Five Towns Jewish Home 04.24.25

Elevated Chol Hamoed

Mesivta Ateres Yaakov Joins in V’ha’arev Na Chasunah

Dear Readers,

For most people, getting back to routine after a long hiatus is not easy. And there are a number of routines that we have to get back to. There’s the getting-up-in-the-morning-for-the-bus routine. There’s the eating-something-other-than-potatoes-and Lebens routine. There’s the answering-emails-and-phones-callsand-going-to-meetings routine. There’s the getting-to-bed-on-time routine. And there’s the doing-homework-andlaundry-and-dinner-and-all-the-otherfun-stuff routine.

So it’s a lot that we took a break from and a lot that we need to come back to.

Maybe we need a vacation from our vacation?

The truth is, the best way to get back to routine is to jump right in. That means that it may be hard for the first few days, but if we push past those tough first few days, we’ll be back to our “regularly scheduled programming” in no time.

But what if we don’t want to get back

to what life was like a few weeks ago? What if there are some significant practices we want to take with us as we get back to normal?

That is the best of both worlds: being able to incorporate those new habits into our everyday routines.

Perhaps that is what sefiras ha’omer offers us – the opportunity to come back to our normal schedule and to elevate it and bring a purpose into our lives. It’s not just about hitting the pavement; it’s about adding a slight incline into our days so that we can slowly climb higher.

The trick, I think, is to do things slowly, to be cognizant that we want to elevate our days but to do it in small increments, one step at a time. That way, we’ll be able to look back after weeks of modest advances and be gratified when we see how far we were able to climb.

One small step in the right direction every day will certainly yield one giant leap after several weeks of perseverance.

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.

Dear Editor,

I would like to express compliments on your Pesach edition for its breadth of content concerning the holiday, Chol Hamoed, and inspiring stories concerning geirim, baalei teshuva, and educators.

The proliferation of podcasters and YouTubers sharing stories of inspiring people has transformed many people’s commutes and work into a time of learning and inspiration. Unfortunately, many of these videos have grown in length from a few minutes to more than an hour.

Between work, family, learning, and sleeping, I can’t keep up with their episodes. It’s like watching a show but never being able to see the ending.

Fortunately, your columns sharing stories of inspirational individuals enabled me to learn about their lives in print, reading about them at my own pace during the chag. Print journalism can hold its own against electronic media, not only on Shabbos and Yom Tov, but on any given day when I can hold their stories physically in my hands, and read each story from beginning to end.

Sergey Kadinsky West Hempstead, NY

Dear Editor,

I would like to give a special thank you to Sanitary District #1 Superintendent George Pappas, Chairman James Vilardi, and the board of commissioners for providing the Five Towns community with the double enhanced Pre-Pesach garbage pickup. Thanks to you and all the hard-working employees for this invaluable service that made our holiday preparation much less stressful.

Israel Wasser Trustee, Village of Cedarhurst

Dear Editor,

I was not one of the thousands of people that went away for Pesach. No. I, with the few remainders, stayed home. I must relate an incident that occurred on Thursday night, erev the second days. As my wife needed a few more items to tide us over the last days, I went to a local supermarket, one whose parking lot is a disaster and always crowded. Upon entering the store, which was quite empty, and proceeding to the “Passover” section, I noticed wagons of goods and workers emptying the Passover shelves. Apparently, the store decided to begin putting away their Pesach goods, in anticipation of the post-Pesach shoppers. I was shocked that there were extremely limited items left to purchase although there were still days left to the holiday. I do not operate a supermarket, though I strongly question the wisdom of what was done. Jack Brody

Dear Editor,

Most of us prepare for Pesach mentally for about six months before Pesach. On Motza’ei Simchat Torah, my shul rav would say, “Gut voch. It’s now time to prepare for Pesach.” But generally, once Pesach is over and the Pesach dishes are put away, we don’t think much about Pesach. For about four years, my Pesach lasted about six months, both before and after Pesach. It was physical labor. My grandparents decided to spend their Pesach in the Montell Plaza in Miami Beach. In

on page 12

January, I came to my grandma’s apartment and hauled dishes, pots and pans, flatware and other utensils from various closets. We washed and dried everything. It was a good thing that my grandfather kept about a week’s worth of New York Times, because we used a lot of newspaper to wrap the fine china plates and bowls. We carefully boxed and taped everything and shlepped them to the post office. It took about two months until the boxes arrived in Florida.

My grandparents went to their Florida apartment about 2 weeks before Pesach. I was surprised that there had been minimal damage to the plates. They unpacked and set up everything. Then, just as she did in NYC, she went to several stores in Miami Beach to shop for food. She cooked for about a week, and they had a great Pesach, there. They needed about another two weeks after Pesach to clean up and box everything to be shipped back to NY. It took two months for the boxes to arrive back in NY.

Did Pesach end? No. Welcome to June when the boxes finally came back. Again, I unpacked most of them and cleaned up

a few chips of broken china and glass. We washed and dried everything, despite knowing that they would all get dusty from being in the closet until next January.

My grandparents are long gone. I still have some white enamel pots and some china bowls from them that I use on Pesach. Yes, they have some small chips, but I don’t mind. They remind me of them and, thankfully, I don’t have to deal with any of them for six months.

Daniel Feldman

Dear Editor,

President Trump nominated an Orthodox Jew to an important judge position. It’s probably intentional that an Orthodox Jew was picked. Orthodox Jews voted overwhelmingly for Trump and some respected rabbis publicly endorsed him for president. President Trump is bringing about many of our values, including judicially. May we see more of our values ascend.

Rabbi Eli Riet Lakewood, NJ

Former Pres. of Peru Sentenced

Last week, former Peruvian president Ollanta Humala and his wife, Nadine Heredia, were both sentenced to 15 years of jail time after they were convicted of money laundering and receiving illegal campaign contributions.

Along with their youngest son, Heredia, the 48-year-old former first lady, fled to the Brazilian Embassy, where she sought asylum under Brazil’s 1954 Convention on Diplomatic Asylum with Peru. Humala, on the other hand, was imprisoned immediately after he was sentenced, as per a judge’s order.

Humala, a 62-year-old former army commander, served as president from 2011 to 2016. Authorities charged him and his wife with receiving nearly $3 million in illegal contributions as part of his campaign in 2011. Most of the money, authorities claim, came from Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction conglomerate connected to many bribery cases in Latin America. Officials from Peru also allege that Hugo Chavez’s Venezuelan government funded Humala’s failed 2006 campaign with hundreds of thousands of dollars, another charge for which the former Peruvian president was convicted. He and his wife have maintained that they’re innocent.

Over the past two decades, five other former Peruvian presidents faced imprisonment, while two others, aside from Humala, were jailed. The former presidents were detained in a former police academy on the outskirts of Lima.

Also implicated in Odebrecht-related scandals were former presidents Alejandro Toledo, who served from 2001 to 2006 and received a 20-year prison sentence a year ago for taking approximately $35 million in bribes; Alan Garcia — the

president in the 1980s and 2000s — who took his own life in 2019 just as officials came to his home to arrest him; and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, Humala’s successor, who has been under house arrest for years, though the investigation is still ongoing. Additionally, Alberto Fujimori, an authoritarian president, was imprisoned for over 10 years for human rights abuses and corruption and was freed in 2023 as a result of a controversial pardon from the president. Peru’s first leftist president in a long time, Pedro Castillo, is currently facing charges of rebellion of abuse of authority because he, in 2022, attempted to shut down Congress and put into power an emergency government.

Peru’s government said it did not take issue with Brazil’s decision to take in Heredia as an asylum seeker, with the Peruvian foreign ministry claiming that it provided the former first lady and her son a safe transfer out of the country.

Pope Passes Away

Pope Francis passed away on Monday at the age of 88, just around four weeks after his release from the hospital, where he came close to death while battling respiratory problems. He was the 266th pope, having risen to power in 2013. Francis passed away at 7:35 a.m. local time.

On February 6, the pope’s bronchitis diagnosis and his trouble speaking and breathing forced the Vatican to cancel many of his events. Eight days later, Francis was hospitalized in Rome. He received a diagnosis of double pneumonia four days later.

Then, on the night of February 28, his health worsened. The Vatican said he had experienced several “acute respiratory insufficiency” attacks. His condition was so bad that the doctors thought about stopping treatment and letting the pope pass away peacefully. Thirty-eight days after he was hospitalized, Francis returned to his home at the Casa Santa Marta. Francis was last seen in public on Sunday, which fell out on a Christian holiday. He also met with U.S. Vice President JD Vance on that day. The next day, he passed away.

The Vatican said a public viewing for the pope could take place as early as Wednesday. It released a report that listed the causes of death as a cerebral stroke, which led to a coma and “irreversible cardiocirculatory collapse.”

The Vatican also released Francis’ will: As a champion of the poor, he asked that his tomb be “simple, without particular decoration and with the only inscription: Franciscus.”

After a pope dies, there is a series of rituals and procedures that need to be done in order to choose a successor. Within 15 to 20 days of the pope’s funeral, the dean of the College of Cardinals will summon cardinals to Rome for what is known as a conclave to elect a new pope.

V.P. Vance Visits India

U.S. Vice President JD Vance visited India this week with his family on a fourday state visit. The vice president met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and discussed trade between the two nations, confirming that both sides had finalized the terms of reference for trade negotiation — a vital step towards setting the

road map for a final agreement.

On Tuesday, Vance called for enhanced engagement with India and said that the South Asian country should buy more defense equipment and energy from the U.S. and allow Washington greater access to its market, lending momentum to an expected bilateral trade deal

India and the U.S. hope to seal a bilateral trade agreement this year and have set an ambitious target of more than doubling their bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030. If achieved, the trade deal could significantly enhance economic ties between both countries and potentially strengthen diplomatic ties as well.

“I believe there is much that India and America can accomplish together,” Vance said at an event in the western city of Jaipur, where he, his wife Usha Vance, and their three children were on a sightseeing tour.

Vance’s visit comes on the backdrop of

U.S. President Trump’s partially-paused tariff program, which included India. Earlier this month, Trump announced a 90-day pause in which imports from most countries would face a baseline 10% tax so that there was time to hold talks and possibly structure broader deals.

“I come here with a simple message,” Vance said. The Trump administration “seeks trade partners on the basis of fairness and shared national interest. We want to build relationships with our foreign partners who respect their workers.”

Vance said that he was in India to strengthen ties between both nations and criticized previous governments for looking at New Delhi as a cheap source of labor.

Washington has long sought to develop a deeper partnership with New Delhi, which is seen as a bulwark against China. Modi has established a good working relationship with Trump, and the two leaders are likely to further boost cooperation between their countries.

Modi was also among the first leaders to visit the U.S. and hold talks with Trump that kickstarted a negotiation process to minimize the possible fallout of Trump’s tariffs. The two leaders also said they planned to grow their defense partnership.

India is a close partner of the U.S. and is a member of the Quad, which is made up of the U.S., India, Japan and Australia, and is seen as a counterbalance to China’s expansion in the region. It is also a major defense partner of the U.S., a status only enjoyed by some of the closest allies of Washington.

Vance’s wife, Usha, is the daughter of Indian immigrants.

Journalists Sent to Russian Penal Colony

Four journalists linked to opposition leader Alexey Navalny were sentenced to spend five years and six months in a Russian penal colony last week after they were accused of working for a banned organization run by the Kremlin critic, Russian state media TASS reported.

The reporters – Antonina Favorskaya, Sergei Karelin, Konstantin Gabov and Artem Kriger – had been on trial behind closed doors since October on charges of belonging to an “extremist” group established by Navalny in 2011. The journalists deny the charges.

Prosecutors claimed the four had produced material for the YouTube channel of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), which is prohibited under the country’s “foreign agents law.” Amnesty International has warned that the “repressive” legislation is an “attack on freedom of association” in Russia, where Moscow has increasingly attempted to stifle journalists under censorship laws.

In February, mourners gathered at Navalny’s graveside in the Russian capital to mark the first anniversary of his death in prison. Dozens of people were detained at memorials, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW) and other rights groups.

During his life, Navalny generated some of the largest anti-government demonstrations in recent years and unfurled corruption at Russia’s highest seat of power, under the FBK. Navalny died suddenly at the age of 47 on February 16, 2024, while serving a 19-year sentence on extremism charges he denied. At the time, Russia’s prison service claimed he “felt unwell after a walk.” But Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, and former U.S. President Joe Biden held Russian President Vladimir Putin responsible for his death. Moscow has denied those assertions.

Authorities in Russia have since tried to “erase Navalny’s political legacy” through their “extensive arsenal of repressive tools,” according to HRW –which called the arrests on the first anniversary of his death “just the tip of the iceberg in the Kremlin’s continued crackdown on his supporters.”

Stiff Sentences in Tunisia

In the latest sign of deepening repression in what was once virtually the sole Arab democracy, a court in Tunisia has

handed down heavy sentences to prominent opposition figures convicted on charges of conspiring against state security, the country’s official news agency said on Saturday.

Rights groups and lawyers have called the charges baseless.

Forty people had been charged in the case, including opposition leaders, lawyers, businessmen, rights activists and journalists. The court handed down prison sentences of 13 to 66 years, news agen-

cy TAP said, citing a judicial official. The agency gave no other details.

Tunisia, in North Africa, was the birthplace of the Arab Spring uprisings against authoritarian rule that began in late 2010 and surged across much of the Arab world. But the country has been steadily sliding back into authoritarianism and repression since President Kais Saied moved to institute one-man rule in 2021.

In the decade after the uprising, Tu-

larity on decisions that experts say have only worsened the economic crisis and brought ever-harsher repression.

Journalists, political activists, lawyers and rights groups say that the news media has been largely muzzled and that the once independent judiciary has been forced to carry out Saied’s will. Many Tunisians fear prosecution for criticizing the government. Saied has also taken over a number of important, formerly independent government institutions, such as the one overseeing elections.

The government has also ramped up arrests of political opponents and critics of the government. A Human Rights Watch report this past week said that, since January, more than 50 people were being held, some without charges or trials, on political grounds or for exercising their rights.

“Not since the 2011 revolution have Tunisian authorities unleashed such repression,” Bassam Khawaja, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement that accompanied the report. “President Kais Saied’s government has returned the country to an era of political prisoners, robbing Tunisians of hard-won civil liberties.” (© The New York Times)

Deadly Boat Fire in Congo

Last week, a motorized wooden boat caught fire and capsized in the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At least 148 people died in the tragedy.

nisia managed to establish democratic elections, a liberated news media and freedom of expression. But the economy stagnated, state finances deteriorated, inequalities remained or deepened, and Tunisians grew increasingly divided over the power that political Islamists had accrued in the post-revolution years.

That led many Tunisians to embrace Saied and his promises of change.

Nearly four years after his power grab, however, Saied has squandered his popu-

The boat was carrying as many as 500 passengers, including women and children, when it overturned in the river. Many people are still missing, and authorities say that the death toll may rise.

Boating accidents are common in the Congo, where old, wooden vessels are the main form of transport between villages and are often loaded far beyond capacity.

The boat, called HB Kongolo, caught fire near the town of Mbandaka, having left the port of Matankumu for the Bolomba territory. A woman had been cooking while onboard the vessel, which led to an explosion as a supply of fuel near her caught fire.

20

Several passengers, including women and children, died after jumping into the water without being able to swim.

In 2024, at least 78 people drowned when a boat with 278 passengers capsized in Lake Kivu, eastern Congo. In a separate incident, at least 22 people died after a river boat sank in December in western Congo.

Cable Car Crashes in Naples

Four people died when a cable car carrying tourists in Naples, Italy, crashed to the ground last Thursday after a cable snapped. Two of the victims were British. One of the victims was from Israel: Janan Suliman from Mashhad in Israel, 25. Her brother was injured in the crash. The cable car operator also lost his life in the incident.

The snapped cable brought both the upward and downward-going cable cars to a halt as they traversed Monte Faito in the town of Castellammare di Stabia. The upward cable car eventually crashed, causing the fatalities and injury, while eight tourists and an operator were evacuated from the downward cable car, Naples Prefect Michele de Bari said.

“The traction cable broke. The emergency brake downstream worked, but evidently not the one on the cabin that was entering the station,” said Castellammare Mayor Luigi Vicinanza.

The accident occurred just a week after the cable car, popular for its views of Mount Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples, reopened for the season.

“The cable-car reopened 10 days ago with all the required safety conditions,” said Umberto de Gregorio, head of the cable car company. “What happened today is an unimaginable, unforeseeable tragedy.”

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni expressed her condolences for the victims and their families and said she was in touch with rescuers.

The cable car has been operating since 1952. A similar accident in 1960 also left four dead.

Muslim Brotherhood Plot in Jordan

On Tuesday, Jordan said that it had arrested 16 people linked to the Muslim Brotherhood who had been plotting attacks inside the kingdom. The group had been trained and financed in Lebanon and were preparing to use rockets and drones in their attacks.

Authorities said at least one rocket was ready to be launched as part of an operation that had been under surveillance by security forces since 2021.

A security source said the suspects were connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, a Hamas ally and Jordan’s largest opposition group, while the head of the cell who trained some of its members was based in Lebanon.

Hamas and the Brotherhood have been accused of fomenting antigovernment street protests in Jordan amid the war in Gaza. There are many Palestinians who live in Jordan.

In a statement released on social media, Jordan’s General Intelligence Department said the kingdom’s security forces found a rocket manufacturing facility alongside a drone factory, both of which were part of “the plot aimed at harming national security, sowing chaos and causing material destruction inside the kingdom.”

Jordan’s government also published a video of confessions by the suspects, who had been referred to the state security court for trial.

Jordanian government spokesman Mohammad Momani said the country’s security forces found rockets in a secret hideout on the outskirts of Amman that were being manufactured with a range of 1.8-3 miles for use against targets inside the kingdom. Dozens of rockets were found.

Jordan expelled the Hamas terror group in 1999. Still, there are isolated incidents in which terror groups target sites in the Hashemite kingdom.

Last May, Jordanian officials said the country had thwarted an arms transfer from Hamas benefactor Iran, via Syria, to

the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan.

Israel has also thwarted several arms-smuggling plots from Jordan, announcing in February that security forces had detained nine Israeli citizens and one West Bank Palestinian on suspicion of running a smuggling route. Iranian officials also told The New York Times last year that Iran employs Bedouins to smuggle arms from Jordan to Palestinian terror groups in the West Bank.

Venice Entrance Fee

Early Venetians battled the waves of seawater around them by building sea walls and adapting their lagoon to fit their needs.

Now Venetians are battling waves of what officials call “eat and flee” tourists, who throng to the city’s landmarks with packed lunches, dump their garbage, and leave without spending much money in Venice.

Day-trippers will have to start paying an entrance fee to visit the city starting Friday, a controversial levy meant to dissuade people from going during peak periods.

This year, city officials have nearly doubled the number of days in which the fee will be enforced, up to 54 days. (It was enforced for 30 days last year.) Visitors who wait until the last minute to get their entry permits will pay 10 euros (about $11) instead of 5.

The entrance fee was introduced last year with the aim of reducing what city officials call “mordi e fuggi” tourism, or “eat and flee,” referring to visitors who crowd places like the Rialto Bridge and St. Mark’s Square for brief visits that do not benefit the local economy much, if at all.

The fee has been a good tool to “explain to the world that Venice is unique and fragile and that tourism to Venice must be more respectful,” said Simone Venturini, Venice’s municipal councilor in charge of tourism.

Overtourism has for years threatened Venice’s fragile ecosystem and historic architecture, according to experts. The city recently banned cruise ships from its

lagoon and has taken other measures to counteract the crowding.

But it has also fallen under the scrutiny of the United Nations’ culture agency, UNESCO, whose experts fear that not enough is being done to protect the fragile city.

Critics say that if the fee’s goal was to stop people from coming, it hasn’t worked.

An analysis of the data from last year’s trial, published by the Venice city govern-

ment, found “no significant fluctuations between the days on which the access fee was provided and those on which it was not. Paradoxically, higher attendance was recorded on days when the trial was active.”

“This shows what was obvious from the beginning: You cannot govern a complex city like Venice by turning the city into a theme park with an entrance fee,” said Monica Sambo, an opposition member of Venice City Council. (© The New York Times)

land has no additional power generation capability to fall back on.

Gov. Jenniffer González said officials are waiting for an explanation from Luma Energy, a private company that oversees transmission and distribution of power in Puerto Rico, about what caused the disruptive outage.

“There have been multiple incidents,” she said when asked whether the blackout was reason enough to cancel Luma’s contract, something she pledged to do while campaigning for governor. “The operator sold itself as an expert.... That perception of expertise has proven to be false.”

Luma has five days to explain why a transmission line failed and to provide details about whether it complied with required flyovers of transmission lines to ensure they remain free of tree branches and other obstructions.

A preliminary report from Luma released late Friday found that a transmission line apparently failed because of overgrown vegetation.

“The fact that this happened indicates either that the patrol didn’t take place or that the line inspector didn’t detect it. That tree didn’t grow there overnight,” said Josué Colón, Puerto Rico’s so-called energy czar and former executive director of the island’s Electric Power Authority.

González said that the Trump administration has been in communication with her since the outage occurred, adding that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency authorized the extended use of industrial generators.

After a blackout on New Year’s Eve, the one on April 16 was the second such massive outage to hit Puerto Rico in less than four months.

Blackout Blanketed

Puerto Rico

An island-wide blackout hit Puerto Rico last week and affected 1.4 million people, leaving more than 400,000 others without water.

On Monday, Puerto Rico’s governor urged people to moderate their energy consumption as she warned that the is-

Puerto Rico has struggled with chronic outages since September 2017, when Hurricane Maria hit the island as a powerful Category 4 storm, razing a power grid that crews are still struggling to rebuild. The grid already had been deteriorating following decades of a lack of maintenance and investment under the state’s Electric Power Authority, which is struggling to restructure more than $9 billion in debt.

Huckabee is U.S. Amb. to Israel

Last week, the U.S. Senate confirmed Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate, as the United States’ ambassador to Israel. A week after his confirmation, Huckabee, a conservative Baptist minister, visited Jerusalem and went to the Western Wall, wearing a yarmulke. He was joined by Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, the Western Wall’s chaplain.

On his trip to Israel, Huckabee brought along a note written by President Donald Trump that the president requested be put in the Western Wall. On the note, Trump wrote, “For Peace in Israel. D.T.,” referencing his initials.

“It was such an honor, an incredible privilege, to place on behalf of the president of the United States, President Donald J. Trump, a prayer that he wrote in his own hand and initialed,” Huckabee said. “I can think of nothing I’d rather do than represent a prayer from the President of the United States on behalf of the American people to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”

Huckabee also promised to pray for

the release of the 59 hostages in Gaza.

“We will bring them home, and that is the prayer of the president as well,” Huckabee said.

Huckabee presented his letter of credence to President Isaac Herzog on Monday.

Comparing Huckabee to the biblical patriarch Abraham, Herzog said his appointment as envoy “is a shining reflection of the president’s love, friendship and support for the State of Israel.”

Huckabee said his appointment by Trump was “a calling from G-d himself.”

“That mission is to stand with the people of Israel for peace and prosperity,” said Huckabee, adding that support for Israel is a “divine position.”

Israelis Banned from the Maldives

In “resolute solidarity” with the Palestinians, the Maldives announced last week that it would ban Israelis from entering the country. The country’s parliament approved the ban, and soon thereafter, it was ratified by President Mohamed Muizzu, who was partly pressured to do so by opposition leaders and government allies.

