What’s in a Name?

By Rivki D. Rosenwald Esq., LMFT, CLC, SDS

W

hat do you call your good dishes? China? Do we actually want to keep doing that?!

After all, the virus that basically shut us all down for a good year or two was reputed to have emanated from there.

So, do we really want to call our best serving-ware china?

In its place, maybe we should substitute calling it Miami. After all, that’s a place that revives us. And Miami can be broken out as my-ami, meaning “my good friend” in French. Now that seems like a more appropriate name these days.

I’m just sharing a thought!

And if we take a moment and think more expansively, let’s talk about the name of modern-day Persia. Shouldn’t its name have given people a giant hint about how unwise it was to reside there— or even to deal with the place?

After all, if someone tells you a place is called “I ran,” shouldn’t it spark the realization that you should hightail it out of there and have little to do with it?!

And what about Turkey?

Its namesake is pretty out of control when they run free. This can be verified by residents of Teaneck, NJ, who had them roaming the streets a few years ago—pretty aggressively.

Furthermore, en masse, the only time

we Americans have much to do with turkeys is to behead and devour them. And it should be pretty telling that that’s the way we enjoy them and feel best about them.

Doesn’t that give us a moment of pause about the connection we may want to have with Turkey?!

Alternatively, consider Bath. Bath, which is located in the UK, supposedly

Furthermore, do people feel they can go to Congo? After all, it seems there are regular kidnappings, crimes, and armed conflict there.

Who is naming these places? Do they even think about what it’s conveying?

And what of Rome—good name or bad?

Historically, they roamed the world,

After all, if someone tells you a place is called “I ran,” shouldn’t it spark the realization that you should hightail it out of there and have little to do with it?!

has beautiful surroundings and is well preserved. It’s reputed to wash over its visitors with a sense of purity and calm.

For bath lovers, doesn’t that sound exactly right? Bath seems appropriately named.

And what of Thailand—is that an appropriate name? I hear it’s generally actually casual dress. Who’s bouncing on an elephant with a tie on?!

capturing and taking over many countries and dynasties. They even roamed as far as Israel and caused plenty of havoc there.

You decide!

And now let’s talk of the most appropriately named country: Israel.

It is the one place that, to Jews, is real.

The history is real.

Its longevity is real.

The challenges are real.

The feeling of connection we have—or should have—is real.

It is our Jewish homeland, and we should love it “Eilat.” It accepts us all.

In truth, only “Afula” think they have no connection there. It embraces all of us.

We’d need to be practically “dead,” or otherwise, “sea” it needs us and we need it.

Even if you “Taiwan” over and feel out of it, there is no denying it’s good to have a place that has our back.

So when we think something is out of place,maybe it is!

And when we feel, sometimes emotionally or physically, that we are not in a good place, sometimes it’s a perspective change, and sometimes it may actually be a fact.

But let’s remember that what is always a fact—and IS RAEL—is that we can always be in that good place.

Rivki Rosenwald is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist working with both couples and individuals and is a certified relationship counselor. Rivki is a co-founder and creator of an effective Parent Management of Adolescent Years Program.

She can be contacted at 917-705-2004 or at rivkirosenwald@gmail.com.

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