“The ratification reflects the government’s firm stance in response to the continuing atrocities and ongoing acts of genocide committed by Israel against the Palestinian people,” said the office of Muizzu.

The ban is in response to the war in Gaza, which began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel, killed 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 others.

The Maldives is a small Islamic country and a luxury tourist site. Only 0.6% of tourists who went to the Maldives last year were Israeli. Last year, the foreign ministry of Israel warned citizens against traveling to the Maldives, which, at the time, was at the beginning of the process of banning Israelis from entering. In December 2023, Israel also warned that the Maldives had become very much anti-Israel.

Israel and the Maldives haven’t had diplomatic ties since 1974. Despite that, Israelis have until now been permitted to visit the Maldives.

French Leftist

Lawmakers Barred From Israel

Two days before a group of 27 French lawmakers and officials were set to visit Israel, the Jewish state canceled their entry visas, citing the lawmakers’ anti-Israel beliefs.

The 17 lawmakers barred from entering were part of the Ecologist and Communist parties including Ecologist Party deputies Francois Ruffin, Alexis Corbiere, and Julie Ozenne; and Communist Party deputy Soumya Bourouaha and senator Marianne Margate. The others were local left-wing French lawmakers, including mayors.

“For the first time, two days before our departure, the Israeli authorities canceled our entry visas that had been approved one month ago,” the lawmakers said. “We want to understand what led to this sudden decision, which resembles collective punishment.”

The group called on French President Emmanuel Macron to get involved. The lawmakers, who support creating a Palestinian state, have said Israel’s move constitutes a “major rupture in diplomatic ties.”

Israel has banned other anti-Israel politicians from entering, including British parliament members Yuan Yang and

Abtisam Mohamed, whom Israeli authorities stopped at Ben Gurion Airport and deported.

Israel’s relationship with France has been deteriorating since Macron suggested France may soon recognize a Palestinian state.

Sentencing in Flash Flood Deaths

This week, two men were sentenced to seven years in prison for their roles in the 2018 Tzafit riverbed flash flood tragedy in which 10 teens were killed.

Yuval Kahan, the former principal of the Bnei Zion premilitary academy, and Aviv Bardichev, a former teacher at the institution, were also each ordered to pay NIS 210,000 ($57,000) in compensation.

The two were convicted of negligent manslaughter last year. They were held responsible for the deaths of 10 academy and high school students who were in a group that was hit by a flash flood while hiking in the Tzafit riverbed in the Dead Sea region.

The pair was accused of disregarding multiple inclement weather warnings ahead of the trip, insisting on going ahead with the plan and scorning safety concerns. The court said that they should have changed the route of the trip due to the poor weather.

The court noted Kahan’s negligence and said that “despite his senior managerial position and the unusual and extreme situation in which the group was traveling, he was not interested and did not know what exactly the group was doing, and when he did [finally] understand what it was doing, he did not stop it.” Kahan was not with the group at the time of the disaster.

The court said that Bardichev did not give adequate consideration to the warnings he had received “and entered the stream with a group of young people who trusted him, despite those warnings and the prevailing weather” at the time of the disaster.

“The court emphasized the high level of harm to the sanctity of life and other values, including the harm to the trust between parents and educational staff,”

in the wake of the disaster.

The 10 victims of the disaster which occurred on April 27, 2018 were: Romi Cohen, Ilan Bar Shalom, Shani Shamir, Adi Raanan, Agam Levy, Yael Sadan, Maayan Barhum, Tzur Alfi, Gali Balali, and Ella Or.

In November, parents of the victims expressed dismay over the Beersheba District Court ruling that cleared Kahan and Bardichev of the more serious offense of negligent homicide that they were originally charged with, instead convicting them of reckless manslaughter.

Shark Attack in Hadera

On Monday, a man was attacked by a shark off the coast of Hadera. By Tuesday, authorities found the body of the 40-yearold father of four from Petach Tikvah.

Police, the Nature and Parks Authority, the Fire and Rescue service, the army, medics, and volunteers were conducting the search of the area for the missing man.

The incident took place in an area of the beach where swimming is not allowed. Bystanders noticed the attack and called for emergency services.

This week’s attack is only the third recorded shark attack in Israel, according to Yigael Ben-Ari, head of the Parks and Nature Authority’s marine ranger force. One person was killed in an attack in the 1940s.

The area near the attack has attracted dozens of sharks for many years between the months of October and May. Warm water released by a nearby power plant flows into the sea, which the sharks enjoy. Swimming is prohibited in the area, but swimmers enter the water anyway.

Videos of people swimming and wading in the water as sharks swim near them have been surfacing.

“What a huge shark!” one man says in a video. “Whoa! He’s coming toward us!”

“Don’t move!” he implores a boy standing nearby, who replies, “I’m leaving.”

The man then asks, “What, are you afraid of the sharks?”

A friend of the person who went miss-

ing said that he warned him not to enter the water. “And then, I received the bitter news,” he said.

“We’ve known each other for more than 20 years and hang out together. In another two months, my son is getting married, and I told him, ‘You’ll be the first person I invite. You are my brother.’ He was supposed to travel to Thailand, and I told him to wait, and we’ll go together after the wedding.”

Dusky and sandbar sharks, which frequent the area during the period between November and May, are not known to attack humans.

Menendez’s Wife Convicted

Former Senator Bob Menendez’s wife, Nadine Menendez, was found guilty this week in New York for her role in a yearslong bribery scheme that included stacks of cash, gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz.

Nadine, 58, was found guilty on all 15 counts, including bribery and obstruction of justice, for aiding her husband, Senator Menendez, who received lavish gifts in exchange for political favors.

Nadine had been indicted with her husband in September 2023. Her sentencing is set for June 12.

Bob Menendez was convicted in July 2024 and sentenced to 11 years in prison.

In a statement, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York said the couple were “partners in crime” who participated in “corrupt official acts.”

“Today’s verdict sends the clear message that the power of government officials may not be put up for sale,” the statement said.

During the trial, prosecutors argued that Menendez was an indispensable part of her husband’s bribery scheme, telling the jury it was she who often accepted the cash and other gifts on behalf of the former senator.

Her husband, at the time, was the top-ranking Democrat on the powerful

Senate Foreign Relations Committee for more than five years, a position that gave him significant influence over U.S. foreign policy.

“She was keeping him in the loop every step of the way,” Paul M Monteleoni, a prosecutor, said in a closing argument.

Menendez’s lawyers argued that the government failed to prove a link between the gold and stacks of cash found in the couple’s home to any “official act” taken by her husband. The FBI had searched the Menendez home in New Jersey in 2022 and found more than $100,000 worth of gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in envelopes or hidden in clothes.

Fred Daibes, a New Jersey property developer, and Wael Hana, the Egyptian-born operator of a halal certification company, were also charged and convicted for their roles in the bribery scheme.

Put Some Pep in Your Step

We all know that walking is good for our health. But now, research suggests that walking briskly may be better for you than strolling down the street.

The study, published this week in the journal Heart, found that average or brisk walking paces were associated with 35% and 43% lower risks of all heart rhythm abnormalities studied, respectively, compared with a slow pace.

Those abnormalities are the arrhythmias: atrial fibrillation, bradyarrhythmias and ventricular arrhythmias. Atrial fibrillation, or A-fib, is the most common arrhythmia, characterized by an irregular and rapid heartbeat beginning in the upper chambers, or atria, of the heart. Bradyarrhythmias are abnormally slow heart rates of typically below 60 beats per minute, compared with the normal range of 60 to 100 beats per minute. Ventricular arrhythmias occur when the lower chambers of the heart, or ventricles, beat too fast.

“The great thing about walking is that it is accessible to everyone,” noted senior study author Dr. Jill Pell, the Henry Mechan Professor of Public Health at the

University of Glasgow in Scotland. “You don’t need to spend money going to a gym or buying equipment. You can just walk out of your front door and keep going.”

Nearly 60 million people worldwide have atrial fibrillation, according to a 2024 study. Estimates of people with other arrhythmias are less conclusive, but in general, people with arrhythmias are at higher risk of having heart attacks or strokes and dying early, Pell said.

“There are medicines and procedures that can be offered to these people but it would be preferable to prevent heart rhythm abnormalities from occurring in the first place,” Pell added.

The authors studied health and activity data from adults who had been recruited between 2006 and 2010 for the UK Biobank study, which followed the health outcomes of more than 500,000 people between the ages 40 and 69 in the United Kingdom. Participants answered questionnaires that asked whether their walking pace was slow (less than 3 miles or 4.8 kilometers per hour), average (3 to 4 miles or 4.8 to 6.4 kilometers per hour) or brisk (more than 4 miles or 6.4 kilometers per hour).

During a follow-up period of 13 years on average, 9% of participants developed arrhythmias.

“The data from the watches showed that walking at an average pace (3-4 miles per hour) for only 5-15 minutes per day was sufficient to reduce your risk,” Pell said.

The associations were strongest among people under 60, people without obesity, those with high blood pressure or two or more preexisting conditions, and women, the authors found.

“This is an interesting finding because, although women are less likely to get atrial fibrillation than men, when they do get it they are at a higher risk of going on to get heart attacks and strokes than men with atrial fibrillation,” Pell said.

Capital One to Buy Discover

company. Regulators are allowing Capital One, the banking company, to acquire Discover as long as certain pending enforcement actions against the credit card company are resolved.

If successful, the merger would greatly help Capital One, which would then be worth over $650 billion in assets.

Capital One stated that it believes the deal’s outcome will be determined in May. The Federal Reserve stated that the merger can happen if Capital One goes along with a consent order with Discover by the Fed and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, including hefty fines.

“Discover has previewed these orders publicly for several quarters, and they are fully reserved for the fines and restitution,” Capital One stated, adding that Discover “has reached these agreements to address the remaining government inquiries.”

Discover has faced a few major challenges. The company, in 2023, admitted to having incorrectly classified credit card accounts since 2007, placing them into the highest pricing tier.

What’s in your wallet?

Arson Attack Against PA Gov. Shapiro

On the first night of Passover, following the meal held at Pennsylvania Gov.

Josh Shapiro’s home, the governor’s house was burned down in an arson attack, forcing him and his sleeping family to evacuate. On Friday, ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos interviewed the Jewish governor while taking a tour of the destroyed house.

The perpetrator scaled a fence, carrying with him “a bag that contained some Molotov cocktails and had a metal type of hammer,” Shapiro explained. The individual then hid in the bushes near the fence. When he mistakenly activated security sensors, a state trooper arrived. However, since it was very late, the trooper couldn’t find the intruder. Then, the intruder broke one of Shapiro’s windows and hurled a Molotov cocktail into the house, thus setting off “a fire and explosion,” Shapiro shared.

“Just hours before, Lori and I were seated probably right about here, at a long table, conducting our Passover Seder. Three of our four kids were here; the other was in college,” he told Stephanopoulos. “I’m getting emotional just thinking about it — we had our family, we had guests from the community from across Pennsylvania. It was just a really beautiful night.”

Shapiro, his family, and guests continued the Passover meal until around midnight. An hour later, the family went to bed, and at around 2 a.m., the arson attack took place.

Although the suspect said he attacked Shapiro’s home because of the governor’s pro-Israel views, Shapiro has yet to declare the attack a hate crime or an act of domestic terror. Instead, he maintains that it isn’t his, but rather the prosecutors’, duty to classify the crime.

Shapiro said that Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel contacted him “immediately” after the attack.

Stephanopoulos also asked Shapiro what we must do to “combat this kind of hate” and antisemitism.

“By speaking and acting with moral clarity. Let me explain,” said Shapiro. “Immediately following the assassination attempt on the former president – now-president – in Butler, Pennsylvania, I condemned that in the strongest of terms. I spoke to the victims, I went to Butler. When the assassin who killed the U.S. healthcare CEO was caught in Altoona, Pennsylvania, I immediately went there and condemned that kind of violence in clear terms.”

Luigi Mangione Indicted

On December 4, 2024, Luigi Mangione allegedly shot and killed Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, in Midtown Manhattan right outside the hotel Thompson had just exited. Five days after the murder, Mangione was found and detained in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Now, a federal grand jury in New York has indicted Mangione on four counts: two stalking offenses, one firearms offense, and one count of murder through the use of a firearm. If he’s convicted, he could potentially be sentenced to death. Attorney General Pam Bondi has said she would seek the death penalty for Mangione in order to “carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again.”

Last week, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a defense attorney, filed a motion shortly before Mangione was indicted, accusing prosecutors of acting in an inappropriate way that “prejudiced the grand jury process.” She requested that the judge exclude Mangione from the possibility of capital punishment, and she ordered the government to hand in documents and notes relevant to the attorney general’s directive. Mangione’s defense has argued that “the United States government intends to kill Mr. Mangione as a political stunt.”

Additionally, states have also charged Mangione, although he has pleaded not guilty.

Mangione had been found in a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, days

after he murdered Thompson. A customer had alerted an employee who called police. Officers questioned Mangione, who they described as acting suspiciously.

Mangione was carrying multiple fraudulent IDs and a U.S. passport along with several weapons. One of the IDs matched the fake New Jersey ID that the shooting suspect used to check into a Manhattan hostel before the shooting.

A three-page handwritten document that “speaks to both his motivation and mindset” was also recovered from Mangione when he was apprehended by police. Mangione had written that the U.S. had “most expensive healthcare system in the world” but lamented that the country “ranks #42 in life expectancy,” according to NYPD sources.

Mangione also referred to corporations as “mafiosa [that] have gotten too powerful,” and said such companies abuse the United States “for immense profit.” He wrote that others had shone a light on corporations’ “corruption and greed” in the past and claimed that he was “the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”

He was not a customer of UnitedHealthcare.

Demands for Harvard Sent As a “Mistake”?

On Friday, April 11, the Trump administration sent Harvard University a letter, demanding that the school change its curriculum, hiring, and admissions practices. The letter shocked Harvard since it came just when it seemed like the White House and the university were reaching an agreement on tackling rampant campus antisemitism. Thus, that following Monday, Harvard vowed publicly to resist President Donald Trump, escalating the university’s fight with the president. Trump went on to freeze federal funding and threaten the university’s tax-exempt status. Now, it seems that the letter was sent in error. According to reports, Josh Gruenbaum, a lawyer for the Trump administration and top official at the General Services Administration, contacted

30 Harvard soon after the university rejected Trump’s demands. Gruenbaum told Harvard’s lawyers that he and Thomas Wheeler, the Department of Education’s acting general counsel, hadn’t authorized the email. Gruenbaum later suggested that the email was, in fact, meant to be sent but at a later date.

Harvard rejected the notion that it should have contacted the White House’s lawyers before responding publicly to the letter.

The letter “was signed by three federal officials, placed on official letterhead, was sent from the email inbox of a senior federal official and was sent on April 11 as promised,” the university stated. “Recipients of such correspondence from the U.S. government — even when it contains sweeping demands that are astonishing in their overreach — do not question its authenticity or seriousness.”

“It remains unclear to us exactly what, among the government’s recent words and deeds, were mistakes or what the government actually meant to do and say. But even if the letter was a mistake, the actions the government took this week have real-life consequences.”

Though the letter was not authorized to be sent on Friday, the Trump administration has chosen not to withdraw it. Instead, the fight between Harvard

and Trump has only escalated, as the president has begun threatening the Ivy League college for publicly resisting his requests.

Dems Rally for Kilmar Garcia

Four House Democrats traveled to El Salvador on Monday to press for the release of a Maryland resident who was mistakenly deported there last month and to demand updates on him and other migrants who are imprisoned there.

The visit was the latest bid by Democrats in Congress to amplify the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man whom Trump administration officials have admitted to erroneously sending back to his home country, and hundreds of other immigrants the administration has hastily deported.

Reps. Robert Garcia of California, Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida, Yassamin Ansari of Arizona and Maxine E. Dexter of Oregon met with William H. Duncan, the U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, at the embassy in San Salvador on Monday morning. They urged the ambassador to raise the issue with Salvadoran officials and to press for transparency about Abrego Garcia’s detention.

The lawmakers said they had not been permitted by Salvadoran officials to meet with Abrego Garcia.

After their meeting, a U.S. Embassy official said the lawmakers’ concerns had been relayed to the Salvadoran government.

The official said it was the first time the embassy had raised questions to President Nayib Bukele’s administration about the treatment of more than 250 Venezuelan migrants now being held in Salvadoran custody.

At a news conference after the meeting, the Democrats denounced the Trump administration’s failure to comply with court orders, including a Supreme Court decision instructing the administration to take steps to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States.

“We left that meeting with absolutely zero indication that this administration is going to facilitate, or wants to facilitate, the return of Abrego Garcia back to the United States so he can go through due process,” Frost told reporters.

The lawmakers’ visit follows that of Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who traveled to El Salvador last week. After two days of resistance from Bukele’s government, Salvadoran officials allowed Van Hollen to meet with Abrego Garcia faceto-face, delivering him unexpectedly to the senator’s hotel for a meeting that appeared staged to emphasize how well he was being treated. (© The New York Times)

Walgreens Settles for $350M

Walgreens has agreed to pay up to $350 million in a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, who accused the pharmacy of illegally filling millions of prescriptions in the last decade for opioids and other controlled substances.

The nationwide drugstore chain must pay the government at least $300 million and will owe another $50 million if the company is sold, merged or transferred before 2032, according to the settlement reached last Friday.

According to the complaint filed in January in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Wal-

greens knowingly filled millions of illegal prescriptions for controlled substances between August 2012 and March 2023. These include prescriptions for excessive opioids and prescriptions filled significantly early.

“We strongly disagree with the government’s legal theory and admit no liability,” Walgreens spokesperson Fraser Engerman said in a statement. “This resolution allows us to close all opioid related litigation with federal, state, and local governments and provides us with favorable terms from a cashflow perspective while we focus on our turnaround strategy.”

The complaint says Walgreens pharmacists filled these prescriptions despite clear red flags that the prescriptions were highly likely to be invalid, and the company pressured its pharmacists to fill them quickly. The government alleges Walgreen’s compliance officials ignored “substantial evidence” that its stores were filling unlawful prescriptions and withheld important information on opioid prescribers from its pharmacists.

Walgreens then allegedly sought payment for many of the invalid prescriptions through Medicare and other federal healthcare programs in violation of the False Claims Act, according to the government.

The U.S. Justice Department has moved to dismiss its complaint in light of Friday’s settlement.

“Pharmacies have a legal responsibility to prescribe controlled substances in a safe and professional manner, not dispense dangerous drugs just for profit,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi in a statement. “This Department of Justice is committed to ending the opioid crisis and holding bad actors accountable for their failure to protect patients from addiction.”

The settlement resolves four cases brought by former Walgreens employee whistleblowers. In 2022, CVS and Walgreens agreed to pay more than $10 billion in a multi-state settlement of lawsuits brought against them over the toll of the opioid crisis.

Over the past eight years, drugmakers, wholesalers and pharmacies have agreed to more than $50 billion worth of settlements with governments — with most of the money required to be used to fight the opioid crisis.

RFK to Phase Out Food Dyes

This week, U.S. Health and Human Services announced that it will phase out the remaining eight artificial food dyes from America’s food supply within two years.

This initiative will target artificial dyes that are used in cereal, ice cream, snacks, yogurts and more.

The Biden administration in January started the process to ban one artificial dye, Red No. 3, which will need to be removed from food by January 2027 and from medications by 2028 because it was shown to cause cancer in rats.

Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will now seek to remove the eight other petroleum-based dyes approved by the FDA. He is expected to announce the approval of additional natural dyes.

Synthetic food dyes are found in a wide range of products that Americans consume including candy, cereal, and medication. Studies suggest their vibrant color makes food more appealing and could even increase appetite. But the health effects of the dyes are concerning, and many other countries have either banned the additives outright or require food packaging warning labels about the health risks.

Certain states have banned some dyes. West Virginia and California have passed laws to ban a handful of food dyes from school lunches, with plans to extend the ban to a broader, statewide level. In West Virginia, the ban on artificial dyes in school lunch will go into effect in August, making it the first state in the country to implement such restraints. In California, it will take effect in 2028.

The Soyuz capsule carrying Pettit, who is American, and two Russian cosmonauts landed on Sunday morning, hours after undocking from the International Space Station.

Pettit and his crew mates, Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, spent 220 days in space, orbiting the Earth 3,520 times and completing a journey of 93.3 million miles over the course of their mission.

It was Pettit’s fourth space flight, with the astronaut now having logged more than 18 months in orbit throughout his 29-year career.

Despite turning 70 as the mission ended, Pettit is not the oldest person to fly in orbit. In 1998, John Glenn flew on a NASA mission at the age of 77.

After the group landed, NASA said that Pettit was “doing well and in the range of what is expected for him following return to Earth.”

He is expected to travel to the Kazakh city of Karaganda and spend some time readjusting to gravity before boarding a NASA plane to the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Texas. His Russian crewmates will end up in Russia’s space training base near Moscow.

Pettit spent his time on the ISS researching water sanitization technology, 3D printing capabilities, plant growth in various conditions and fire behavior in microgravity.

No wonder he’s so excited to have reached this milestone birthday.

Book Brigade

moved 350 feet. So Tuplin did what every frugal storeowner would love to do: she put out a call for volunteers to help move the heavy tomes.

More than 300 people – and a dog – convened and formed the “book brigade,” essentially a human chain in which books were passed one at a time in alphabetical order.

“People really consider independent bookstores theirs,” Tuplin explained. “It’s really a part of the community, and they have ownership.”

It took less than two hours for all the books to find their new home.

Loyal readers from all ages came to help.

“There was a 91-year-old woman. There was a good customer who has issues with his heart. There was somebody with their 6-year-old child. And we figured if we just did it book by book, everybody could be involved,” Tuplin said.

“To see the community come out and, you know, put all those words that they say, usually say, into action, it truly just meant the world,” Tuplin said. “It was overwhelming.”

Sounds like they did it by the book.

Robot Race

A half-marathon held in Beijing, China, on Saturday included runners who barely broke a sweat.

Thousands of “humanoid” robots ran alongside actual humans in the race.

The bipedal robots of various makes and sizes navigated the 13.1-mile course supported by teams of human navigators, operators, and engineers, in what event organizers say was a first. A divider separated the parallel courses used by the robots and people.

Tuvalu Gets an ATM

The tiny Pacific island nation of Tuvalu can finally cash out. The country unveiled its first-ever ATM in a move hailed as momentous by the prime minister.

The installment of the cash machines is the first time that the island’s 11,000 inhabitants have had access to electronic banking.

Five machines and 30 sale terminals have been installed on Funafuti, the country’s main island, including at its airport.

Feleti Teo, the prime minister, said the move “not only marks a momentous occasion but it is also historic as the bank moves into a totally new era.”

“We’ve been in an analog space all along, these were dreams for us,” Teo said according to the Guardian.

“These machines don’t come cheap. But with government support and sheer determination, we were able to roll out this service for our people.”

The ceremony for the ATMs took place at the headquarters of the National Bank of Tuvalu in the village of Vaiaku on Funafuti. It was also attended by traditional leaders, members of parliament and business officials. A large cake was on display for the celebration.

Tuvalu is a group of nine small islands in the South Pacific which won independence from the United Kingdom in 1978.

Before this week, people in Tuvalu had to line up at the bank to get money.

In addition to getting their cash from the machines, stores will also be able to process electronic payments for the first time.

Cash and carry.

Oldest Astronaut

When Don Pettit landed in Kazakhstan from a whirlwind seven-month mission in space, he landed with a bang. NASA’s oldest serving astronaut came back to Earth on his 70th birthday.

Why hire a moving company when you have customers who will do it for you?

Michelle Tuplin, the owner of Serendipity Books in Chelsea, Michigan, was moving her store to a larger facility down the block. There were 9,100 pieces of inventory – books – that needed to be

The people followed conventional rules for the half-marathon. The robots had tailored guidelines, including battery swap pit stops. Awards were given out to the robots for best endurance, best gait design and most innovative form.

One robot, the Sky Project Ultra robot, also known as Tien Kung Ultra, from the Tien Kung Team, claimed half-marathon victory among the non-humans, crossing the finish line in 2 hours, 40 minutes and 42 seconds.

Racing against the clock…

Around the Community

An Uplifting Chol Hamoed

Many boys, with their fathers, grandfathers, and chavrusas, filled the packed Beis Medrash at Khal Nesiv Hatorah on chol hamoed

Mercaz Academy at CIJE VEX Robotics Tournament

Mercaz Academy sixth graders recently returned to compete in the CIJE VEX Robotics Tournament, facing off against 140 teams from middle schools all over the United States, split into two divisions.

With robots carefully boxed for transport, Mercaz students were excited to arrive at The Armory in Washington Heights, the site of the tournament. The competition floor buzzed with activity as the teams moved from table to table for one-minute collaborations with randomly assigned teams to try to score the most points with their robots.

Lynda Last, Director of Technology

V’ha’arev

and coach of the Mercaz teams, particularly appreciated the collaborative spirit of the competition. She highlighted a moment that could have turned tragic when a Mercaz team’s robot was accidentally disabled after being stepped on just before the last match. A student from a Maryland middle school immediately rushed to offer assistance and her own tools to repair it, and with everyone pitching in, the robot was back in fighting shape in time for the match.

The exciting day was made even more special when the seven competitors were generously treated to an all-inclusive lunch from Lake Como Pizza in Wash-

ington Heights, courtesy of the grandparents of a team member.

Fielding the only all-sixth-grade teams Mercaz encountered in a field dominated by seventh and eighth graders, the young competitors held their own impressively. The Mercaz girls team placed 35th out of 70 in their division, while the boys team secured 41st place out of 70 in theirs—both finishing squarely in the middle of their much older competition.

Though disappointed not to win, the Mercaz students thoroughly enjoyed the experience and are looking forward to returning as seasoned competitors when they enter middle school next year.

Na Chasunah: A Celebration of Mastery and Joy in Torah

Mesivta Ateres Yaakov’s 12th grade has become a shining example of the renowned V’ha’arev Na Bekiyus Program. Founded by Rabbi Dovid Newman, this transformative initiative inspires talmidim to engage in intensive review—chazarah—until they truly “own” a masechta. Through innovative methods and unwavering encouragement, V’ha’arev Na cultivates deep, lasting connections to Torah learning.

At MAY, the program has flourished under the passionate guidance of senior rabbeim Rabbi Tsvi Greenfield and Rabbi Yonason Sprung. “Rabbi Greenfield

and Rabbi Sprung give over lev v’nefesh for our talmidim, and the bochurim feel that,” shared Rabbi Yossi Bennett, Menahel of MAY. Rabbi Sprung echoed this dedication: “My goal is for each talmid to develop skills in lomdus and a geshmak for learning in our iyun shiur, and to experience a different yet equally powerful geshmak in mastering a masechta during our bekiyus shiur.”

This year-long journey of diligence and passion culminated in an extraordinary celebration: the V’ha’arev Na Chasunah, held on April 3, 2025, in Monsey. The event brought together over 1,800 talmidim from yeshivas across the tri-state

area—boys from all walks of life—united in their love for Torah. Adding to the significance of the night was the presence of HaRav Reuven Feinstein, shlit”a, whose divrei bracha brought a heightened sense of kavod haTorah and inspiration to all in attendance. The evening was filled with spirited dancing, uplifting music, and a joyous three-course seudah, embodying the achdus and simcha that come from learning Torah b’yegeah and retzifus.

More than 40 MAY talmidim attended the event, proudly representing their yeshiva. Among them was 12th grader Eli Zern, a member of Rabbi Sprung’s shiur, who was selected from among all the se-

nior bochurim to open the evening with a heartfelt d’var Torah. He spoke powerfully about what it means to truly “own” a masechta—how it transforms not just one’s learning, but every aspect of one’s life, infusing daily actions with purpose and meaning.

The entire night was a testament to the beauty of Torah and the power of perseverance. The talmidim of MAY—and all who attended—left inspired, energized, and ready to take on the next masechta May this unforgettable event serve as a springboard for continued growth, as these young men strive to internalize and illuminate Torah for years to come.

Mechiras chametz with Reb Shmuel Weinberg of K’hal Lev Avos in North Woodmere

Dr. Paul and Drora Brody, of Great Neck, and their family were among a chosen handful of dignitaries invited to the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, on April 21, 2025, to witness Ambassador Mike Huckabee presenting his credentials as U.S. Ambassador to Israel to Israel’s President Isaac Herzog

Town Councilwoman

the

the

and Town Clerk

on April 11, at the Town of Hempstead parking lot in Woodmere. The program was held in collaboration with the Woodmere Fire Department and members of the community in preparation for Passover. Also attending was Nassau County Legislator

Touro Pharmacy Grads Head For Exciting Careers

Adina Kagan Benedek and Rivka Feigenbaum Kayser both enjoy sciences and improving people’s lives. Fascinated by the way medications work in the body and interested in a career that enables them to use their knowledge to help patients along their medical journeys, the two chose to become pharmacists. Alumni of Touro’s Lander Colleges, they stayed within the system for professional school, and both are graduating Touro College of Pharmacy this spring, after having matched to exciting pharmacy residencies. Benedek is headed to Westchester Medical Center and Kayser will be at Mercy Hospital-Rockville Center.

Benedek’s career goal is to specialize in either pediatrics, working in a pediat-

ric intensive care unit, or oncology pharmacy, working in an outpatient oncology setting. Her residency offers rotations in both specialties, which will provide hands-on experience in both areas and help her make an informed decision. Kayser is interested in the field of ambulatory care pharmacy, which will enable her to see patients and monitor and manage their chronic health conditions while counseling them on medications and prescribing, as well.

After graduating college, choosing to continue their academic journeys at Touro was an easy decision. “I was attracted to Touro College of Pharmacy because of the smaller and warm class sizes, which makes it much easier to form meaningful connections with staff and faculty

who served as professional mentors and helped me navigate the residency application and interview process. Beyond that, Touro gave me great opportunities that helped me become a more well-rounded person and soon-to-be pharmacist. Most notably, I’ve been able to do research on campus, that I presented at a large conference. I was also able to gain valuable leadership skills by serving on school committees,” shared Benedek.

For Kayser, Touro’s Jewish values clinched her decision. “Touro was the only place I applied to! Based on my positive experience at Touro undergrad, I knew the school would continue to be my place for my entire 4-year pharmacy school journey. Touro represents the Jewish values that are so important to

me, and I knew I could only feel comfortable in a school that champions my values instead of merely tolerating them,” said Kayser.

Kayser also appreciated the real-world training, research opportunities and faculty advisement that enabled her to achieve her career dreams.

“Growing up, I was always interested in the medical field, but I enjoyed the intellectual aspect more than the hands-on tasks. When I heard that the pharmacist’s role fits this description, I knew this field was a perfect match for me. I’m so looking forward to contributing my knowledge and analytical skills to become a valuable member of the health care team and to use my talents to make a real difference in the lives of my patients.”

At the hachtarah of Rabbi Dovid Frischman as rav of the Yeshiva Darchei Torah Alumni Kehillah. L-R: Rav Moshe Bender, Rav Shlomo Avigdor Altusky, Reb Meir Frischman, Rav Dovid Frischman, Rav Yaakov Bender and Rav Dovid Bender.

Photo credit: Office of the President

Before Pesach, Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky showed a sheep to the boys of Yeshiva of South Shore, describing the avodah of bringing a Korban Pesach

Hempstead

Melissa Miller (2nd left)

Kate Murray (right) greeted

Yusupov family of Hewlett during

Burning of the Chametz event

John Ferretti.

Annual Mitzvah Tank Parade

On April 9, 2025, New Yorkers were filled with joy and wonder as they watched the 51st annual Mitzvah Tank Parade make its way through the city streets, spreading awareness about Passover and distributing hand baked holiday matzah to thousands of residents across the five boroughs.

“The response to the parade is overwhelming,” said Rabbi Mordy Hirsch, the Director of the Mitzvah Tanks organization. “We saw families, tourists, and office workers all stopping to participate and learn. It’s a very meaningful way to experience the spirit of Passover.”

The parade’s 75 Mitzvah Tanks—RV’s converted into Jewish educational centers on wheels—rolled out from Chabad

Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn and made their way to Manhattan, creating a spectacular sight as they traveled up the Avenue of the Americas. The procession brought smiles to the faces of onlookers as the vehicles — adorned with colorful informational posters and blasting traditional Jewish music, spread Jewish pride and Passover matzah throughout the city.

The Mitzvah Tank Parade is a beloved New York tradition and the largest of its kind in the country. It dates back to the 1974 when the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, initiated the concept of “Mitzvah Tanks” as mobile Jewish educational centers.

These vehicles were designed to bring Jewish traditions and celebrations out of

the synagogue and directly to the streets of New York City.

Originally starting with just a handful of vehicles, the parade has grown over the decades into the vibrant celebration it is today. The tanks were nicknamed “tanks against assimilation” which peacefully brought Jewish pride and tradition into the public sphere.

Since its inception, the annual parade has spread the joy of Passover and celebrated the birthday of the Rebbe on 11th of the Hebrew month of Nissan. Each tank is operated by a group of Yeshiva students, rabbis, and community volunteers who enthusiastically distribute Passover essentials to passers-by.

The Mitzvah tanks distributed approximately 25,000 boxes of matzah,

Playground Physics: A Mercaz Academy Science Lesson

Mercaz Academy kindergarten students turned the Early Childhood playground into a learning lab in a recent lesson with science teacher Mrs. Sandra Maliner. The class was surprised and delighted when Mrs. Maliner led them outside, where they gathered around the swing set. Pushing on the swing, she explained how force causes movement, and demonstrated how pushing makes the object move farther away, while pulling makes it come closer.

Students already knew that they could swing without someone to push or pull them, so Mrs. Maliner suggested that they get on the swing and figure out what force was doing the pushing and pulling to send them back and forth. They pumped their legs, realizing that the forward motion of their feet was like a push,

while bringing them back was more like a pull. Mrs. Maliner explained that force is movement, and the students realized that more movement made them go higher. As they pumped their legs, they created continuous forces, pushing forward at the peak of the swing and pulling backward at the bottom, adding energy to the system each time. The children observed that bigger pushes and pulls created faster movement and higher swings, while stopping their leg movements allowed other forces like gravity and friction to gradually slow them down.

By observing their own play, students gained understanding of the fundamental concept that forces change how objects move, speed up, slow down, or change direction – and the great time on the swings made for a truly memorable physics lesson.

all hand-packed by volunteers from the community. These traditional unleavened breads are central to the Passover celebration, symbolizing the hasty departure of the Israelites from Egypt.

The Mitzvah Tanks also provided educational materials about Passover traditions, helping to share the cultural significance of the holiday with the broader New York community.

“The Mitzvah Tank Parade has become an iconic New York tradition that residents look forward to each year,” said Hirsch. ”The joy is palpable, and people appreciate that people took the time to bring the spirit Passover to them.”

HAFTR’s Maor Program Inductees

We are proud to celebrate our Middle School students who were inducted into the Maor Program, an affiliate of the Junior National Honor Society. These outstanding students exemplify excellence in academics, character, leadership, and a deep commitment to Torah values.

As Middle School Principal Dr. Josh Gold shared at the ceremony, “You are not only leaders in your classrooms – you

are emerging as leaders of the Jewish future. With that comes a meaningful responsibility: to use your talents and values to partner with Hashem in making the world a brighter and better place.”

We look forward to watching these remarkable students continue to grow, lead, and illuminate their communities with pride and purpose. Mazal tov to all of our inductees and their families!

Positive Tech Use at HAFTR

Students from HAFTR High School’s Digital Citizenship Club recently led an engaging workshop for HAFTR Middle School’s sixth graders to increase awareness of how technology impacts daily life. Through interactive activities, students reflected on their digital habits, explored the balance between healthy and unhealthy technology use, and discussed the importance of kindness and inclusion on social media. It was wonderful to see the high school and middle school students interact, as the older students served as mentors and role models in guiding meaningful discussions. The workshop encouraged students to be more mindful of their dig-

ital choices, ensuring that technology enhances their lives rather than becoming a distraction or source of harm.

MTA Talmidim Lobby on Behalf of Eretz

Yisrael in DC

Agroup of close to 40 MTA talmidim accompanied by four faculty chaperones headed to Capitol Hill recently on the annual MTAPAC Lobbying Mission to Washington, D.C.

Similar to the much larger NORPAC mission that takes place in May, the goal of this trip was to lobby members of Congress to support legislation that will further enhance the close relationship between Israel and America.

Unlike the NORPAC mission, this is a fully talmid-led initiative. A steering committee of seniors and juniors worked hard to secure the different meetings. The talmidim crafted the talking points for each meeting and scripted their remarks with the guidance of Rabbi Eli Cohn, faculty advisor to MTA’s Hatzioni Israel Club.

Each group was led by a Senior captain that helped the underclassmen fashion their remarks and was responsible for the overall structure of each meeting. All of the talmidim participated in training sessions in advance of the mission and were responsible for researching the

different issues they would discuss to be properly prepared.

It was a critical day to be on the Hill. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont brought two resolutions to the floor with the goal to block aid to Israel. The Lobbying Lions met with eight different members of Congress in their efforts to stop this motion. In one such meeting, a group of talmidim met with Senator Tim Sheehy of Montana to express their concerns about the upcoming vote. The Senator invited them to the Senate galley to watch him cast his vote against the motions.

All in all, the talmidim felt proud of their accomplishments. It was an exhausting day of traveling and lobbying, but it was an incredible opportunity to stand up for Israel on the Hill. Rabbi Daniel Konigsberg, principal of MTA, reflected, “It was an amazing day of experiential education at its finest. Our talmidim were tasked with the responsibility to make this day happen, and they came through with flying colors!”

St. John’s ICARE Foundation to Honor Dr. Sheldon H. Genack at Second Annual Blue Phoenix Gala

St. John’s ICARE Foundation is pleased to announce that Sheldon H. Genack, MD, FACS, Chairman of the Department of Surgery at St. John’s Episcopal Hospital in Far Rockaway, will be honored at the foundation’s second annual Blue Phoenix Gala on June 5 at the Garden City Hotel.

Dr. Genack will receive the inaugural CEO Distinguished Service Award, presented by Donald T. Morrish, MD, MMM, Chief Executive Officer at Episcopal Health Services, in recognition of his unwavering dedication and decades of service to St. John’s Episcopal Hospital.

“During his 30-year tenure at St. John’s Episcopal Hospital, Dr. Genack has left an indelible mark on our health system. We are proud to honor him at this year’s Blue Phoenix Gala for his dedication to expanding access and delivering exceptional patient-centered care to the Far Rockaway and Five Towns communities,” said Dr. Morrish.

A fellowship-trained, double board-certified specialist in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Dr. Genack has been a leader at St. John’s for nearly three decades. Since 1995, he has served as the Division Chief of these specialties, and in 2021, he was appointed Chairman of Surgery. Under his leadership, the department has flourished, recruiting top-tier surgeons in vascular, colorectal, plastic, and orthopedic surgery, significantly enhancing the hospital’s surgical care capabilities and patient care standards.

Dr. Genack’s leadership extends beyond his clinical roles. He has been a pivotal member of the Medical Executive Committee, including serving as president, and is deeply involved in the education and training of residents and medical students.

Dr. Genack earned his Doctor of Medicine (MD) with Alpha Omega Alpha honors from SUNY Upstate Medical University. He completed his General Surgery internship at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, followed by a residency in Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery at SUNY Upstate Medical University in

Syracuse. Further advancing his expertise, Dr. Genack completed fellowships in Facial Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery at the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center and UPMC Shadyside in Pittsburgh, PA.

The St. John’s ICARE Foundation Blue Phoenix Gala is an annual celebration which supports the foundation’s mission to secure, manage and distribute gifts in support of the mission and vision of Episcopal Health Services/St. John’s Episcopal Hospital.

For more information on the gala, including ticket purchase or sponsorship opportunities, visit bluephoenixgala.org.

About St. John’s ICARE Foundation

The St. John’s ICARE Foundation, created in 2021, fosters a culture of philanthropy to secure, manage and distribute gifts in support of the mission and vision of Episcopal Health Services and St. John’s Episcopal Hospital. The ICARE Foundation, which stands for Innovation, Compassion, Respect and Empathy, raises awareness and funds in support of equipment, capital projects, special programs and community initiatives. To make a donation, visit sjicarefoundation. org or call (718)-869-8062 for more information.

Around the Community

Long Beach Resident to Compete in Maccabiah

Hannah Austin, of Long Beach, NY, has been chosen to represent our area as one of the U18 Girls Volleyball players on the American team in this summer’s Maccabiah 2025 games in Israel.

Hannah was born and raised in Long Beach, NY. She attended the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach [HALB] through 8th grade, first in Long Beach and later in the Five Towns. Hannah is currently a junior at Yeshiva University High School for Girls [Central] in Holliswood, NY. As a student at HALB and later a camper at Avnet, Hannah always saw the volleyball nets set up on the beach, but she never thought about playing volleyball. Hannah started playing soccer in middle school at HALB and proved herself to be a strong goalie. When she started high school, she realized how much she loved being part of a sports team and missed playing in soccer’s off-season, so she tried out for volleyball and found that she loved it. Hannah puts her heart and soul into everything she does, and volleyball was no exception. As a freshman, she

quickly became a starter on her JV team and was a huge part of Central’s varsity team making it into the semi-finals this year.

In addition to being a strong student, Hannah is a huge part of her home community where she is Youth Leader in the Young Israel of Long Beach and a true leader in her school community. Hannah is a Purple Fellow with Shalom Task Force helping to provide vital resources to victims and survivors of domestic abuse. She is an active member of StandWithUs’ Teen Leadership Council where she meets students from across the United States and Canada, and learns about combating antisemitism, and developing her leadership skills. She brought Red Ribbon Week to her high school in order to promote a safe and drug-free environment. Hannah was an intern for Operation Benjamin, an organization devoted to preserving the memories of American-Jewish servicemen and women who made the ultimate sacrifice while defending the cause of freedom during World War I and World War II.

Hannah is no stranger to the land of Israel. She has traveled on family vacations to visit family there many times. Before starting high school, Hannah was fortunate to participate in OU’s Camp Dror for a few weeks. Last summer, she was an eager participant in Yachad’s Yad B’Yad program, an inclusive touring program to Israel for high schoolers and young adults with disabilities. In January of this year, Hannah was selected to be part of Central Ba’Aretz, an exchange program with a girls’ high school in Lachish, Israel.

When she started researching opportunities for this summer, Hannah learned of The Maccabiah, the flagship event of Maccabi World Union. It is the largest Jewish sporting competition in the world and the second-largest sports event globally, often called the “Jewish Olympics.” Every four years, over 10,000 athletes from 70+ countries gather in Israel to compete in more than 45 sports, cheered on by tens of thousands of passionate spectators.

Summer 2025 happens to be the year that Maccabiah takes place in Israel. After submitting her application and lots of game tapes, Hannah was chosen to play U18 Volleyball on the American team. She will be one of 10,000 Jewish athletes

representing 70 countries, in the world’s largest gathering of Diaspora Jewry. Beyond representing the USA, she will get to experience Israel firsthand for 3 weeks and learn more about her heritage and culture while traveling with many athletes who have never been to Israel before and hopefully make lifelong friends and maybe even bring home a gold medal.

The cost to participate in the 2025 Maccabiah Games is approximately $10,000 per athlete for a total cost of upwards of $100,000,000. Each athlete is requested to fundraise for this important cause – even more vital since the atrocities of October 7th and the rise of antisemitism throughout the world.

Donations can be made online https://gomaccabiusa.com/israel2025/ hannahaustin?fbclid=IwY2xjawJNI5RleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHXHYOPX5eSMzLu-ZShBJ25B73UPPokXYAF0kUNNB2ESkZc9vX8nJfXBypg_ aem_eRgVzl7JEyOs4UYU323SYQ

You can also send a check to Maccabi USA, the non-profit organization that builds our delegation, and please write Hannah Austin in the memo line. You can mail it directly to them at: Maccabi USA, 1511 Walnut St, Ste 401, Philadelphia, PA 19102.

Spreading Chessed

the girls make after doing a chessed for each other. Baruch Hashem, the chain

and

TJH Centerfold

What YouTube Has Really Taught Us

1. That you can learn to do heart surgery, build a nuclear reactor, and train a falcon—all before breakfast.

2. That watching one guitar tutorial automatically makes you think you’re ready to headline Coachella.

3. That the best way to find a two-second answer is by watching a 10-minute video with a 30-second unskippable ad and a guy who says “Uhhh” 83 times.

4. That people will film themselves opening a cardboard box and somehow earn more than a surgeon.

5. That “DIY” means “Destroy It Yourself” for 90% of us.

6. That every travel vlogger is legally required to say the word “authentic” at least six times per video.

7. That you could accidentally become an expert in Mongolian throat singing, vintage pencil sharpeners, or 18th-century bread recipes—just because the algorithm had a weird day.

8. That every appliance can be fixed with a screwdriver, duct tape, and a 9-minute video made in someone’s garage—with royalty-free background music that’s somehow louder than the guy explaining it.

9. That a one-minute recipe video will always take 23 minutes to replicate, involve six bowls, and leave your kitchen looking like it hosted a toddler food fight.

10. That there are exactly 14 ways to pronounce “tutorial.” None of them sound right.

11. That people will watch others clean their house instead of cleaning their own.

12. That “don’t forget to like and subscribe” is the new “have a nice day.”

13. That every single subject in human existence has at least one guy with glasses and a podcast mic saying, “Actually…”

14. That if someone says, “This is NOT clickbait,” it definitely is.

15. That no matter how niche your interest is, someone else not only shares it, they’ve reviewed the top 10 products for it, they’ve interviewed the experts, and they’ve monetized it.

16. That you don’t necessarily need to go to the Ohel to watch videos of the Rebbe.

17. That there’s a rabbit hole for everything.

18. And that Baby Shark can really get stuck in your head for hours on end. “Baby shark do doo dododoto…baby shark do do dododoto…” You are welcome!

YouTube 20th Anniversary Trivia

1. What was the first video (a total of 18 seconds) ever uploaded to YouTube?

a. Charlie Bit My Finger (showing a dog biting its owner’s finger)

b. Me at the Zoo (showing a young man talking about elephants)

c. The Cat Fall (showing a cat fall off a counter)

d. David After Dentist (showing a little boy talking about his pulled tooth)

2. Who bought YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion?

a. Apple

b. Microsoft

c. Google

d. Facebook

3. How many hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute?

a. 30

b. 100

c. 500

d. 6,000

4. According to financial analysis,

if YouTube was a stand-alone company, how much would it be worth today?

a. $1.7 to $2.4 billion

b. $9.5 to $17 billion

c. $82.5 to $112 billion

d. $475 to $550 billion

5. Which YouTube video held the record for most views for over 5 years?

a. Baby Shark

b. Gangnam Style

c. One Bite Everyone Knows the Rules

d. Hide Your Kids, Hide Your Family

6. Which YouTube channel has the most subscribers, totaling 386 million?

a. MrBeast

b. PewDiePie

c. Kosher Money

d. Cocomelon

7. What is the most viewed YouTube video of all time, with 14 billion views (that’s 1.5 views for every person on Earth)?

a. Trump assassination attempt

You Gotta Be Kidding Me

I told my friend I was thinking of starting a YouTube channel. He said, “What’s your niche?”

b. Kennedy assassination

c. Moon landing

d. Baby Shark

8. How many hours of YouTube are watched every day?

a. 4 million

b. 17.6 million

c. 42 million

d. 1 billion

Answers: 1-B 2-C 3-C 4-D 5-B 6-A 7-D 8-D

Wisdom Key:

6-8 correct: You are a great YouTuber! Just push the “Like” button, and we will be all set!

3-5 correct: You got stuck on the Shorts. Bro, they are a loop!

0-2 correct: You played Baby Shark one too many times and fried your brain cells.

I said, “Existential dread, awkward pauses, and snacks I eat too loudly.”

He nodded and said, “Ah, so you are starting a podcast!”

Torah Thought

Parshas Shemini

By Rabbi Berel Wein

The great seven day ceremony of the dedication of the Mishkan has passed. Now, on the eighth day, the actual service and public purpose and use of the Mishkan is to begin. But this day will be marred by the tragedy of the deaths of Nadav and Avihu, the two sons of Aharon.

The eighth day represents the diffi -

culties of life that always follow great and exalting moments and events. The Psalmist asks, “Who can climb the mountain of G-d?” That itself is a difficult task. But then David raises an even more difficult task: “And who can maintain their place on his holy place?”

After the triumph and euphoria of climbing the mountain, of dedicating

the Mishkan, of the marriage ceremony and of the birth date of the child, then the real work of maintaining that exalted feeling begins. It is not coincidental that the circumcision day of a Jewish boy is on the eighth day of his life. The eighth day represents the beginning of the struggles and difficulties, even of the tragedies as we see in this week’s parsha. This is what life has in store for every human being.

Those of us who remember the great days in our Jewish national lives – 1948 and the declaration of the state and 1967, the reunification of Jerusalem – know how difficult it is to retain that optimism and faith after long decades of strife, turmoil, disappointment, mistakes and enmity. Yet the key to our

intentioned and innovative as it was, from what they had been commanded to do that led to their tragic demise.

The rituals and traditions are not to be tinkered with according to personal ideas, wishes and whims. And, if this is true, as it is for every individual Jew no matter his or her position in life, how much more so is it true for people who are priests in the Temple/Mishkan, leaders of religion and purported role models to the young and the general community at large. The closer one gets, so to speak, to spirituality and Torah greatness, the greater the responsibility for discipline and probity in obedience to the Torah’s commandments and values. Deviations and mistakes at that exalted stage of achievement can, as we see in

It is the eighth day that is the true test of human and Jewish mettle.

survival and success lies in our ability to somehow do so. It is the eighth day that is the true test of human and Jewish mettle.

The Torah also informs us in this week’s parsha that G-d, so to speak, prefers to use holy and faithful people as examples to others of the problems caused by improper behavior. Aharon’s sons are seen, in Jewish tradition, as being righteous, dedicated people. Yet it is their deviation, no matter how well

this week’s parsha, prove to be lethal.

The rabbis warned wise men, scholars and leaders about speech that is not carefully thought out or actions that are impulsive. The effect upon others can be devastating and negative. The countermeasure of G-d, so to speak, to prevent this is frightening as the parsha teaches us. We should always be mindful of the eighth day, as reflected in the daily incidents that make up our lives.

Shabbat shalom.

From the Fire

Parshas Shemini Calling a Spade a Spade

By Rav Moshe Weinberger

Adapted for publication by Binyomin Wolf

This week’s parsha teaches us about the ma’achulos assuros, forbidden foods. It is known that every year, when Parshas Shemini came, Reb Yisrael Salanter would sigh, and say, “I wonder about those people who are so careful about what they put into their mouths but pay no attention to what comes out of their mouths.” The tzaddikim in many places show us the connection between what we eat and kedushas ha’dibbur, sanctity of speech. In fact, the Rav Shlomo’le Radomsker, the Tiferes Shlomo, used to say that by guarding the sanctity of one’s speech, he fulfills the pasuk (Vayikra 6:9), “Eat the matzos in a holy place” (i.e., one should make his mouth a “holy place” by guarding his tongue).

The distinction between pure animals and impure animals is mentioned much earlier in the Torah, in Parshas Noach. There (Bereishis 7:8), the Torah tells us that because of Hashem’s command, Noach took onto the Ark “[seven sets of]

pure animals, ha’tehorah, and the [single set of] animals which are not pure, asher eineneh tehorah .” Later on, it becomes clear why Hashem made a distinction between pure and impure animals when it tells us (Bereishis 8:20), “And Noach built an altar to Hashem and he took from every pure animal and from every pure bird and he offered elevation offerings on the altar.”

Based on the Torah’s distinction between pure and impure animals in Parshas Noach, the Gemara (Pesachim 3a) derives the following lesson: “A person should never let an unrefined word escape his lips. Indeed, the Torah went eight letters out of its way not to let an unrefined word escape its lips, as it says, ‘From the pure animal and from the animal which is not pure.’” Rashi there explains that the Torah is extremely exacting in its use of language. And even though saying “ha’temeiah, impure,” is only five letters, the Torah wrote “asher eineneh tehorah, which is not pure,” which is 13 letters, in order to avoid using an unrefined word.

Rashi there asks a question on our Gemara. He points out that in our parsha, Parshas Shemini, the Torah says, “ Temeihim heim lachem, it is impure to you” multiple times, in virtually every pasuk. How does this comport with the Torah’s care in saying “which is not pure” rather than “impure” in Parshas Noach? He answers that the Torah only went out of its way to use an exceedingly refined expression once in order to teach the lesson that one must always seek out the most refined language possible, but then returned to the normal word, “impure,” once it had taught that lesson. Rashi’s answer is difficult, however, because the Gemara used the pasuk in Parshas Noach to teach that one should “never” use unrefined language. If the Torah considers the use of the term “impure” to be unrefined, as we see in Parshas Noach, how could it use the term at all in Parshas Shemini?

I saw an amazing answer to this question in connection with a story involving Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook. In 1973, after the Yom Kippur War, many people were very upset that Henry Kissinger, who was Jewish, put so much pressure on Israel not to expand its defensive borders despite the surprise attack by the neighboring Arab countries. Rav Tzvi Yehuda wrote a strongly worded letter against Henry Kissinger which he insisted should be placed on the walls of every yeshiva and shul and be published in all of the religious newspapers. He gave a copy of the letter to a student of his, Rav Chanan Porat, to disseminate. When he read the letter, it was obvious that Rav Porat found something disturbing, so Rav Tzvi Yehuda asked him what was bothering him. He answered that it was nothing, but Rav Tzvi Yehuda insisted that he tell him. So Rav Porat answered that if Rav Tzvi Yehuda really wanted to know, he thought that if the letter were

worded more diplomatically, it would be accepted by more people.

Rav Tzvi Yehuda smiled and answered that he thought he would say that, so he brought with him a Gemara Pesachim. He pointed out the Gemara cited above, Rashi’s explanation, and pointed out the question regarding how the Torah could use the word “impure” so many times if, according to the Gemara, one should “never” use unrefined language. Rav Tzvi Yehuda explained that the context in each case is critical to understanding the difference. In Parshas Noach, the Torah was telling about events that happened. In such a case, it is appropriate to use the most refined words possible. In Parshas Shemini, however, the Torah is telling us a psak halacha, a halachic rule. When the Torah defines what is right and what is wrong, what is pure and what is impure, what is forbidden and what is permitted, it must speak in the clearest language possible, even if such language is not the most refined or diplomatic.

Rav Tzvi Yehuda said that the Torah knew that if, with respect to pork, it merely said, “Asher eineneh tehorah, which is not pure,” that some “wise man” would come along and infer that even though it may not be pure, it isn’t necessarily “im-

pure” either. The Torah therefore used the clearest language possible, calling such animals tamei, unequivocally impure. He explained that if his letter contained more soft-spoken, diplomatic language about the pressure Henry Kissinger was exerting on the government in Eretz Yisroel, the message of right and wrong would not be clear. The difference between right and wrong must be sharp and absolutely clear.

are referred to as “freedom fighters” or “militants.”

When speaking to individuals, it is important to say things in a way that they will be heard, but there is a time, like in Parshas Shemini, where one must be clear and honest, even when it is not pleasant or “politically correct.” In America today, as well, it is now acceptable to whitewash the truth by “spinning” negative facts

The difference between right and wrong must be sharp and absolutely clear.

He therefore had to make it known that Kissinger was “tamei,” impure.

Today, the world is sorely lacking in this ability to “call a spade a spade.” Just ten or twenty years ago, certain Palestinians were wearing keffiyehs, throwing Molitov cocktails, and were known by all as terrorist murderers. Now, they put on a necktie, say they have a vision about a homeland, and all of a sudden the world treats them as diplomats! At worst, they

with a less damaging interpretation, using artful deception. When a politician is caught lying, he will say that he merely “misspoke,” or perhaps he will make a public statement, saying, “I’m sorry if anyone misunderstood what I said,” even when no one misunderstood what he said because what he said was perfectly understandable – it was a lie!

Even in our community, people are afraid of “calling it like it is.” Rabbis

introduce “innovations” into Orthodox Jewish life in the name of egalitarianism and many people are afraid to say, “This is tamei, unequivocally impure!” While one must be careful to speak respectfully with people, it is also forbidden to transgress the prohibition of chanifa, flattery, by making people believe that forbidden things are really okay.

The Navi Tzefania (3:13) wrote, “The remnant of Israel will not commit an iniquity nor speak lies; neither shall deceitful speech be found in their mouth...” It is vital that we not fall into the trap of sacrificing truth and a clear distinction between right and wrong on the altar of delicate speech and political correctness.

May we merit to fulfill the pasuk (Shmuel 1:15:29), “Netzach Yisroel lo yishaker, the eternality of the Jewish people will not prove false,” and may we merit to see the day when the distinction between right and wrong is clear to all, b’vi’as goel tzedek she’yavo b’mheirah b’yameinu. Amen.

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.

Think. Feel.Grow.

Willpower Generating Momentum for Our Return

By Rabbi Shmuel Reichman

There’s a story of two elderly men who had been childhood friends but had not seen each other in many years. One day, they ran into each other on the street and were delighted to recognize one another. One of them lived in the area, so he invited the other into his home. They happily caught each other up on their lives, getting lost in their stories and jokes as the day went on. The guest finally noticed that it had become dark outside, so he asked his friend if he had the time.

“I don’t have a watch,” his friend replied.

“So, look at the clock and tell me what time it is.”

“I don’t have a clock, either,” his friend replied.

Puzzled, the first man asked his friend: “If you don’t have a watch, and you don’t have a clock, how do you tell the time?”

“I use my trumpet!” the second man proudly replied.

“A trumpet? How can you tell time with a trumpet?”

“I’ll show you.”

He picked up his trumpet, opened the window, and blew a long, deafening blast. A few seconds later, a window opened below and his neighbor shouted: “It’s three o’clock in the morning, and you’re playing your trumpet?!”

The man turned to his friend. “It’s three o’clock in the morning.”

Sometimes, Hashem will send us a wakeup call, begging us to wake up from our slumber. When we hear it, we must remind ourselves what time it is. It’s time to question, to think, and to redirect. Often, though, life has a way of running on autopilot, controlled only by the flow of momentum. When things are going well,

they flow forward, steadily picking up speed. When things fall apart, they tumble downhill, refusing to ease up.

Making a healthy eating choice can serve as inspiration to wake up early the next morning and exercise. The feeling of making a great decision leads you to another great decision, and the cycle continues. The energy and confidence from this positive momentum leads to an increased surge of confidence, leading to another great decision — perhaps a push forward in your career, a positive development in your relationships, or a focus on the next step of your spiritual growth. This is the beauty of momentum. This is also the psychological and practical root of the concept of “Mitzvah goreres mitzvah , one mitzvah leads to another” (Avos 4:2).

However, this same momentum can be the cause of our undoing as well, as “Aveirah goreres aveirah , one misstep leads to another.” Maybe it starts with a small slip-up in our diet, when we promised ourselves we would do better. Now, we feel weak and foolish and begin muttering degrading insults to ourselves. Our confidence takes a major hit, and we

begin to see ourselves as a failure. The next morning, we hit snooze, making ourselves feel even worse, even weaker, and even more of a failure. Next, we sabotage our relationship, miss a meeting, or let our growth and spirituality slide. Of course, this makes us feel even worse, so we break our diet again, making us feel even worse, yet again. This is the deadly cycle of momentum. One thing leads to another, creating a cataclysmic landslide toward complete and utter breakdown. While this picture is extreme, we can all relate. Sometimes, things seem to fall apart in our lives, and we struggle to pick up the pieces. When we start that downhill slide, how do we stop the momentum? How do we pick ourselves up?

Teshuvah

Hashem presents us with the choice between blessing and curse, between good and bad (Devarim 11:26). The Torah states: “U’vacharta ba’chaim, you shall choose life” (Devarim 30:19). This is cited by most commentators as the source for the principle of free will, the power of choice.

The Rambam includes the concept of free will within the laws of teshuvah, which seems both strange and unnecessary (Mishneh Torah, Teshuvah, chap. 5). The necessity and nature of free will appears more philosophical than legal, so why does the Rambam include this in his work of halachic codes? And more specifically, why include this in the context of teshuvah? To understand this, we must delve into the true nature of teshuvah. While teshuvah is often translated as repentance, its literal meaning is “return,” as in the word “shuv.” The goal of teshuvah is not only freeing ourselves of punishment and responsibility for our past. Teshuvah is about self-transformation, returning to a higher, better version of ourselves. We don’t only wish to escape; we wish to ascend. It is on this premise that the Rambam describes the three-step process of teshuvah (Mishneh Torah, Teshuvah 1:1).

The first step of teshuvah is recognizing that there is a problem to fix and that a mistake has occurred. It is impossible to solve a problem without first admitting that the problem exists. It is all too easy to simply push forward in life, ignoring our inner and outer struggles. But that results in the downward cascade described above. Only by acknowledging the problem can we stop the downward momentum and actually solve it.

The second step of teshuvah is to regret one’s mistake. Often, we know that a problem exists, but we don’t feel ashamed, hurt, or even bothered by it. Without internal regret or hurt, we will not be motivated enough to take the actionable steps required to make change. When we yearn for the truth and allow ourselves to powerfully feel the inner contradiction between how we could

be living and how we currently are living, we generate the emotional response necessary to genuinely regret our past mistakes.

Third, one must commit to an improved future, one in which this mistake will not be repeated. We must commit to strive toward a greater version of ourselves, whereby if given the chance to repeat this mistake, we would not give in to temptation but would overcome the challenge instead.

The Necessity of Free Will

In order for the process of teshuvah to exist, there is one essential element: free will. The only way we can genuinely change, transform, and evolve is if we have the capacity to assert our inner will and to create a new reality within ourselves. This requires a complete re-creation of self within our consciousness – a remolding of our inner world. While yesterday we were the type of person who did one thing, today, a new decision is formed and a new reality is created within our inner world. This requires a complete assertion of willpower, an overcoming of self, and a breakdown and reformation of inner drive and character. This means giving up who we are for who we want

to be; sacrificing what we think we want for what we truly want. (See Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Gerushin 2:20, where he discusses the relationship between our true ratzon [“rotzeh ani ”] and our lower self.) It means overcoming the emotional and overwhelming pull of current desire and generating a new “want” within our very core. This is why the Rambam plac -

a true assertion of their free will due to its immense difficulty. This is why many people do not change. Change is hard, uncomfortable, and often requires sacrifice. One must fully and wholeheartedly believe in their new future in order to give up their current lifestyle. However, when we push with all our might, expressing a full force of our inner will, we get a taste

The only way we can genuinely change, transform, and evolve is if we have the capacity to assert our inner will and to create a new reality within ourselves.

es his seemingly philosophical discussion of the concept of free will amongst the halachos of teshuvah; free will is the very root and foundation of Hilchos Teshuvah. Without free will, one could never change and one could never become something else, someone new, and someone better. Strikingly, Rav Eliyahu Dessler explains that many people never experience

of truth, an experience of destiny, and a glimpse of our true self.

However, this understanding of teshuvah, namely, that of return, has an even deeper layer to it. After all, if teshuvah is an act of return, what or whom are we returning to? In our next article, we will delve deeper into this fascinating topic and try to answer this question. In

the meantime, may we all be inspired to continue to embark on the journey of becoming our ultimate selves!

Rabbi Shmuel Reichman is the author of the bestselling book, “The Journey to Your Ultimate Self,” which serves as an inspiring gateway into deeper Jewish thought. He is an educator and speaker who has lectured internationally on topics of Torah thought, Jewish medical ethics, psychology, and leadership. He is also the founder and CEO of Self-Mastery Academy, the transformative online self-development course based on the principles of high-performance psychology and Torah.

After obtaining his BA from Yeshiva University, he received Semicha from Yeshiva University’s RIETS, a master’s degree in education from Azrieli Graduate School, and a master’s degree in Jewish Thought from Bernard Revel Graduate School. He then spent a year studying at Harvard as an Ivy Plus Scholar. He currently lives in Chicago with his wife and son where he is pursuing a PhD at the University of Chicago.

To invite Rabbi Reichman to speak in your community or to enjoy more of his deep and inspiring content, visit his website: ShmuelReichman.com.

Delving into the Daf

Raising the Steaks Why the Nasi Bought the Cow

By Rabbi Avrohom Sebrow

Mazal tov on this final countdown to a joyous simcha –the wedding of a beloved son! With excitement swirling like confetti and preparations in full swing, the ultimate wedding day checklist takes shape: clothing for the children, snacks for the long day in the wedding hall, a kittel for the chosson, the wedding ring, wet wipes, safety pins – and lest anyone forget, the cow purchased for the main dish. That last item might raise an eyebrow, but it’s a must-remember detail that opens the door to a fascinating discussion in the Gemara.

In Makkos 14a, Rebbe Akiva quizzes Rebbe Yehoshua and Rabban Gamliel as they buy a cow for Rabban Gamliel’s son’s wedding. Why did the Gemara note they were purchasing a cow? Tosafos Yeshanim suggests that the story is connected to a broader lesson: even while attending to mundane matters, one can transform every moment into an opportunity to learn Torah. But there’s even more meat to this narrative.

The Gemara in Kiddushin explains that a groom may appoint an agent to perform kiddushin – the ring ceremony – on his behalf. (The subsequent chuppah – standing under the canopy – and the yichud room must be done by the groom himself.) If the chosson were to get cold feet at the last moment, he could theoretically send his best man to slip the ring on the kallah’s finger, though one imagines the wedding pictures would come out a bit...confusing. Still, the Gemara teaches a key principle: mitzvah bo yoser mibishlucho, it is a greater mitzvah to perform a commandment oneself rather than through a proxy.

The Gemara notes this also applies to Shabbos preparation. Indeed, this is cited as practical halacha. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chayim 250) urges everyone to rise early on Fridays to prepare for

Shabbos personally, even if household help is available. It points to the shining examples of our sages: Rav Chisda finely chopped vegetables, Rabah and Rav Yosef split wood, Rabbi Zeira kindled the flame, and Rav Nachman cleaned and swapped the cutlery. Their actions remind us that the honor of Shabbos is no small chop.

The Ohr Zarua (125) notes that marrying one’s kallah and preparing for Shabbos are the only two mitzvos that should be performed personally whenever possible. True, some mitzvos like lulav and shofar can’t be delegated at all. But when a mitzvah can be performed via a shaliach, it is perfectly acceptable to do so.

Yet most authorities reject this idea.

The Magen Avraham, codified by the Mishna Berura (OC 250), rules that these two cases form a paradigm for all mitzvos: one should strive to perform any mitzvah personally, rather than hiring a proxy. After all, even the Nasi personally visited the market to buy a cow for his son’s chasunah. Surely, he could have sent a clerk, but he chose to shoulder the task himself, infusing the simcha with his own direct involvement.

But this raises another question: doesn’t this clash with the principle that a talmid chacham or community leader should avoid menial tasks to preserve their dignity and public respect? How did Rabban Gamliel skirt this issue? Indeed, we find numerous sages

throughout the generations who engaged in seemingly humble tasks, such as baking matzos, building sukkahs, and even erecting fences. Rav Nachman, for instance, built a fence around his roof with his own hands. The Pri Megadim explains that the Shulchan Aruch directly addresses this concern. After instructing even scholars to prepare for Shabbos themselves, it adds: “One should not say, ‘It is beneath me,’ for this is the honor of Shabbos.”

The Pri Megadim elaborates: performing mitzvos elevates, rather than diminishes, the stature of a sage. A scholar who rolls up his sleeves for a mitzvah doesn’t lose respect; he gains it. When great Torah leaders baked matzos, built sukkahs, or prepared for Shabbos, onlookers recognized a mitzvah in progress. Rav Nachman was clearly fulfilling the mitzvah of maakeh, constructing a fence around a roof.

So too, Rabban Gamliel’s trip to the market was no mere grocery run. The community knew of his son’s upcoming wedding; it was evident that the cow was destined for the seudas mitzvah. His public effort wasn’t just logistical – it was inspirational.

Whether it’s chopping vegetables for Shabbos or choosing the perfect cow for a chasunah, mitzvah performance is best done firsthand. From ancient sages to modern parents packing wet wipes, each detail adds to the kavod of the moment. Because when it comes to mitzvos, there’s no beef with going the extra mile – and the more personal the prep, the more prime the experience.

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

The Boston Tea Party and the Haifa Spring Festival

By Rabbi Yair Hoffman

They paid for the pizza, the beer, and the whiskey…to go away. The cost was some $20,000, and it happened last week at the Haifa Spring Festival. And these two anonymous individuals represent something far beyond a “Boston Tea Party.”

The event that unfolded at the Haifa Spring Festival also represents something far more profound than a simple transaction. It speaks to the very essence of Jewish identity and what it means to uphold the traditions that have sustained our people through millennia.

The laws of Pesach are not merely religious regulations; they are the flag of the Jewish people. Just as nations across the world treat their flags with reverence and respect, so too do observant Jews treat the laws of the Torah—not simply as obligations to be fulfilled, but as cherished traditions to be performed with love and devotion.

What Mr. Y and his friend A. demonstrated was not an act of religious coercion, but rather an expression of deep solidarity with fellow Jews. They saw an opportunity to uphold a collective tradition and acted with remarkable restraint and peace. The two spent thousands of dollars to ensure that chometz food items wouldn’t be purchased at the festival.

There was no confrontation, no attempt to shame or condemn—only a calm, dignified transaction that honored both the laws of Passover and the dignity of those involved.

This brings to mind the powerful words of Menachem Begin when addressing the Knesset regarding El Al flights on Shabbos:

“I believe with perfect faith that no government in Israel will permit the operation of a public transportation service on Shabbat… For 2,000 years, when we were a defenseless people wandering across the earth, we maintained our divine heritage – we observed Shabbat. It protected us from assimilation and extinction… Now, in our own sovereign state, shall we ourselves, by our own hands, destroy that which protected us from annihilation during the generations of the Diaspora?”

Begin understood that these traditions are not burdens, but the very foundations of our identity. They have kept the Jewish people intact through exile, persecution, and dispersal. To casually discard them is to cut ourselves off from the living chain of Jewish continuity.

Haaretz ’s Mr. Assaf Danieli’s perspective – that this money could have been “better spent” – entirely misses the profound significance of what occurred. The peaceful purchase of the chametz was not

about imposing religious views on others but about maintaining the sanctity of a holiday that has defined Jewish existence for thousands of years.

True patriotism is not merely about waving flags or singing anthems—it is about honoring the traditions and values, the mitzvos that make us as a people, who we are. In this light, Y. and A. performed an act of profound patriotism, preserving the distinctive character of Jewish life in a Jewish state. And these two heroes, “A” and “Y,” did it so beautifully and respectfully.

Last Shabbos, we read the Song at the Sea – the Jewish people’s first collective expression of faith. It wasn’t merely about celebrating salvation but about internalizing divine values. When they declared, “This is my G-d, and I will glorify Him,” they were committing not just to belief, but to emulation – to bringing those values into their daily lives through the beautiful mitzvos. Similarly, Y. and A. weren’t just enforcing rules; they were beautifully demonstrating what it means to live by sacred principles with love and devotion, transforming technical observance into an inspiring act of collective identity.

What should sadden us is not that someone would spend money to uphold Jewish tradition, but that Reb Assaf

Danieli was not taught to value these traditions that form a lost birthright – the birthright of Sinai, of the Exodus from Egypt. We know that they are far more… Ki haim chayeinu – they are our life! All nations teach their citizens to respect their heritage and symbols—the Torah and its commandments are ours and far more. It is sad that Mr. Danieli probably looks up to the Boston Tea Party but looks pejoratively at this legal purchase.

Rather than pushing people away from Judaism, such acts of loving commitment to tradition remind us of the depth and beauty of Jewish heritage. They call us to reconnect with the wisdom and practices that have sustained Jewish life through the ages.

In a world of fleeting trends and shallow attachments, there is something deeply inspiring about people who care enough about their traditions to act with such conviction and generosity. This was not fanaticism – it was love for fellow Jews and reverence for a shared heritage that transcends individual preference.

This article should be viewed as a halachic discussion and not practical advice. The author can be reached at yairhoffman2@ gmail.com.

School of Thought

Marathons

By Barbara Deutsch

This year’s Jerusalem Marathon had the greatest number of participants ever. I was present but never got into the race. Let me explain.

I am no athlete. As a kid, I have a vague recollection of trying out for our all-girls’ school basketball team but never really playing. During recess, I played an Israeli import called machanayim, a form of dodgeball where the ball is always live. I made some attempts at tennis (poor coordination), box ball and stoop ball – games that all the immigrant kids in my neighborhood played on cement; our crowded apartment buildings had no front or back yards.

For grass, a driver took us to the Catskills and bungalow heaven; nothing fancy, one-room shacks with a makeshift kitchen. But there you could find rolling hills, acres and acres filled with grass and trees, and the delightful sounds of happy, ball-playing children.

Bob is the athlete on our team; he and his friends played every street game: stickball, baseball and basketball as kids growing up in Brooklyn. Because his mom, Anyu, worked full time in the family jewelry business, Bob went to camp as soon as he was eligible; that’s where his baseball talents blossomed.

As a young couple making the wedding rounds, we would often bump into friends from his ball-playing storied past. Time and time again, former camp mates would come over and enquire, “Are you Bob the pitcher from Camp Kol Reena?”

Bob would smile tightly and blush. He is not a big fan of recognition.

The boys in our family get their athletic talent and skill from him or the other side of the family. Commitment and perseverance to sports (playing or watching) is something he has also passed down. He owes his crooked nose and a cracked tooth to a fly ball. The orthopedist was our family doctor.

Failing at team sports, I started running, and when my knees started failing (torn meniscus in each one), to classes and machine workouts at the gym and loads of early morning walking. I don’t run anymore, but I religiously start my day at a

class and walk everywhere.

As the hype for the Jerusalem Marathon began to gain traction, I toyed with the idea of joining. Walking, let alone running, in Jerusalem is not for the weak; the Jerusalem hills are daunting. The incline going up the block to our apartment is gasp-worthy. We have found shortcuts to avoid it. Therefore, I initially decided to leave it for others. Anyway, it was too late to sign up.

A chance encounter in the gym with a new friend Rivka changed my mind. “Why not run for ‘Thank You Soldiers’?” Rivka works tirelessly for the organization and was happy to sign me up.

So I did; I made a nice donation and convinced my most athletic granddaughter Elisheva to partner with me. I also sent the link to any of my younger and even older friends who might be willing to join me.

everywhere, young, older and plain old. Everyone wore some kind of t-shirt – most had logos, many did not. All participating runners needed to wear a small paper sign with an official number.

Affixed to the back of the sign is a foamlike strip and some blank lines for personal data, like your e-mail. I had a plain white t-shirt but nothing more; I needed that number in order to run/walk. I had to locate “Thank You Israeli Soldiers” stationed in the maze of white tents in the ever-growing crowds-streaming park.

Back and forth along the lineup I walked; the booth eluded me. I called Rivka, a doll, who encouraged me to keep looking. I found the spot, and the volunteers quickly got me started. There were two choices of shirt, long- and short-sleeve offered and that all important number. I chose a long-sleeve, put it on, and affixed

There were alternate possibilities and options I could have taken, but by the time I walked through the same checkpoint for the fourth time, I was done.

“Erev” the Marathon, we had a family wedding where Elisheva danced and danced. She is an amazing singer (not because she is our granddaughter; she inherited the Shapiro singing genes) and dancer. She woke up late and very sore; zero of my friends took the bait to walk.

I was on my own. It did not even occur to me to bail; I was off to Gan Sacker to get my registration number and to walk my first Jerusalem Marathon ever. I’m no quitter; I can do this by myself.

We live a few short blocks, using a neat little shortcut, to the Park and the starting point. As I got closer to the waiting crowds, it got louder and louder. There were bands playing and announcers announcing, in Hebrew and English. There were people

panied by many people wearing numbers but not racing.

Maybe they were done?

For those who ask if I participated in the Jerusalem Marathon, the simple response would be: yes!

Did I finish or even start? No!

Was I disappointed in myself? Yes. There is so much for me to process as to why I gave up as I’m usually not a quitter. After much self-talk and deliberation, I realize that I need my people to be there to encourage and guide me. I try to be pretty independent in most situations but between the language barriers, even though most participants speak English (the volunteers and security didn’t) and my awful sense of direction, I got myself lost in my own head and on the ground.

It’s been nine months since our Aliyah. It’s mindboggling to realize that so much time has passed so quickly. When I think back, I am unable to separate the time we lived in the States from our time in Israel. It’s all somehow one big mush in my mind.

the number to the shirt with the four safety pins provided.

I was ready to go; except I wasn’t. I tried and tried again, as many times as I could and clocking steps as I searched for the start point, round and round in circles I went; I could not locate the “Family Walk” start place. According to my phone, I had logged 6,000 steps from my apartment to the park, my search for registration at “Thank You Soldiers,” and where to find the start point in the park.

There were alternate possibilities and options I could have taken, but by the time I walked through the same checkpoint for the fourth time, I was done. I walked onto Bezalel, right outside the park, met my husband at the Shuk and walked home accom-

During these months of adjustment, the joys of living in Israel have overridden the stumbling blocks. In my mind, there are three main reasons for our success: our positive attitude, our friends, and most of all our wonderful family, in Canada, the States, and of course, in Israel. They support us as we engage in life’s marathon.

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.

“Sara,” the man said, his voice echoing through the phone. “We need to talk now.”

“What’s going on? Is everything alright?” Sara answered.

This man had ordered 60 challahs from Sara Briman. A regular customer of hers, he would buy her challahs every Rosh Hashana and send them to his clients. And every year, he was very satisfied with her work. But this time, his voice, shaking with a hint of frustration, indicated something was wrong.

“I need to see you. And I need to see you now,” he told her.

Sara’s heart started racing. Why the urgency? Why did he sound so upset? Well, it wasn’t all a mystery to Sara. In fact, she had a good guess as to what was bothering him. You see, every year, she would follow her Bubby’s original challah recipe, creating a milchig challah made with butter. Along with the challah, she would send her clients a delicious Rosh Hashana meal, including gefilte fish, chicken soup, and honey cake. Her non-religious customers didn’t care that they were eating a milchig challah at a fleishig meal. And Sara, at the time, didn’t yet keep kosher, so she didn’t care either. But one person did care: Sara’s daughter, Karen, who, at the time, had just become frum while attending Stern College.

“Ma, you’re making a big mistake. Even though your customers aren’t religious, you’re still putting a milchig challah on their fleishig table!” Karen told her mother.

“Listen, Karen. My people don’t even care,” Sara responded. “It’s not a big deal.”

“I care, Ma. And you want to do mitzvos, and this is the opposite of a mitzvah,” her daughter insisted. “So, this year, we’re going to adapt your Bubby’s challah into a pareve challah.”

The Secret of SAr A BrimAn’S Award-Winning Challah

By Eliyahu rosenberg

“No, I already tried to do that. It doesn’t taste the same.”

Karen held her ground, insisting on teaching her mother how to substitute butter for oil in challah. The whole way through, Sara resisted: “No, it’s going to taste different, and they’re not going to like it,” “I need to make 100 challahs by Monday. I’m not going to have enough time to change the whole recipe,” “I already bought the ingredients. You’re driving me crazy!”

But Karen didn’t let up.

“They’re not going to even taste the difference, Ma,” Karen maintained. “It’s not just about the ingredients. You’re going to make the brachos on the challah, and that’s going to be the important part.”

Eventually, Sara conceded, trusting that her daughter knew what she was doing. In a hurry, she baked 100 pareve challahs, sent them to her clients, and hoped for the best.

But, when the man—her loyal customer—demanded to see her immediately, Sara sensed that the recipe change was a terrible mistake.

“I’m really busy. Can you just tell me over the phone what’s going on?” she asked the man.

“Sara, I need to see you.”

The two met at a nearby Starbucks. They sat down. And Sara could barely keep her hands from trembling.

“Sara, I have two things to tell you,” he said. “What do you want to hear first? The good news or the bad news?”

“Tell me the bad news,” she instantly answered.

“OK, well, the bad news is that I put a card in every challah that I sent to my customers. And in each card, I included my personal phone number,” he explained. “And it’s terrible. People think that the number I gave is yours! And they keep calling me to order challah. It’s driving me crazy. People think my business is a bakery.

For every 20 phone calls, five are people saying they loved your challah so much that they want to order more! I tell them that this isn’t a bakery, but they don’t believe me. They say, ‘The challah you sent me has this phone number.’ So, I just wanted to tell you that I gave them your phone number so they can make the orders with you, not with me.”

“That’s the bad news?” Sara replied, pleasantly surprised. In other words, the bad news was that her challahs were so good that people were desperate to order more.

“And Sara,” the man continued, the tired expression on his face turning into a smile. “The good news is that I don’t know what you did this year, but the challahs were absolutely amazing. I just wanted to tell you that personally and ask you to please remember what you did this year with the challahs. They were terrific.”

Suddenly, Sara Briman began to cry. Tears of joy, relief, and surprise streamed down her face. She couldn’t believe it. Although she thought that doing the right thing would hurt her recipe, it was the greatest decision she could have made. It wasn’t just the right thing to do— it turned out to be the best thing she could have done for her recipe and her business. Her recipe, despite lacking butter, had never tasted better. And if she thought baking 100 challahs was overwhelming—well, with a flood of new customers—she had another thing coming now.

The man asked Sara what she did differently this year. She answered that her secret ingredient was her brachos and love.

A Dairy Challah

If you’ve ever heard of Sara Briman—a legendary cook and baker from Mexico known worldwide as the “Challah

Lady”—you’d probably assume she was a culinary genius from the start. After all, adult prodigies usually start out as remarkably talented children. But that wasn’t the case with Sara Briman. In fact, she admits that when she got married, she was far from being a cooking expert—very far. Indeed, she couldn’t even fry an egg.

“When I was a teenager, my mother used to cook amazing,” Sara recalls. “But she didn’t know how to teach us how to cook.”

For example, Sara would ask her, “How much of each ingredient do you put in?”

“Oh, just a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and a little bit of this,” her mother would reply. But “a little bit” was a little bit too vague for Sara’s liking. So, instead of asking more futile questions, Sara, as a teenager, tried learning by watching her mother at work at the stove.

She remembers those days like they were just yesterday. She would stand in the kitchen, watching her mother cook. Holding a pencil in one hand and a notebook in the other, the teenage girl would anxiously scribble down notes, her eyes darting between her mother and the notepad.

But inevitably, her mother, who didn’t particularly enjoy being observed, would tell her, “You’re making me nervous. Why don’t you clean the kitchen?”

When Sara got married and became really desperate to learn how to cook for her husband, she begged her mother to show her her ways. So, her mother visited Sara’s new home and started cooking in the kitchen. Sara, not that much older, once again tried paying attention to what her mother was doing. She asked her mother for tips, for cooking wisdom, and watched closely. But the only suggestion that Sara’s mother had was: “Why don’t you clean your closet while I cook?”

Needless to say, Sara needed a different teacher. So, she asked a neighbor—a Holocaust survivor—for help.

“Listen, I have this problem. We don’t know each other very well, but I need to learn how to cook,” Sara said, explaining her dilemma to the woman. “I don’t need very sophisticated food, but at least the basic things, like how to grill a good chicken.”

“Don’t worry. I’m going to teach you,” Sara’s neighbor assured her.

“She taught me a lot of things, baruch Hashem,” Sara recalls. “And then I started taking cooking classes with a very traditional Jewish woman, who used to teach us how to make traditional Jewish food. She taught me how to make gefilte fish, kreplach, and cabbage. And that’s how I started liking how to cook. After a year and a half, I started taking more professional classes, and I loved it.”

Interested in cooking more traditional Jewish foods—like challah, chicken soup, and hamantashen—Sara asked her cousins and aunts for help. Soon thereafter, she found the milchig challah recipe used by her late

Bubby, who had, along with much of her family, moved from Poland to Mexico just before World War II.

“Before the war, my Zaidy decided to leave Poland and move by himself to America to see if they could make a better life there. He didn’t know about Mexico, but that’s where he ended up. He started sending letters to Poland. And my family would send him letters back. And then, for some reason, he disappeared. Suddenly, the letters weren’t coming back, and my Bubby was very nervous,” recounts Sara. “So, she decided to send my father, who was the oldest son, to find my Zaidy. And my father came to a town called Veracruz. It was really very difficult. They were very religious people, and he came with only his siddur, his tallis, his clothing, and the $10 that my Bubby gave him.”

When Sara’s father arrived at the Mexican border, the guard wouldn’t let him enter the country unless he gave up all his money. Thus, he handed over his only $10, and the guard welcomed him in.

His early days in Mexico, however, weren’t easy. “My father was a very tall man with blue eyes, blonde hair, and white skin. And all the local people in Mexico would look at him like he’s an extraterrestrial,” Sara explains. He also struggled to find employment until a kind Indian gentleman hired Sara’s father to sell schmattes on commission and even gave him a place to sleep.

“Without knowing the language—without anything— he starts working and bringing his family from Poland to Mexico. He brings his brother and sister. And he wants to bring my Bubby, but my Bubby says, ‘Listen, I’m not going to come. If they don’t have a shul and they don’t have kosher meals, I prefer to stay here,’” Sara shares.

Thus, her father asked around about local shuls and kosher food. Soon enough, he discovered a Sephardic shul in Mexico City. Best of all, he found out that a shochet would soon be arriving—thus allowing local Jews to enjoy kosher meat and chicken. He sent a letter and ticket to his mother, giving her the green light to come.

they found him in northern Mexico. The family, at long last, was reunited and soon settled down in Mexico City, where Sara and her family still live to this very day.

Award-Worthy

Sara Briman started out as a culinary student. In the summer, she would attend New York’s Culinary Institute. As she learned the ins and outs of cooking, her dream of becoming a chef was born. Quickly, she became a phenomenal cook—so much so that her friends begged her to teach them how to be as good as her. Soon, the student became the teacher. In her classes, she would teach almost every cuisine—Mexican, Chinese, Indian, Jewish, etc.

Around 1970, Sara took the next leap in her culinary career, jumping into the world of catering. What started as cooking for her friends soon became catering for the government, embassies, and top companies. One Wednesday afternoon in 2013, while rushing to finish a big catering job, Sara got a call from her son, Salvador.

“Mommy, I have a friend. I can really do amazing business with him, and he told me that he loves Jewish food and he would love to taste a delicious challah. I told him that my mother makes a very delicious challah,” he explained. “So, for this coming Friday, can you please make a challah for him?”

“I’m sorry, Salvador. There’s no way I could do that. I have a very important catering job to do by Friday. Tell your friend that maybe Sunday or Monday—any day next week—I’ll bake a challah for him,” she replied.

“But Ma, he’s just coming for two days, and he would really like to taste it,” her son responded. “If you have time, I would really appreciate it, because, believe me, I could really do great business with him.”

“OK, fine,” she sighed. “I’ll make a challah for your friend.”

In those days, it took a month for a letter from Mexico to arrive in Poland. As such, Sara’s father waited anxiously for his mother’s arrival. News of the impending war frightened him terribly. And he was nervous that his mother wouldn’t make it to Mexico on time. But to the family’s relief, Sara’s Bubby soon joined them in Mexico. She made it just in time. One month later, the war broke out.

All the while, the family continued searching for Sara’s Zaidy. Soon enough,

After finishing her catering job at 9 p.m. Thursday, Sara turned around and spent the entire night baking— not just challahs, but cookies and rugelach, too—for her son’s friend. She finished at seven in the morning, her eyes burning, her body aching. She felt awful—but the challahs were ready. And right at noon, someone knocked on the door.

“I opened the door, and I couldn’t believe it. Suddenly, there were paparazzi taking pictures of me with a professional camera, and seven men walked in. And I said to my son, ‘What’s going on? What is this?’” Sara recalls. “He never speaks English with me, but he says, ‘Mommy, hi, how are you? I want to introduce you to Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Smith, and Joseph Cinque.’ And I said, ‘What’s going on?’”

The men sat down in her living room. Though Sara was confused—her son had only mentioned one friend, yet there were seven people there, cameras flashing—she did what any good hostess would: she offered them the challah she’d spent all night baking.

Then, Mr. Cinque looked up to her and said, “Look, I know that you don’t know who I am, but I just want to let you know that if your challah is worth it, I’m going to

give you an award.”

Sara was lost. What in the world was he talking about—an award? Joseph Cinque took a bite of her challah. He looked back up to Sara, who was still flustered, and he delivered his verdict.

“Sara, I have been traveling all around the world, and I have never tasted a challah like this. This is really delicious. You deserve to have the best award in the world,” Mr. Cinque told her.

Cameras kept flashing at her. It seemed as though her living room was swarming with people.

“Mrs. Briman, I know this is a very special day for you,” a cameraman told her. “Can you talk to the camera about how you’re feeling?”

But she couldn’t talk. She was all choked up and crying—still shocked at what was happening.

Suddenly, the men got up and presented her with three boxes. They opened up the first box. Inside it was a gold medal from the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences that read, “Six Star Diamond Award.” Then they opened up the second box, inside of which was a platinum plate.

“It said ‘The American Academy of Hospitality Sciences has given the Five Star Diamond Award to Sara Briman for her inspiration and dedication to keeping family values and traditions strong.’ And it was signed by the three best chefs of the academy,” Sara recounts.

In the last box were ten books from the best chefs in the world, each signed personally for Sara.

“And then, when Joseph Cinque left my house, he saidto me, ‘In the near future, someone is going to pick

Sara’s Blessings

Sara’s daughter, Karen, who sadly passed away at the young age of 30, taught Sara that every ingredient in challah carries a deeply spiritual meaning. Karen also taught her the segulah of the shlissel challah—the custom of baking a key into the challah dough for the Shabbos after Pesach.

you up, and you’re going to go on a 40-day exclusive cruise to Europe to meet all the best chefs in the world.’

He also invited my husband and my son,” Sara shares. “He left my house an hour before Shabbos at five o’clock. And he’s not a Jewish person. He’s an Italian guy from Europe who started working in Brooklyn with Jewish people. He was talking and talking and talking.”

Joseph Cinque, who gives awards to the world’s greatest chefs, restaurants, and hotels, explained to her that he once enjoyed a delicious challah while working with Jews. And since then, he’s yet to find a challah as tasty. People told him to try challah in Israel. He did just that and wasn’t impressed. Then, he went to England, and then to South Africa, and then to France. But he couldn’t find a challah as delicious as the one he previously had. Ten years went by, and he hadn’t found the world’s best challah—that is, until he tasted Sara Briman’s.

“I make my shlissel challah in the regular shape, and I put a key inside—that’s the way Karen taught me. It’s a little key that I bought here in Mexico. I fold it with aluminum foil, and I put it inside and braid it with the challah,” Sara shares. “Karen told me that you have to keep the key with you until the next shlissel challah. And during the year, if you want to show gratitude to Hashem, or you want to ask something of Hashem, you take this key, and you put it next to you, and Shamayim will open for you. And the most important thing that you have to do, first of all, is be very thankful to Hashem for whatever He has done for you. And then, if you want to ask for something, do it. But before that, you have to be thankful. That’s the message I transmit from my daughter.”

Sara has traveled the world, delivering challah presentations in many places, including Mexico, the United States, Canada, South America, China, Japan, and Israel. Currently, she’s writing a book about the secrets of her challah, inspired by the lessons she learned from her daughter Karen, a”h.

The greatest secret behind Sara Briman’s world-famous challahs—the one passed down from Karen and shared with a stunned customer at Starbucks years ago— is still the same today: Sara’s blessings. And her love.

Sara receiving her award

Nation

Lipa Schmeltzer An Artist’s Journey Back Home

By Eliyahu RosEnBERg

Isn’t music interesting? You can’t touch it. You can’t see it. It’s invisible to everything but our ears. And yet, it’s one of the most powerful forces in our lives.

Music influences our moods. It inspires us. It transports us to the past and excites us about the future. It brings us smiles and laughs; it melts our hearts and brings us tears; it helps us concentrate and relax and distracts

In His Words…

us from our worries. Music sets the tone for nearly everywhere we go and everything we see. What party or event doesn’t have music blasting? What store or restaurant doesn’t play music in the background? Music brings people and nations together, connects generations, and breaks down language barriers.

In other words, music is everywhere and serves countless purposes, including in our own religion. Think about it.

you should share your story as long as other people can learn from it. But you shouldn’t delve into it. you shouldn’t live through the same moments again and again.

Music plays a great role in our heritage, religion, spirituality, and growth. From the shabbos table to chassunas to Tisha B’av, music is part of everything we do.

o wing up to what you did is the best advice... When someone tells you advice, think for a second: Would they have done the same thing that they’re telling you not to do? a nd when i want to give advice to someone, i make sure to give advice that i would have done.

Where do we have music in Judaism? During davening, we sing tefillos. At our Shabbos tables, we sing zemiros When we go to chasunas, we dance and cry to music. In shul and on holy days, we hear the baal korei lein. The malachim sing to Hashem, and so did our ancestors when they left Egypt. And now that we’re in Sefirah, we’re once again reminded of the importance of music — its absence helps us mourn.

The reason Judaism places such an emphasis on music — the reason we sing to G-d, rather than just speak to Him — is because music connects directly to our neshamas. As Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, zt”l, once wrote, “Words are the language of the mind. Music is the language of the soul.” By just speaking words, we could only go so far in our relationship with Hashem. Our brains may connect to G-d. But through music, our souls can, too.

* * *

Music is a part of most people’s lives. But to Lipa Schmeltzer, a famous Jewish musician, it’s much more than that. Music is his life — and it has been since he was a child.

When he was a young boy, Lipa performed as a soloist for his brother’s children’s albums. He recalls his youthful fascination with the recording studio; how cool the microphones looked, how novel the recording technology seemed. Thus, as an adult, he was desperate to make music. And when he did, he be -

came famous very quickly. Too quickly, in fact.

You see, Lipa always understood the power of music. And so did his Skverer community. Both agreed that music can be beautiful and spiritually uplifting. But he and his community had differing views regarding what music should and shouldn’t sound like. Lipa believed that music should be pushed to its boundaries; that musicians should create new sounds. Those in his chassidish circles, on the other hand, believed music shouldn’t stray too far from the familiar.

“Skverer never had somebody out there doing concerts and stuff like that. So for them, I was a totally new thing,” Lipa shares. “On top of that, my style was very new.”

His song, “Gelt,” created more than two decades ago, is a good example of Lipa’s uniqueness. Featuring a heavy beat and a disco-like sound, “Gelt” sounds different from what most chassidim were used to at the time. Moreover, the song’s words, which offer a sharp critique of society, were even more atypical for Yiddish songs.

“It didn’t have the type of lyrics that you would dance to at a wedding,” explains Lipa. “It talks about how everybody runs after money, and everyone gets kavod for money. And if you lose your money, then people throw you away. But if you get back your money, they’ll become like your cousin. It was very poetic. And it was new. Now, I’m just astonished thinking back how I even had the guts to release that.”

As you can imagine, Lipa was troubled that his music was driving a wedge between him and the community he grew up in. He wanted to be close to his roots, but he couldn’t bear to sacrifice his music. So, stuck between a rock and a hard place, Lipa tried to compromise. He promised the community he would tone it down and make less controversial music. But within a few years, Lipa couldn’t resist giving in to his creativity. Eventually, feeling rejected, he left the Skverer community. Then, Lipa embarked on a multi-year journey of self-discovery, and eventually, he returned home.

* * *

“My childhood was very colorful, and it was also very challenging,” Lipa shares.

He had 11 siblings. Most of them lived with him in his small childhood home. Suffering from what was likely undiagnosed ADD, Lipa struggled to perform well in school. Unfortunately, his peers and teachers didn’t understand him. Instead, he was nicknamed “baal hachalomos,” a dreamer, and was frequently hit with a ruler for misbehaving and not knowing the place in the Chumash. As a child, he also had traumatic experiences that were unrelated to his community.

His community’s treatment of him wasn’t a result of malice, of course. They just didn’t understand him, which deeply troubled Lipa, who wanted desperately to be understood. And at the same time, as Lipa grew up, he had trouble understanding them, as well.

“It’s fair to say that it was a very difficult ride, but it’s also fair to say that it was difficult from both sides of the coin,” Lipa notes. “If you wanna say, had

I known better, I would have dealt with it in a much more calm and professional way — well, it’s not my fault because I didn’t know. But then, you could also say that it’s not their fault. And, truthfully, it’s no one’s fault. And everything in the world is like this. Everyone’s trying to do the right thing, and we just get carried away.”

Indeed, Lipa only tells his story to help others. As he puts it, “I think the balance is that you share your story as long as other people can learn from it. But you don’t delve into it. You don’t live through the same moments again and again.”

So, as an adult, he pursued a career in music, rocking out at weddings and recording his own music, to his community’s and parents’ dismay. Lipa, who had already started a family, eventually started drifting away from home, and when the weddings, as he puts it, “stopped coming in,” he feared for his livelihood. Thus, drawing on his own experiences in therapy, he enrolled in a community college and was later accepted to Columbia University, where he studied with the dream of becoming a psychologist. At Columbia, Lipa developed an interest in the arts, particularly in drawing.

“In Columbia, I got a little bit more settled down, because they have a Jewish community. They had minyanim. And it was really the first time I realized that you could have modern people who are very sincere in their Yiddishkeit,” recalls Lipa. “I saw them coming to Shacharis. So, all because you become modern, it doesn’t mean you’re becoming less of a Jew. In other words, you have modern chassidim and you have frummer chassidim. And you have modern modern Orthodox, and frummer modern Orthodox. They’re all frum, just

in different ways.”

A few years later, however, Lipa was beset by a flurry of challenges. He went through a divorce. He had little money. And he had no job for six months. Desperate to make a living, he took a job as a singer for a Pesach event in the chassidish community.

“I was hired, probably because I was the only singer in the area. Probably otherwise, they wouldn’t have hired me at the time, because I was like an outcast,” Lipa recounts. “But I sang for the people there. And their hearts were like ripped. They were crying from the songs. And they said, ‘Lipa, you left us. And if you bring back your peyos and your white shirt and everything, you’ll be back like regular.’”

That was one of the turning points in Lipa’s story. What really brought him back, he explains, was his experiences when he started performing again in Boro Park and Williamsburg — when he saw there was no more controversy. “I’m singing in Yiddish, and I’m coming to a place where all the chassidim know every word by heart from all my songs.”

His return was gradual. At first, he exchanged his colorful yarmulke for a black, traditional one. Then, he put on a white shirt. He took off his funky glasses and brought back his peyos. And soon enough, after around 10 years of estrangement, he came back to the Skverer community.

“The chassidish people where I came from, and which I left, brought me back with open arms.”

* * *

Lipa didn’t change as much as he matured. While the chassidish community became more accepting of his music, disagreements still, of course, arise.

But while Lipa would have once felt offended by comments made by others, today he accepts those comments for what they are: constructive, non-malicious criticism from the people who care about him.

“It’s a balance of growing and being able to take criticism from others, while keeping boundaries on both sides of the spectrum,” he notes.

Still, Lipa is a unique figure with unique music. Once, someone asked him if, by introducing new music to the chassidish world, he aims to weaken the chassidishe derech . He responded that, on the contrary, his goal was to strengthen it.

“I’m widening the road so that you can be a chassid, you can eat dessert, and you can enjoy good music, and you don’t have to feel like you’re sinning,” Lipa declares. “If someone feels that they’re sinning because they dance a little bit, then tomorrow, they’ll want to sin more because they feel like a rebel already. That’s what happened to me.”

Indeed, as Lipa Schmeltzer sees it, to grow closer to Hashem, you first need to be kind and patient with yourself.

“Use positive reinforcement in your own spiritual growth,” Lipa advises. “Everybody has some little good thing they could do. And if they win that one thing, and they keep on focusing on improving, they can grow. Chazal say, ‘Sur meirah v’asai tov,’ go away from bad and focus on the good. If I may, I’m starting with the second half of the pasuk. First, I try to do good without focusing on every little bad thing I’ve done. Then, it will happen that, in retrospect, I give myself positive reinforcement: I have this win, this little win, this little win. If you think of it like that, it will expand your horizon of positivity and help you grow into a better person.”

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.

Dating Dialogue What Would You Do If…

Moderated by Jennifer Mann, LCSW of The Navidaters

Dear Navidaters,

Dear Navidaters

I never imagined I’d be writing one of these letters — I always thought things would just “work out” like they did for my older kids. But here I am, lying awake at night, wondering what more I can do for my daughter, Chani*.

She’s 24, warm, thoughtful, with a real sense of achrayus for others. She volunteers weekly with kids who have special needs, she bakes challah for neighbors without being asked — and she never complains, even though I can see how much the shidduch parsha is wearing on her. She’s been dating seriously for almost four years. We’ve had some good prospects — boys who seemed like strong fits on paper — but for one reason or another, things keep falling through after just a few dates.

What hurts most is that lately, she’s been getting less and less attention from shadchanim. Some won’t even return our calls unless we “follow up” several times. And when I do hear back, it’s the same vague, noncommittal language: “She’s lovely…but just not what he’s looking for.” I’m starting to feel like we’re caught in a system that doesn’t have room for nuance, or for a girl like Chani — someone who’s not flashy, not from “the right family,” but full of real substance.

How do I help my daughter stay hopeful without feeding into a system that feels increasingly superficial? Is there something broken here, or is this just how it is?

Sincerely,

A Disappointed Mother

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 Rebbetzin

Rebbetzin Faigie Horowitz, M.S.

It is smart to focus on helping and supporting your daughter, not on anger at

the system. Hashem has a plan for each of us and the search for her partner in life is part of it. Do your hishtadlus with tefillah, positive support, and networking actively with people you know and who know her in broadening circles both in town and out of town if she is OK with that. Sensitively encourage her to go a lit-

tle beyond her comfort zone in terms of communities and seek support if she feels she needs it. Do encourage understanding that she is a wholesome, capable, kind person with a lot to offer.

For yourself, perhaps reach out to a therapist and/or a support group of mothers with children in shidduchim. Remember that your daughter is an adult, and so are you.

The Shadchan

Michelle Mond

I’m so sorry for what you’re going through. It’s clear you’re an incredible mother, and the way you’re supporting your daughter is inspiring.

You mentioned worrying that there’s no place for a girl like Chani – modest, sincere, not flashy – but I beg to differ.

Even in the quiet moments when nothing seems to be happening, that doesn’t mean the right one isn’t on his way.

It sounds like she has gotten a decent number of dates in the past, which says a lot. There are definitely families out there who are looking for a girl exactly like her.

Let that be a sign that her qualities are being noticed, even if the right one hasn’t come along yet. It’s not a reflection of her

worth — just timing.

As for the shadchanim, you’re definitely not the first (or the hundredth) to express frustration with the system. The world of shidduchim is built around well-meaning, hardworking volunteers. They aren’t being neglectful on purpose; they’re overwhelmed, unpaid, and simply stretched way too thin. It’s one of the only major communal needs that’s still run almost entirely by volunteers, with no formal infrastructure. Unless you’re working with someone privately on a paid, one-on-one basis, there’s unfortunately no way to guarantee a consistent follow-up.

But that doesn’t mean you’re powerless. Hashem is the ultimate Shadchan, and He’s got Chani’s back 24/7. As long as she’s doing her proper hishtadlus, and it sounds like she absolutely is, then the right person will come. It’s just a matter of when.

In the meantime, here are a few things you can do to keep Chani on people’s radar.

Show appreciation: Reach out to shadchanim who have been helpful in the past

with her updated resume, and thank them – even a simple message goes a long way.

Small gestures: Sending a thoughtful erev Shabbos gift or flowers as a token of thanks can help keep her top of mind. Expand her network: Have Chani visit friends in other communities and meet new shadchanim there or attend events geared toward singles in those areas.

Most importantly, for your sake and Chani’s, try to retain a positive attitude. Keep davening. Your daughter is doing all the right things, and you’re supporting her in the best possible way. That counts for so much and the right one will come iy”H.

The Zaidy

Dr. Jeffrey Galler

It’s heartbreaking to witness so many of our wonderful young women, with so much to offer, struggling within a contemporary system that is outdated, dis-

Pulling It All Together

The Navidaters

Dating and Relationship Coaches and Therapists

Reading your letter, I could feel how much you love your daughter –how proud you are of who she is and how deeply you want to see her loved, chosen, and seen for the incredible person she is. Chani sounds like a gem. The kind of girl people don’t always notice at first because she’s not loud or flashy, but once you know her, you realize she’s the real thing. It’s so painful to watch someone you love strug- gle in a process that feels so uncertain and often so unfair. And when it’s our own children, we feel their pain just like, if not more, than our own, especially when you know, truly know, what she has to offer. And when you’ve seen it go more smoothly for your other children, it’s only natural to wonder why this feels so differ-

tressing, and ill-suited to the realities of the 21st century.

Yes, I know, readers are tired of hearing how “in the good old days” young people met and socialized naturally in places like school, shul, and community events. But it’s still worth reflecting on the contrast with our current, deeply flawed system.

At first, I was going to suggest that you get clearer answers from shadchanim about why boys whom your daughter had liked didn’t reciprocate; encourage her to broaden her “checklist” for dating; and, perhaps, become more involved in community volunteer work to raise her visibility.

But then, I reached out to a good friend who is a highly successful shadchan at YUConnects. This is what she advised:

This is a very familiar story. I get calls like this from heartbroken mothers at least once a week.

#1 – Stop blaming shadchanim. They are trying their best. Most are volunteers, and they didn’t create this “broken” system; they’re just trying to help. People get so stuck blaming and building anger toward the very people who are actually trying to help. Instead, try appreciating their effort and remembering that they’re not the only

ent and so much harder.

You asked if something is broken, and the truth is maybe yes. Not your daughter, not you, but the system. It often misses the quiet depth and kindness that makes someone a truly exceptional partner. It favors neat boxes and categories, resumes and first impressions, and it can be brutal on the heart. But even in all of that, even in the quiet moments when nothing seems to be happening, that doesn’t mean the right one isn’t on his way.

You don’t have to promise her it will all work out soon. None of us can know

Her

worth isn’t defined by how quickly she gets married.

way Hashem can send your daughter her bashert — “ Harbei shluchim la’Makom.”

#2 – Encourage other avenues for growth. Start looking for other opportunities that let your daughter shine. Encourage her to pursue things that bring her joy and growth — whether that’s career, friendships, chessed, or learning. Confidence and happiness are magnetic, and the more she thrives, the more others will notice.

#3 -Reassure her (and yourself). Remind her that she’s not “behind” and that everyone has their own timeline. Her worth isn’t defined by how quickly she gets married. Keep davening, stay hopeful, and trust that the right person will value her for exactly who she is. We pray that all of our singles find their lifelong partners easily and painlessly, and enjoy long, healthy, happy lives together.

that. But you can remind her that her story isn’t late, and she’s not behind. The right person just hasn’t walked in yet. And in the meantime, she’s already living a meaningful life, one filled with kindness, generosity, and integrity. That matters. That counts.

Sometimes, the greatest gift a mother can give is to sit beside her daughter in the not knowing and keep reminding her, gently and consistently, that she is not alone and she is not doing anything wrong. You’re already doing that.

Sincerely, Jennifer

Health & F tness Addiction in Disguise How Substance and Behavioral Addictions Thrive in Plain Sight

By Rivka Kramer, PMHNP-BC

By all outward appearances, David had it all. A million-dollar smile, a beautiful family, a waterfront mansion in Miami, and the title of CEO of one of the fastest-growing tech startups in the U.S. His face graced magazine covers. Investors adored him. Employees admired him. But behind the high-rise windows and keynote speeches, David harbored a devastating secret: he was addicted to opioids.

It started innocently after a skiing accident left him with chronic back pain. A prescription for OxyContin turned into a dependency. At first, it worked wonders. But as weeks turned into months, David found he needed more of the drug just to get through the day. When the prescriptions ran out, he turned to colleagues in medicine, then to less reputable sources. Eventually, opioids became part of his daily routine—not for pain relief but for survival. Despite this, he never missed a board meeting. He made quarterly projections, managed multimillion-dollar

deals, and smiled for every camera. But inside, he was unraveling. His marriage strained under the weight of secrecy. His kids noticed he was always either agitated or checked out.

David’s story is not unique. Addiction doesn’t care about status, income, or education. It can affect your brother, your son, your husband, your cousin, your coworker. The people we love and admire can be hiding immense pain behind polished appearances.

Addiction Is More Than “Just Drugs”

While David’s struggle was with opioids, addiction takes many forms. We often associate the word “addiction” with drugs or alcohol, but at its core, addiction is a compulsive, harmful relationship with a substance or behavior that offers short-term relief or pleasure—at the expense of long-term well-being.

Some of the most common non-substance addictions include:

• Alcohol – Legal and socially accepted but just as destructive when abused.

• Gambling – A powerful behavioral addiction that can devastate finances and relationships.

• Food – Emotional eating, binge eating, or compulsive eating can be tied to unresolved trauma or emotional pain.

• Technology and Gaming – Excessive screen time, especially among youth, can become a coping mechanism and lead to physical and psychological consequences.

• Work– Sometimes masked as ambition, overworking can be a way to avoid emotions or feel control.

• Shopping/Spending – The dopamine rush of buying can temporarily soothe anxiety or depression.

In each of these examples, the behavior starts as a means of escape or relief, but over time, it becomes compulsive and damaging. Like drugs, these addictions alter brain chemistry, creating cycles of

dependency, withdrawal, and craving.

Understanding addiction in its many forms helps us broaden our compassion. Someone doesn’t have to hit rock bottom with heroin or meth to need help. They might be drowning in debt from gambling. Or scrolling endlessly on social media to avoid their own mind. Or numbing their pain with food, then wrestling with shame.

The pain is real. The pattern is real. And the need for healing is just as urgent.

Understanding Addiction: More Than a Choice

Addiction is a chronic, relapsing disorder characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use, despite harmful consequences. It is not a moral failure or a lack of willpower – it’s a complex interplay of brain chemistry, environment, genetics, and psychology.

Addiction can stem from trauma, chronic stress, mental illness, or even medical treatments gone awry – as in

David’s case. And while substances vary, the disease mechanism remains frighteningly similar.

When someone uses an addictive substance, the brain’s reward system is flooded with dopamine, creating intense pleasure. Over time, the brain becomes less sensitive to both the substance and natural sources of pleasure. What once brought joy – family, hobbies, even success – no longer feels satisfying. The brain now craves the substance above all else.

For many, the descent into addiction is gradual. It may start with a legitimate prescription for pain relief, stress management, or sleep. But for those vulnerable due to genetics, trauma, or environment, what begins as relief can quickly become dependency – and eventually, a devastating addiction.

Addiction affects millions across the globe and is often paired with mental health challenges like anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These co-occurring disorders make it even more difficult for individuals to break the cycle without comprehensive, integrated care.

David’s story exemplifies this complexity. It wasn’t just about physical pain – it was about emotional pressure, expectations, and the isolation that often accompanies success. Like many high-functioning individuals, he learned to hide his struggles behind a polished exterior.

Many addicts describe this phase as being trapped – knowing the harm they’re causing but unable to stop. This is what makes addiction so devastating and why shaming someone into quitting almost never works.

Factors that contribute to addiction include:

• Genetics – Up to 50% of addiction risk is inherited.

• Mental health – People with anxiety, depression, PTSD, or ADHD are more vulnerable.

• Trauma – Childhood abuse, neglect, or unstable environments are strong predictors.

• Social environment – Peer pressure, accessibility of drugs, and societal norms all play a role.

In David’s case, the root wasn’t just physical pain – it was also the immense pressure of maintaining an image of perfection.

Treatment: There Is Hope Recovery is possible – and it begins with recognizing addiction as a treatable

disease, not a personal defect. Effective treatment is holistic, combining medical, psychological, and social approaches.

1. Detoxification

This is the initial phase of treatment where the body clears the drug. Medical supervision is crucial, especially for substances like opioids or alcohol, where withdrawal can be dangerous.

2. Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT)

Medications such as buprenorphine, methadone, and naltrexone help manage cravings and prevent relapse. MAT is evidence-based and has saved countless lives.

3. Therapy and Counseling

Therapy is essential for uncovering the root causes of addiction. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps people recognize and reframe the thoughts and beliefs that drive their compulsions. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) builds emotional regulation and distress tolerance skills.

For behavioral addictions, therapy focuses on breaking the reward cycle, improving impulse control, and developing healthier ways to meet emotional needs.

4. Support Networks

Twelve-step programs like Narcotics Anonymous, and non-12-step alternatives like SMART Recovery, offer community and accountability.

5. Long-Term Support

Recovery doesn’t end at rehab. Ongoing therapy, lifestyle changes, sober living environments, and relapse prevention strategies are vital for long-term success.

David’s recovery involved all of the above. He stepped down from his company, spent six months in a residential treatment facility, and now speaks publicly about his journey – turning his darkest moment into a message of hope.

A Community Responsibility: How We Can Help

Addiction doesn’t only affect individuals – it affects families, workplaces, neighborhoods, and entire communities. Healing, therefore, must also be a collective effort. When we recognize our shared humanity and reject stigma, we create a culture of support rather than shame.

1. Change the Narrative

Words matter. When we refer to people as “addicts,” “drunks,” or “junkies,” we reinforce harmful stereotypes. Instead, we can use people-first language: “a person with a substance use disorder.” It’s a small change with big impact.

Stigma keeps people from seeking help. Compassion opens doors.

2. Encourage Connection

Isolation is both a cause and consequence of addiction. A simple conversation, a check-in, or an invitation to connect can make a world of difference. Ask how someone is really doing – and be willing to listen.

If someone opens up about their struggles, respond with empathy, not advice. Say, “Thank you for sharing that with me. I’m here for you.”

3. Support Family Members

Addiction can tear families apart. Loved ones often feel helpless, frustrated, or ashamed. But they, too, need support. Resources like Al-Anon, Nar-Anon, or therapy for family members can offer guidance, boundaries, and healing.

When we support families, we also support recovery.

4. Promote Access to Treatment

Advocating for better access to mental health services, affordable rehab, harm reduction tools (like naloxone and clean syringe programs), and recovery housing makes a direct impact. Policies that treat addiction as a health issue –not a criminal one – save lives. Workplaces can also play a key role by

offering Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), mental health days, and reentry opportunities for employees in recovery. Employers who treat recovery with dignity contribute to a healthier, more productive culture.

The Face of Addiction is All Around Us

It’s easy to miss. A manager quietly struggling in his office. A mother relying on wine to get through the day. A cousin who’s been “not quite right” since that car accident. Addiction wears many faces – and none of them look like what we imagine.

But recovery wears a face, too. It’s in the father who shows up to every soccer game now. The sister who just hit her one-year sober mark. The coworker who opens up about therapy. Recovery is real. And it’s possible.

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.

Parenting Pearls A Balanced Life

By Sara Rayvych, MSEd

Balance beams are one of the simple pleasures of childhood. It’s not complicated but requires great skill to stay upright. Beyond merely walking straight, some beams will have curves or a variety of surfaces to challenge those small bodies.

Maintaining good balance is a crucial skill for adults, too. Balance is one of the focuses during the women’s workout I attend. It’s entertaining to look around and see each woman’s technique. Some will put their arms out to the side for balance, while others will hold them together in front. Each minor adjustment is made to help us keep our equilibrium and prevent falls.

So much of our daily functioning depends on our ability to keep ourselves balanced. Just like minor adjustments are necessary to prevent physically tipping over, it’s also crucial towards emotional and spiritual health.

The Rambam stresses the need to walk the middle road in most middos. Children, by their nature, are new to this world and lack the cognitive development of adults. They think differently, and this inexperience can at times cause them to go to an extreme. Part of our role is to guide our young charges towards a healthy balance in all areas of their life.

Meeting at the Middle

Generally, it’s healthiest to be in the middle range for any middah or trait. For example, it’s unhealthy for a child to be stingy with their money or property, but it’s also unwise for them to disregard their possessions. Older children shouldn’t eat dirt from the floor, but they also can’t be afraid to touch doorknobs. Being afraid to speak to others is unhealthy, as is blurting out whatever comes to mind. Neither extreme is good for their development, and we want them to maintain a happy medium.

When we say “middle” or “average,” we’re usually referring to a range and not a very specific level. Two children can both be normal and healthy in the

same trait, yet it will look dissimilar because they’re in separate parts of the middle range or due to personality or age differences.

We want to take into account their overall behavior while noting any outliers. For example, a teenage girl may generally be comfortable with having her siblings around her yet get upset if they come close when she’s wearing a particular sweater. Since she’s generally within the normal range, we can understand if she is protective of that particular item. This is different from a child who never lets others be nearby.

We need to pay attention to see if there are any particular concerns in a certain area. For example, perhaps a child behaves normally in most situations but has behavioral issues with a certain friend or location. We would want to rule out any specific concerns, peer pressure, or other unhealthy factors.

Being so close to the situation, there are times when parents may find it challenging to ascertain if their child is within the average range. In these situations, parents can ask a trusted family friend, their child’s teacher, or a medical or mental health professional who can provide a more objective view.

Small Adjustments

Generally, lasting change happens from small adjustments over a significant length of time. The goal is small increments of change that are at a realistic pace for the child.

We see this in many areas of life, including spiritual and physical. Baalei teshuva rarely change their entire life all at once. Diets that cause a rapid weight drop are less effective long term than slow but continuous loss.

There are times when we need to go to the opposite extreme to meet in the middle, but this isn’t usually the case. It’s also tempting to make many changes quickly, hoping to get to the desired level faster. This, too, will usually not succeed in the long term, and we want to focus on sustainable change.

Spiritual Matters

As Torah Jews, we take our mitzvos, middos and relationship with Hashem seriously. It would seem obvious to encourage children to go to the extremes when it comes to their spiritual development, yet there is still reason to exercise caution.

I was speaking to the parent of a bar mitzvah boy, and the mother was going on about his high level of piety. She was making many adjustments to their life to accommodate his chumros and elevated spiritual level. During the conversation, I became very uncomfortable. I knew a bit about her son, including his diagnosis and mental health history. Sadly, his “piety” and “elevated level” were more likely an unhealthy outgrowth of his diagnosis and not of true spiritual development. In his case, the parents were unknowingly encouraging emotionally unhealthy behavior and risking a deterioration.

It’s tempting to encourage – or even pressure – a child to go to a spiritual extreme thinking we’re helping their neshama. We need to ensure that any extra “frumkeit ” comes from a healthy place and recognize that children need the space to be kids, too.

Methods and Means

It’s difficult to give examples of how to address any extreme behavior since there are too many variables. I will provide some general suggestions.

Kids can more naturally go to extremes because they lack knowledge, leading to misunderstandings. For example, they may think it’s lashon hara to say if someone’s being hurt. They may think their friend’s allergies are contagious and avoid playing with them. We can bridge this gap by giving them accurate information and clearing up misunderstandings. It may require a few conversations to fully understand their thought processes and where they are getting confused. Sometimes, it’s humorous to see the world from their perspective, but we still need to be sen-

sitive to their feelings and never mock them.

We can gently guide them towards the middle. A child who spends every penny can be encouraged to put some money towards savings. We can provide a shy child with the language necessary to speak up for themselves. A child who grabs can be taught to ask politely. Lectures are not as helpful as concrete examples and hands-on guidance.

There are times when the situation requires professional intervention. Parents should never be embarrassed to ask for assistance. It’s easier to address challenges earlier than later, and professional guidance can make the process more pleasant.

It’s a daily challenge to keep ourselves balanced and on the right path. Our children, too, need to learn to maintain a healthy road throughout their lives. With a little guidance from their loving adult they will be one step closer to this important goal.

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

School of Thought

By Etti Siegel

Q:Dear Etti,

It is that time of year again. My kids just don’t want to go to school. I think it is “Spring Fever” – they just want to play outside. Getting them out the door in the mornings is a struggle.

Help!

- Harried (and Needs to Hurry in the Mornings)

A:Dear Harried, Thank you for reaching out. This is a very timely concern!

As we head into the final stretch of the school year, many kids, both younger and older, start to lose motivation. The weather’s warmer, the days are longer, and summer is just around the corner. For younger kids, it’s often a case of classic “Spring Fever.” For older students, it’s more likely burnout after ten months of classes, projects, and tests. Either way, it’s normal for motivation to dip this time of year – and there are ways we can help. For younger kids, embrace the wiggles! Instead of fighting their urge to move, try working with it. Just 20 minutes of aerobic activity before homework, like biking, jumping on a trampoline, or dancing with DJ Raphie or Danny Go! can really boost focus and make study time more productive.

Bringing back a bit of structure can also help. If routines have loosened up, reintroduce small ones – like a regular homework slot or a visual checklist for school supplies. Taking 10 minutes each Sunday to look at the week ahead can reduce last-minute stress and give your child a sense of control.

Motivation at this age often works best with immediate, small rewards. Think: an extra bedtime story, a favorite snack, or bonus playtime after homework. These short-term incentives keep kids engaged without making them wait until summer for a payoff.

For older students, think tired, not lazy. By now, many teens are simply worn out. Final exams, big projects, and extracurriculars can pile on the pressure. Start by validating their feelings, “I get it;this time of year is tough,” so they feel heard and supported.

These short-term incentives keep kids engaged without making them wait until summer for a payoff.

Help them break big assignments into manageable steps, like tackling a paper one stage at a time: research, outline, write, and revise. A small, day-by-day plan is much less overwhelming than a looming deadline.

Shaking up their routine can help, too. A change of scenery, like studying outside or in a different room, or switching up study methods can make things feel fresh. And like with younger kids, short-term rewards tied to effort (“study for 30 minutes, then take a break”) are more effective than distant promises tied to grades.

And don’t forget; physical movement helps older students, too. Even a short walk or a few stretches can help them recharge and refocus.

In some cases, a student’s reluctance to engage in schoolwork goes beyond the usual Spring Fever or burnout. School refusal, as described by psychologist Rachel Busman, PsyD, ABPP, is not the same as truancy; it’s not about skipping school for fun but rather a deeper struggle with anxiety, stress, or negative associations with the school environment. Signs of school refusal may include frequent complaints of physical symptoms like headaches or stomachaches that tend to disappear on weekends or holidays, extreme distress when it’s time to go to school, persistent tardiness, or frequent visits to the school nurse. If your child often asks to text or call home during the school day, this could also be a sign.

My friend had a daughter in junior high school who began crying every Sunday night at 7:00 PM – every single Sunday night, without fail, like clockwork.

Addressing school refusal early is crucial, as the longer a child avoids school, the harder it becomes to reintegrate. Start by having an open and honest conversation with your child to understand what’s driving their reluctance – it could be bullying, academic struggles, or social anxiety. Collaborating with their teacher, school counselor, or even a therapist can help uncover the root cause and develop strategies to address it. In more serious cases, connecting a child with a competent therapist can be a valuable resource (especially when paired with parental support), offering them a safe space to open up, express their emotions, and work through anxiety or difficult situations.

For my friend’s daughter, validating, giving the situation space, and letting her come up with ways to lessen her anxiety seemed to help, and over time, it went away.

Whether your child is dealing with Spring Fever, burnout, or deeper school-related anxiety, the key is to support them while holding them accountable. Maintaining structure, offering short-term incentives, breaking tasks into manageable pieces, and incorporating physical activity into their routine can make a big difference. And remember, open communication is vital. Listening to your child’s concerns and validating their feelings can help build trust and open the door to finding solutions together.

The end of the school year can feel like a marathon for both students and parents, but with a little encouragement and some strategic adjustments, it’s possible to help kids finish strong.

Summer is just around the corner, so hang in there; you (and your children) are almost at the finish line!

Hatzlacha, -Etti

Mrs. Etti Siegel holds an MS in Teaching and Learning/Educational Leadership and brings sound teaching advice to her audiences culled

ence. She is an Adjunct at the College of Mount Saint Vincent/Sara Shenirer. She is a coach and

the

presenter

Parenting Pearls

The 10 Commandments of Parenting a Teenager

By Malkie Bobker, LMHC

1. Thou Shalt Not Judge

Your teenager seems to be doing the exact opposite of what you tell them to do, so it must be that they don’t care what you think, right? Wrong. Adolescence is paradoxical in being both the period of time in which your teenager is writing their declaration of independence, yet they also need to know that they have your acceptance. Acceptance and lack of judgment are often confused with agreement and approval, but that is a mistake. Your teen will make mistakes, and when they do, they are going to need someone to talk to without thinking that they are going to be made to feel badly about themselves. We want them to come to us as parents, but if they are feeling judged, they will find other less helpful or effective outlets to process with.

If your child comes to talk to you about something they or their friends did, do your best to stay calm and hear them out, and they will be far more likely to continue to confide in you, as well as ask for your advice in the future.

2. Be Consistent

Teenagers have a strong sixth sense for hypocrisy and inconsistency. Adolescents are at an important stage of identity formation, and they are looking to the adults around them to serve as role models. Essentially, they are looking to see if we practice what we preach. I have had kids ask me why teachers will talk about the importance of not embarrassing someone, but they will then go and embarrass a child; why their parents keep telling them to put their phone away when the parents themselves are glued to their phones; or why their parents are fighting with them to go to shul when the parents themselves do not go. Others are bothered when rules are enforced inconsistently. Specifically, adolescents are bothered when we do things for optics; for example, when the person we present ourselves to the rest of

the world is starkly contrasting with the person we are at home and when we encourage our children to do, or not to do, things “for show.”

Teenagers are not looking for us to tell them what to do, they are looking for us to model what to do. Providing consistent messaging and adherence to values will ultimately maintain trust and help them learn to do the same.

3. Do Not Be Afraid to Say No/Set Boundaries

Saying no is often equated with “being mean,” and who wants to be a mean parent? This is unfortunately a misguided concept, though. Setting boundaries – yes, even by saying no – with your children and teenagers is a great kindness. As much as children and teens seem to want to have complete control, it would actually be frightening for them if they did because they know they are not ready for it, whether or not they will actually admit it. It would be chaos, and children do not thrive in chaotic environments.

Testing boundaries is a way of exploring the world – cause and effect, consequences, limits – but they are ultimately looking to us to hold the line for them,

even if they are not happy about it. If they cannot count on us to hold the line, it will not feel safe for them to explore. It is also important not to be too rigid, especially at this age. Be consistent with the boundaries, but also flexible when the situation calls for it. Healthy boundaries and appropriate limits create safety and stability.

4. Be Present

Yes, they spend a lot of time in their room or out with friends, but they still need us. Teens need to know that they can rely on parents being there for them. At this age, they tend to seek us out less, which makes it all the more important to make ourselves available when they do. Sometimes that means they approach us when we are exhausted at the end of our day, and while your first instinct might be to ask if it can wait for another time, I would not recommend that. More often than not, it will be a missed opportunity. They will either decide it is not so important after all, or they will go talk to a friend instead. When they do come to you to talk, put your phone away, turn off the TV, and give them as much of your attention as possible. It is also recommended to spend qual-

ity family time together, as it strengthens bonds and reinforces for your teen (and other children) that they have a strong home base. It can be helpful to have a set routine around this so that everyone knows what to expect, and the kids know not to schedule plans for that time.

5. Give Them Space

This might sound like a contradiction to being present, but hear me out. Adolescence is a crucial time of establishing independence, as teenagers are looking to form an identity separate from their parents. Ideally, that should look like an integration of what we have been instilling in them their whole lives with new ideas and the various aspects of their personality that make them unique. When teens argue with, or seem to reject, anything that we say, it is easy for us to take it personally and then double-down on our efforts to get them to agree with us or do what we say. That would not be the best idea though, because the more we try to force them into something, the farther we will push them away. They will not only want to reject you, but everything you stand for also. Pick your battles. Give them space to think for themselves, argue respectfully, and form their own conclusions. Your relationship with them will be much better off in the long run. Also, do not take it personally if your teen would rather go out with friends than spend time with you. This is healthy and normal, and also why it is a good idea to work some quality family time into the schedule.

6. Emphasize Values Over Practice

One of the big battles during the teenage years is when parents expect their teens to conform to their values and practices. They believe their teen is old enough to understand, and parents are hopeful that they have done a good enough job in the earlier childhood years

instilling these values and practices that they simply come naturally to their teens. Sometimes that happens, but many times, teens are testing boundaries and experimenting as a way to forge their own identity separate from their parents. It can be easy to get into constant battles around clothing choices, friend choices, going to shul, etc. Do not get lost in the particulars; do not miss the forest for the trees. For example, it might be helpful not to get into a screaming match with your daughter about skirt length, provided that the clothing she is wearing is modest. Or, if it is misery to get your son up for minyan every morning, perhaps allow him to daven at home (on a day there is no school). You ultimately want your teen not to lose the value of davening, or the value of tzinius – but if you are constantly battling over the practice, they will be far more likely to reject the value altogether, and you by extension. If you are struggling to navigate halachic issues, it is best to consult with a rav who is empathic to this phenomenon.

7. Let Them Make Choices

Healthy decision-making is like a muscle that needs to be built and strengthened. The best way to do that is to involve younger children in age-appro -

priate choices, such as allowing them to pick their clothing for the day, deciding on a game to play, or even choosing an ice cream flavor when you take them out for a treat. Naturally, kids should not be given free rein, so stick to forced response questions for young children (unless you do not mind if your child chooses to wear a bathing suit on top of their clothing to school). This may seem silly and inconsequential, but what you are teaching them is that life is series of choices, that they have some control over their reality, to own their decision, and follow-through. Naturally, as our children reach adolescence, the decisions are more high-stakes and it can be frightening for us to take the training wheels off. We need to, though, if we want to give them the confidence to make healthy choices.

Letting teens make their own (age-appropriate) choices – summer camp, high school, friends – is crucial at this age. Be a sounding board for them, but allowing them to choose will help them develop a strong sense of personal agency and responsibility. The idea is that by the time they reach adulthood, they will not become paralyzed by indecision because they will have developed the necessary muscles for decision-making.

8. Let Them Fail

If we allow our teens to make their own choices, we also must be prepared for them to fail sometimes. We ALL fail at some point or another. It is unpleasant, however, we tend to learn more from our failures than our successes, provided that we have the resilience not to let our failures tear us apart. Resilience develops when kids learn to deal with the measured doses of stress and/or frustration, and yes, even failure. The benefit of failing as a child or a teenager is that we can still provide something of a safety net so that they are not free falling. When they do fail, refrain from the classic “I told you so.” Model how to recover from failure by being honest about yours, talk about what went wrong, and what they can do differently in the future.

9. Facilitate Developing a Hobby

When getting to know kids, I ask what their hobbies are, and the answer is often “going on my phone” or “watching Netflix.” Unfortunately, these are not healthy hobbies. Helping your teen develop a hobby – the younger the better – is crucial, as a hobby is an actual activity they can engage in for the sake

of their own enjoyment. Teenagers, especially, need something that they can do for themselves and that they can feel good about. It will lead to more effective coping, and it provides a healthy outlet for stress.

10. “Keep Calm” and Trust Your Teen

The importance of trusting your teen is an underlying theme throughout each of these points, but it is also deserving of its own category. One of the hardest things to do as a parent is to let go and trust your child to do the right thing. As hard as it is, it is also necessary. There comes a point where we have to trust that our teen has the tools to make good choices and do the right thing. If we demonstrate our confidence in them and their abilities, they will feel far more equipped to handle what comes their way.

Malkie Bobker is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor with a private psychotherapy practice in Cedarhurst, NY. She works with adolescents and adults struggling with anxiety, social skills, life transitions, and parenting. She can be reached at malkiebobker@ gmail.com or (516) 946-9601.

Fd for Thought

Chief Smokehouse

IBy Nati Burnside

t’s been a couple of decades since smoked meat first took the kosher food world by storm. At this point, things have settled down a bit, and the market seems to be figuring out how many smokehouses are sustainable in the kosher restaurant ecosystem. With a few closing in the last couple of years, the cuisine’s popularity might not be what it once was. With that said, smokehouses still have plenty of devotees that will travel from far and wide to visit a place and try the different smoked offerings to see how each one differs from its other counterparts.

When I was invited to Chief Smokehouse in the growing restaurant district of Union Turnpike in Queens, I saw a few things on the menu that had to be ordered immediately upon arrival. The first of the no-brainers was the Meat Candy. In some contexts, this term means a kind of very sweet beef jerky. But here, it’s more of a genre. It includes three different types of meat that are about as popular as candy. The maple-glazed beef “bacon” strips are a highlight as the bacon is tender from being smoked instead of fried, and the maple flavor is easily savored as the coating provides a nice pairing to the texture as well. Next up is a portion of Richie’s Burnt Ends, a menu staple that can be ordered on its own if you wish. You’ll notice that these burnt ends are more on the larger, softer, and sweeter sides than others you might have had as they hit that spot of bringing you a perfect bite of smokey deliciousness. Lastly is a pile of sliced pepperoni that has been drizzled in hot honey. Certainly, the most unique of the group, these are almost like chips for you to snack on as they combine the smokey, spicey, and sweet sensors on your tongue.

Speaking of chips, I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t tell you to get the Loaded Tray of Nachos. Some people view nachos as a great thing to be served at a

party – these nachos are in and of themselves a party. There’s some of everything covering the bed of chips at the base of the tray. Some vegan melted cheese for texture, some of the house pit beans to bring some smokey flavor, your choice of pulled beef, crispy chicken with barbeque sauce, or both (I would opt for both, especially if you are sharing this with multiple people as more options are better), pico de gallo, pickled jalapeños, and guacamole. Long story short, the list is long but worth it. Have fun just choosing different combinations of a few ingredients at a time to share a chip together. Beans, pulled beef, and pico de gallo? Great. Crispy chicken, pickled jalapeños, and guacamole? Even better, maybe? You won’t know until you try it.

If you came to Chief Smokehouse looking for a more balanced meal option, I would recommend the Rice Skillet. Served on a cast iron tray, the bed of smoked rice is topped with some of the house pit beans, ¼ lb. sliced smoked brisket, a few pickled jalapeños, and a fried egg. You can puncture the yolk of the egg and cause the runny inside to make contact with the cast iron to create a kind of smoked fried rice that I would highly recommend. Mix everything together, and you’ve got a bowl of deliciousness where all the flavors and textures are working together in harmony. The brisket has that deep smoked flavor embedded in the meat, the jalapeños bring a bright acidic punch, and the egg pulls everything together nicely.

And while everything so far has been great, I was told before arriving that where Chief Smokehouse really excels is between the bread. The most famous of their sandwich offerings is Southwest Burger. Starting the week they opened, I was told that I must get one, and yet it still didn’t disappoint. A half-pound burger is topped with pulled barbeque rib, fake cheddar, onion rings, and the house spicy barbeque sauce

(fries come on the side and are solid). The first thing I noticed was that the fake cheddar tasted more like cheddar than any other fake cheddar I had ever tasted. It might not have been at the top of the texture chart for fake cheeses, but in terms of actual taste? It was cheddar. But where the texture of the cheese didn’t shine, the texture of the onion rings and pulled meat made up for it. The contrast was great, and the pairing of flavors was amazing. The spicy sauce brought just enough heat to make itself known, but not too much for anybody. If you’re stopping in for lunch and want one single recommendation, it’s this. However, there are those that just are not into the fake cheese thing. If that’s you, don’t worry, there are other sandwiches out there. The Rooster was another standout that impressed me. A simple sandwich of fried chicken thigh, barbeque sauce, house slaw, and pickles can go a long way if everything is done right like it is here. One thing you should know about Chief Smokehouse is that they make all their own bread. A pretty ambitious thing for a smokehouse to do, it really shines through when it comes to the ciabatta-like sandwich bread. A sturdy enough base to hold the contents, the bread is also a definite positive in the flavor department without being too much of a distraction. The chicken is perfect, the slaw and pickles are great sidekicks, and the sandwich comes together as a perfect representation of why so many fast food chains added fried chicken sandwiches in recent years – despite being simple, they can be incredible.

If you are looking for the real full ex-

perience that a place like this has to offer, you’ve got to go with something from the final section of the menu. For that, it’s hard to pass up the lamb chops. This trio of marinated and grilled lamb chops will leave your mouth watering for hours. If you have ever felt that lamb isn’t your thing, try these and they might change your mind. You can easily pull the meat off the bones with a fork, or you could just pick them up by the bone. This isn’t the kind of place where someone will look at you sideways.

In short, Chief Smokehouse is a wonderful addition to the roster of kosher smokehouses. If you haven’t made it there yet, head to Union Turnpike and taste some of the unique stuff they have to offer. In other words, there aren’t enough Chiefs.

Meat - Waiter Service 180-10 Union Turnpike, Fresh Meadows, New York 11366 (646)-375-1166

ChiefSmokehouse.GetSauce.com Vaad Harabonim of Queens (VHQ)

In The K tchen

Creamy Chicken Soup

Pareve / Yields 12 servings / Freezer Friendly I wrote this recipe a couple of weeks ago for Mishpacha Magazine’s special Family First Pesach edition, and it was chosen to be on the front cover. I was truly honored and proud of this delicious recipe. Most creamy soups are high in calories (and

By Naomi Nachman

also dairy) so I blended the cauliflower to give this soup

the rich, creamy flavor and no calories to boot.

Ingredients

◦ 1 tablespoon olive oil

◦ 2 onions, diced

◦ 4 stalks celery, diced

◦ 3 medium zucchini, with peel, cut into chunks

◦ 2 24 oz. bags frozen cauliflower

◦ 6 chicken thighs, skinned and placed in netted soup bag

◦ 6 cups broth, approximate

◦ 1 teaspoon salt

◦ ¼ teaspoon black pepper

Preparation

Heat oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add onion; cook, stirring occasionally, for about ten minutes, until soft.

Add celery and zucchini, salt, and pepper and sauté till translucent.

Add the bags of chicken to the pot and then the cauliflower on top. Add enough broth to about an inch below the top of the vegetable line, making sure chicken is immersed. Too much broth can make the soup watery.

Bring to a boil, then simmer for an hour, covered.

Remove chicken bag from soup and set aside to cool.

Using an immersion blender, puree the soup. Once the chicken is cool enough to handle, shred the chicken off the bone and return to soup.

Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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.

Notable Quotes

“Say

What?!”

Hashem is the most important party in the coalition.

- Prime Minister Netanyahu during a shiva phone call with Minister of Labor Yoav Ben Tzur

I’m almost at a loss for words for how outrageous it is. Here’s an individual—the man who has been deported to his home country of El Salvador—who has been repeatedly documented by multiple federal and state authorities to be a member of MS-13… An individual who has been involved in human smuggling and human trafficking. An individual who is a documented woman beater— somebody who has viciously attacked a woman in ways that shock the human conscience. That is who the Democrat Party is going to provide aid, solace, and comfort to?

- White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller commenting on Maryland Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador to meet with deported illegal alien and MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Van Hollen has not contacted our family and has not provided support in the wake of my daughter’s murder by an illegal immigrant from the same country as Abrego Garcia. Yet the Maryland Democratic senator is willing to spend American taxpayer money to travel to El Salvador and put the interests of a known illegal immigrant before that of his constituents in Maryland.

- Maryland resident Patty Morin whose daughter was murdered in 2023 by an illegal alien from El Salvador

Mahmoud Khalil — the Palestinian activist and legal United States resident whom President Donald Trump’s administration is attempting to expel — can be deported… It’s of particular resonance that this decision came down on the eve of Passover. When we sit down to read the Haggadah during the first Seder on Saturday night, we will be discussing the story of Jews’ refusal to be used in a tyrant’s narrative. The story of Passover is the story of our community’s rejection of the role assigned to it by an authoritarian and of their courage to imagine something different and better. I will read that story, and think about how my government is trying to deport Khalil for his beliefs in the name of the Jews.

- Emily Tamkin writing in The Forward (allegedly a Jewish publication) that Jews should stand with Mahmoud Khalil, a vile Jew hater who came to the U.S. to spark antisemitic protests at Columbia, proving once again that TDS is a very serious mental health disease that warps the mind and destroys the soul

First and foremost, we did not launch an attack to start the war. It seems to me that the vice president is somehow justifying Putin’s actions. I tried to explain, you can’t look for something in the middle. There is an aggressor, and there is a victim. The Russians are the aggressor, and we are the victim.

- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on “60 Minutes” last week

I think it’s sort of absurd for Zelenskyy to tell the [American] government, which is currently keeping his entire government and war effort together, that we are somehow on the side of the Russians.

- Vice President JD Vance in response

So I had to go around the country and educate people about what immigrants do for this country… The fact is ain’t none of y’all trying to go and farm right now…We done picking cotton!

– Squad member Rep. Jamine Crockett (D-TX) speaking at a historically Black church

I consider AOC to be the leader of the Democratic Party. And, I think that she’s the reason that there’s directions on a shampoo bottle.

– Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) on Fox News

Our plan for dealing with her is “Operation Let Her Speak.” - ibid.

Two weeks ago, Democrats were arguing that Trump was only interested in helping his billionaire buddies. Now, they’ve lost millions and are begging Trump to change course. How do we square that circle?

- Tweet by David Marcus

I’m sure you wouldn’t like to be compared to a Trump supporter, but how people cannot understand why people have sympathies for Mangione strikes me as the same as a lot of media not understanding why people support Trump.

- CNN senior correspondent Donie O’Sullivan talking to Taylor Lorenz (former Washington Post and New York Times reporter) about Luigi Mangione who killed an innocent man—who was a father and a husband—in cold blood because he disagreed with how his insurance company conducted business

You’re going to see women, especially, that feel like, oh my G-d, here’s this man who’s a revolutionary, who’s famous, who’s handsome, who’s young, who’s smart. He’s a person who seems like a morally good man, which is hard to find.

- Lorenz, in response, talking about the vile murderer

Political Crossfire

The Tariff Execution Was Messy

There’s Still Time For a Big Trump Win

During the 2018 Group of Seven summit in Canada, President Donald Trump made world leaders a stunning offer: a total elimination of all tariffs and barriers to trade between the world’s largest economies. “I said, ‘I have an idea.… Everybody take down your barriers. No barriers, no tax. Everybody, are you all set?’” Trump told Fox’s Maria Bartiromo after the summit. “You know what happened? Everybody said, ‘Uh, can we get onto another subject?’”

A few weeks later, he made the same offer to the European Union. “The European Union is coming to Washington tomorrow to negotiate a deal on Trade,” Trump tweeted, “I have an idea for them. Both the U.S. and the E.U. drop all Tariffs, Barriers and Subsidies!”

None of our major trading partners showed any interest in Trump’s proposal.

Fast forward seven years, and the E.U. is suddenly offering to negotiate “zero-for-zero tariffs for industrial goods,” as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen put it last week. That sounded very much like the deal he offered them in his first term. What changed? Trump’s trade war. On April 2, the president announced he would impose a 20 percent across-theboard tariff on all E.U. imports – except for steel, aluminum and automobiles, which would be subject to a separate 25 percent tariff. That got Europe’s attention. “We prefer to have a negotiated solution,” von der Leyen said, later adding, “Europe is always ready for a good deal.”

It wasn’t ready seven years ago – or even seven weeks ago. It was only after Trump’s tariff announcement that European officials discovered their interest in the mutual elimination of protectionist trade barriers. (Trump rejected

By Marc A. Thiessen

the European offer, saying eliminating tariffs on industrial goods was not good enough and demanded the Europeans open their markets to U.S. agricultural products and expand energy purchases).

It’s not just the E.U. More than 75 countries, according to the White House, are now offering to negotiate deals to lower or eliminate their tariffs on American-made goods and services.

“Things that people wouldn’t have given us … three years ago, five years ago, seven, they’re giving us everything,” Trump said last week. “These countries are calling us up, kissing my [hand]. They are dying to make a deal. ‘Please, please, sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything.

I’ll do anything, sir.’”

Let’s be clear: The execution of Trump’s tariff policy thus far leaves a lot to be desired. In the three days after the U.S. tariffs launched, global markets lost $10 trillion in value. As millions of Americans saw their 401(k) values plummet, and bond market began a sell-off, Trump was forced to declare a partial 90-day pause (but not

for China, which now faces tariffs of 145 percent). He would have been much better off announcing from the outset that his tariffs would take effect in 90 days – which would have sparked the same scramble to cut deals but might have done so without causing the same market volatility.

The biggest problem, however, is that none of our trading partners knew what Trump wanted – and it was not clear his own advisers did, either. Trade adviser Peter Navarro declared Trump’s tariffs were “not a negotiation” but an effort to dismantle a “rigged system” and attacked Elon Musk for advocating the very same “zero-for-zero” deal with Europe that Trump had proposed in his first term. Meanwhile Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was saying the opposite, calling Trump’s tariffs part of a “successful negotiating strategy that … has brought more than 75 countries forward to negotiate.”

Even now, it’s unclear what Trump will do. There seems to be two Donald Trumps – one who says “tariff” is

the most beautiful word in the English language and wants use them to raise revenue and boost U.S. manufacturing; and a second, the author of the “Art of the Deal,” who sees them as leverage to negotiate deals with countries to take down trade barriers open their markets to U.S. exports. Let’s hope Trump chooses the latter course. Lowering other countries’ barriers to U.S. exports would do more to revitalize U.S. manufacturing and “make America wealthy again” than raising our own. Does Trump really love tariffs? Or does he profess his affection for them because, if other countries believe he is willing to impose them, it gives him leverage? Perhaps – fingers crossed – he’s applying President Richard M. Nixon’s “madman theory” to trade, convincing the world he is willing to blow up the global economy to bring nations to the table. Trump has said China will never invade Taiwan while he is president because Xi Jinping “knows I’m … crazy.” Now, the E.U. knows as well. The final result may be a mix. The goal with China is not to get to a “zero-for-zero” deal; it is to stop China’s malign behavior ranging from oversupply dumping to its theft of intellectual property and to reduce U.S. supply-chain dependence on Beijing for critical industries. As for the rest of the world, Bessent has said that “each one of these solutions is going to be bespoke.”

This much is certain: If Trump manages to negotiate the reduction or elimination of trade barriers to U.S. exports in as many as 75 countries, our tariff-loving commander-in-chief could end up the greatest free-trade president in history.

It seems like a lot longer ago than just eight months since then-Vice President Kamala Harris tapped Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate. Picking the inept Walz to stand beside her on the Democratic presidential ticket was one of a series of blunders that led to her being defeated by President Donald Trump in November. Indeed, so tone deaf was her campaign to the national mood that it is highly likely that she would have lost even if she had not passed over the far more politically adept Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro in favor of Walz.

The arson attack by a person who claimed his motive was support for the Palestinians in their war against Israel on the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg is a brutal reminder of why Shapiro didn’t get a chance to help prop up Harris’s doomed campaign.

Shapiro was a far more impressive candidate than Walz turned out to be. He certainly would have fared better than Walz in the vice-presidential debate against then-Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio). He also might have potentially helped flip Pennsylvania into the Democratic column. Instead, Trump won the commonwealth’s 19 Electoral College votes by a relatively slim but decisive 120,000 votes. Though he was as liberal as Walz on most issues, Harris picked the Minnesotan. The main reason was the widely held perception that Shapiro’s Jewish identity was disqualifying for many in her party’s left-wing base that reviles Israel.

In the end, neither that foolish decision nor a year’s worth of kowtowing to campus antisemites and American Muslim supporters of Hamas was enough to help Harris engender much enthusiasm from the intersectional activist wing of the Democratic Party, as

Israel Today

What the Shapiro Attack Tells Us About America in 2025

By Jonathan S. Tobin

working-class voters of all races turned out to help elect Trump and Vance.

Yet, as the Democratic Party rallies to the defense of elite universities being threatened with defunding by Trump because they refuse to stop tolerating and encouraging antisemitism, Jew-hatred remains a problem for Shapiro’s party.

Antisemitism on the Left

The arsonist, who reportedly also brought along a hammer with which he said he planned to assault the governor had he met him, was mentally unstable and had a criminal history. Yet much like the way mobs chanting for Israel’s destruction (“From the river to the sea”) and terrorism (“Globalize the intifada”) have normalized intimidation and violence against Jews, his ravings about “the Palestinian people” and opposition to Israel’s war against Hamas illustrate the impact of the lies being spread about a “genocide” being committed in Gaza.

It goes without saying that had someone who was a Trump supporter committed such an attack, the liberal corporate media would have tied the crime to the president, and it would have remained a top story for weeks, if not months. Instead, the press is quickly moving on from the attempt to murder the Pennsylvania governor, and there are no op-eds in The New York Times or The Washington Post claiming that left-wing Democrats have, at the very least, created an atmosphere in which such violence has become imaginable.

Of course, that’s exactly what Democrats and much of the press were saying in October 2018 when a crazed gunman, who blamed liberal Jewish groups for illegal immigration but also despised Trump because of his support for Israel, attacked a Pittsburgh synagogue and murdered 11 Jewish worshippers at a Shabbat service. Indeed, Shapiro himself, then the Attorney General of Pennsylvania, was saying much the

same thing himself when he was dropping hints about blaming Trump in the wake of that atrocity.

Shapiro and Muslims

That Shapiro has become an object of such suspicion and distaste for the left is ironic. When it comes to Israel, he is typical of most liberal Democratic officeholders. He was an early and enthusiastic supporter of President Barack Obama and never wavered from that position during that administration’s eight years of criticism of Israel and appeasement of Iran. He has attacked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “one of the worst leaders of all time.”

On Israel and the war in Gaza, he is far to the left of fellow Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. John Fetterman. Shapiro has also been actively trying to build bridges to the anti-Israel left. During the brief period when he was under consideration for the vice-presidential nomination, he disavowed two entirely reasonable op-eds he had written when he was a student because they stated the obvious truth that peace between Israel and the Palestinians was “virtually impossible.”

And just days before the arson attack on his home, the governor was being criticized by some in the Jewish community for his decision to give a $5 million state grant to a Philadelphia mosque— the largest-ever to a Pennsylvania-based Muslim institution—that is notorious as a hotbed of antisemitism. In doing so, Shapiro was sticking to the left’s disingenuous argument that a mythical wave of Islamophobia was morally equivalent to the unprecedented surge of antisemitism that has arisen since the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 2023 ,7 . The decision was announced when Shapiro attended

an Iftar dinner at the mosque, where he said the taxpayer funding of the expansion of the Al-Aqsa Islamic Society was a response to what he described as “tumult overseas,” adding that “we’re facing a lot of rising hate here at home.”

Yet none of that has exempted Shapiro from being the object of hatred from the left. The only reason why he is disliked by his party’s left-wing base—and considered “egregiously bad on Palestine” by The New Republic and Slate is because of his open embrace of his Jewish identity and refusal to completely disavow any support for Israel in the manner of far-left Jewish politicians like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt).

This raises serious questions about more than Shapiro’s political future.

The Future for American Jews

Shapiro is one of those Democrats obviously vying for the leadership of his party’s centrist wing. In his case, moderation is more a matter of tone than policy, as demonstrated last July by his graceful reaction to the attempted assassination of President Trump in

Butler, Pa. He remains very popular in Pennsylvania, something that will likely be boosted by the sympathy for him and his family after the arson attack. A highly-skilled politician, he is regarded as a heavy favorite for re-election in 2026 and is already on the short list of the most serious contenders for his party’s presidential nomination in 2028.

want leaders who are willing to wage war on Trump and the Republicans, rather than at least trying to appear to want to unify the country, as Shapiro does.

In the aftermath of Oct. 7, the vilification of nominally pro-Israel Jews, even Obama-supporting liberals like the Pennsylvania governor, has been nor -

His ravings about “the Palestinian people” and opposition to Israel’s war against Hamas illustrate the impact of the lies being spread about a “genocide” being committed in Gaza.

But it remains to be seen how he will ultimately fare in a party in which radical Israel-bashers like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who is inheriting Sanders’s position as putative leader of the left, seems to best represent the sentiments of Democrats. They clearly

malized by the political left on college campuses and in the media. This has created an atmosphere in which Jewish public figures who do not disavow Israel are anathema to the Democrats’ intersectional base.

More than that, it also proves that

antisemitism isn’t, as Democrats have long asserted, solely a phenomenon of the extremist right. Rooted in “progressive” orthodoxies like critical race theory, intersectionality and settler-colonialism, it is now primarily a feature of mainstream political discourse on the left. So strong is the hold of these toxic ideas that it has gotten to the point where liberal institutions like Harvard University would rather forgo $9 billion in federal funds rather than adhere to the Trump administration’s attempt to roll back the tide of woke Jew-hatred. That has not only isolated liberal Jews who have realized that longtime allies in other minority communities have largely abandoned them and institutions where they once felt at home are now hostile environments. It has created exactly the kind of atmosphere in which Jews of all sorts, whether on college campuses or even in the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, cannot consider themselves entirely safe.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate).

Jewish History

The Nazi Skeletons in Wesleyan U.’s Closet

By Rafael Medoff

The president of Wesleyan University claimed, in a recent New York Times op-ed, that the Trump administration and the Republican Party are teeming with secret or aspiring Nazis. But how did the Wesleyan administration relate to the actual Nazis and Nazi supporters on its Connecticut campus in the 1930s?

In February 1934, Wesleyan invited Dr. Friedrich Auhagen, a representative of Nazi Germany’s consulate in New York City, to address the student body. That was more a year after Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany, a year of the Nazi regime boycotting Jewish-owned businesses, of nationwide book-burnings, of Nazi takeovers of German universities, of mass firings of Jews from most professions, and of sporadic anti-Jewish violence. Yet none of that deterred the Wesleyan administration from inviting a Nazi official to campus.

In his remarks to the Wesleyan students, Auhagen railed against “excessive Jewish control” in Germany, claimed that reports of antisemitism were “widely exaggerated,” and declared that Jews who did not like living under Nazism should “go settle in certain regions of Russia.”

Hitler had some fans on the Wesleyan campus. The most enthusiastic was Paul H. Curts, a longtime professor of German. He was so sympathetic to the Nazis that he was cheering for them even before they rose to power. In a May 1932 speech, eight months before Hitler became chancellor of Germany, Prof. Curts declared that supporters of the Nazi Party generally were “staid, sober Germans.”

After Hitler and the Nazis became Germany’s rulers, Prof. Curts served as their lead apologist at Wesleyan. He made multiple trips to Germany in the 1930s, each time returning brimming with enthusiasm. After one such trip in

1934, Prof. Curts addressed the entire student body and told them Hitler was “the only man who could offer to Germany what it needed at present.”

Curts had been visiting Hamburg during the infamous “Night of the Long of Knives,” in which Hitler ordered the murder of hundreds of Nazis whom he suspected of disloyalty. The Wesleyan professor justified the killings on the grounds that “there had been a radical conspiracy on foot against Hitler” and “Germany must show a united front, and Hitler is the only man behind whom the people can be unified.”

In another address a few weeks later, Prof. Curts accused the American news media of publishing “exaggerated” reports of “incidents” in Germany. He praised Hitler for maintaining “quiet, order and discipline” and insisted the Nazis were not “trying to extend their doctrine throughout the world.” They merely wanted “Germany for the Germans,” the Wesleyan professor asserted.

Not only did the Wesleyan admin-

istration never restrict Curts’s pro-Nazi apologetics; it continued to give him platforms on campus to spread pro-Hitler propaganda among the students and faculty. Speaking on campus after yet another friendly visit to Nazi Germany, in 1936, Curts defended “the sincerity of Hitler’s offer of non-aggression and peace” and described Germany as “a peaceful place” where “security and order prevail.” Regarding Hitler’s anti-Jewish policies, Curts said “some action [against the Jews] was possibly justified,” that Nazi policies which Americans saw as anti-Jewish discrimination “are not really discriminations,” and “whether Germany has gone too far [concerning the Jews] remains for the future to decide.” That same year, Curts was named president of Wesleyan’s Publications Board.

Prof. Curts was not the only Nazi sympathizer on the Wesleyan faculty. His German Department colleague, Prof. John Blankenagel, chose to spend his sabbatical year, 1938-1939, in Nazi

Germany. That was the year of the nationwide Kristallnacht pogrom, the German conquest of Czechoslovakia, and, in September 1939, Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Speaking to Wesleyan’s assembled students the following month—after seven weeks of widely-reported Nazi atrocities in Poland—Prof. Blankenagel praised the Nazi regime, saying it had “accomplished a great many things, such as the elimination of unemployment, the successful housing program, the outlawing of strikes, the construction of highways, and the program of socialized medicine.”

The Wesleyan University administration took part in an exchange program with the University of the Berlin and other German institutions in the 1930s, despite the Nazi regime’s purging of Jewish faculty, implementation of a Nazi curriculum, and mass book-burnings at German universities. Hitler regarded student exchanges with American universities as a way to soften the Nazis’ image abroad. The Nazi official in charge of sending German students to American universities was quoted, in The New York Times, describing the German students in such exchanges as “political soldiers of the Reich.” But that did not dissuade Wesleyan from participating in the program.

German students at Wesleyan were given platforms to spew Nazi apologetics. Exchange student Paul Jahn was invited to address the students on “Student Life the Modern German University” in 1936. Jahn’s sympathies were no secret; the student newspaper, The Wesleyan Argus , matter-of-factly reported that Jahn had been “active in undergraduate Nazi activities” at the University of Berlin. Jahn assured the Wesleyan students that Nazi fraternities at German universities were “quite similar to Wesleyan fraternities.” He said, “American undergraduates re -

semble more closely German students than either the French or English.” They “have almost identical attitudes towards general good fellowship and athletics,” he asserted. Sure, there might be a few “overzealous students” in Germany, Jahn said, but “much of what is said in America about Nazism is ‘bunk’.”

One of the German exchange students who attended Wesleyan in 19381939 was Gerhard Hess, nephew of the number three leader in the Nazi regime, Rudolf Hess, a relationship that was known on campus at the time. The younger Hess gave at least two lectures to the campus German club. When Connecticut news media in 1941 broke the news that Hess had spent a year at Wesleyan, Prof. Curts acknowledged recently receiving a postcard from Hess in which he reported that he was “serving my country.” Prof. Curts speculated that young Hess “probably was disqualified for combat duty” because of his eyesight; but another faculty member reported, more ominously, that Hess had written friends at Wesleyan that he was serving “fifth column” duty in Rumania. That phrase was widely used by the Nazis to justify atrocities against Jews in German-occupied countries, including Rumania.

Some American students in Germany also spread pro-Nazi messages. The Wesleyan Argus in 1933 printed—on its front page—a letter from American students in Berlin denying there had been any “persecution of Jews and Catholics, or the demolition of Jewish places of business.” The “German revolution” was “orderly throughout,” the students declared, announcing that they “promise their German hosts to do everything in their power to enlighten their fellow countrymen concerning the real, peaceable conditions in Germany.”

The Wesleyan Argus also published advertisements from the Nazi regime encouraging student tourism to Germany. One excursion promoted in its pages in the summer of 1934 offered Wesleyan students reduced fares on German railways to attend the infamous antisemitic Passion Play at Oberammergau. Four years later, The Argus was still running ads from the Nazi regime.

Where was Wesleyan president James L. McConaughy during all of this? His administration never interfered with the pro-Nazi propaganda activities by professors Curts and Blankenagel, or the pro-Nazi statements by the German students on campus, or the decision of The Argus to publish

ads promoting student tourism to Nazi Germany.

Not only that, but President McConaughy at one point even actively sought to discourage Wesleyan’s Jewish students from pursuing medical careers.

In December 1934, he sent a letter to the twelve Jewish students enrolled

Prof.

weeks last year, despite their unauthorized occupation of part of the campus and vandalism by some protesters. Roth then agreed to let the extremists have a say in university investment policy in exchange for folding up their tents. Making concessions to the pro-Hamas students “only incentivizes more serious

Curts accused the American news media of publishing

“exaggerated” reports of “incidents” in Germany.

in pre-med courses, “advising” them that it would be “difficult for Wesleyan to place her graduates of the Jewish race in medical schools,” because Jews were already “overcrowding” those institutions. McConaughy insisted that “medical schools are not anti-Semitic” and were even “leaning over backward” to avoid antisemitism, “but the Jewish boys who are interested in medicine ought to know the facts early in their college course.” He was just giving them helpful “vocational guidance,” he said.

Wesleyan was far from the only American university to welcome Nazi representatives to campus, tolerate pro-Nazi faculty members, sponsor student exchanges with Nazified German universities, or in other ways maintain friendly relations with the Hitler regime. Stephen Norwood documented in his book, The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower, how Harvard, Columbia and other prominent American educational institutions did likewise.

But that does not make Wesleyan’s record any more palatable—especially considering that its current president, Michael Roth, not only has accused U.S. government officials of being Nazi wannabes (in his recent New York Times op-ed), but has responded meekly when extremist students at Wesleyan openly cheer for Hamas, the perpetrators of Nazi-like murder, torture, and atrocities against Israeli Jews.

Wesleyan’s code of student conduct prohibits “disturbance of the peace” (clause 1) and “the unauthorized use, or the abuse, destruction or theft of University property” (clause 3). Yet President Roth tolerated disruptive proHamas tent protests for more than three

early presidents advocated the mass migration of blacks from the United States to Africa or the fact that the university implemented a whites-only admissions policy for many years. But the Beman project indicates that the university is sensitive to the feelings of the African-American community.

Wesleyan should show a similar sensitivity for the concerns of the Jewish community. President Roth should publicly acknowledge that his university was wrong to invite a Nazi representative to campus, to tolerate pro-Nazi propaganda on campus by faculty members and exchange students, and to maintain friendly relations with Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

escalation in the future,” the Anti-Defamation League warned.

History matters. In recent years, President Roth has appropriately devoted some university resources to the preservation and promotion of the Beman Triangle, a historic African-American neighborhood near the university. Of course, that project cannot make up for the fact that some of Wesleyan’s

Dr. Rafael Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and author of more than 20 books about Jewish history and the Holocaust. His book The Road to October 7: Hamas, the Holocaust, and the Eternal War Against the Jews will be published on October 1, 2025, by The Jewish Publication Society / University of Nebraska Press.

Political Crossfire

Inside a City Swept by Roving Gunmen, Deadly Grudges and Fear

By Christina Goldbaum

BANIYAS, Syria — The Syrian city was nearly empty in early March, its streets littered with burned cars. Shops were plundered, their windows shattered, and locks shot off. Some buildings were little more than blackened walls and ash.

Emergency workers had turned a looted furniture store into a makeshift morgue. A white pickup truck pulled up, a pair of feet dangling over the back in pink socks with white polka dots. Minutes later, an ambulance arrived with two other bodies, then a blue pickup appeared carrying more.

Nearby, men pleaded with emergency workers to help collect the remains of their killed loved ones.

“There’s seven bodies in that building.”

“There’s another body on the square.”

“There are at least 40 bodies on one road.”

The city, Baniyas, was the site of some of the worst violence in Syria last month, when thousands of armed men stormed the country’s Mediterranean coast and killed

more than 1,600 civilians, mostly from the Alawite religious minority.

Over three days, gunmen went house to house, summarily executing civilians and opening fire in the streets, according to dozens of residents who spoke to The New York Times.

My colleagues and I managed to report from the city for nearly a day as the killings unfolded. What we found was evidence of a massacre — and a broad failure by the new, rebel-led government to protect Alawites, the group that dominated Syria’s elite circles during the Assad family’s decades-long dictatorship.

The rebels overthrew Bashar Assad in December, ending a nearly 14-year civil war that had left half a million people dead. In its first three months in power, the new government restored relative calm to the country, largely restraining those who sought revenge for atrocities committed under the Assads.

The explosion of violence along the coast shattered that fragile peace.

It began in early March, when former security forces in the Assad regime launched a coordinated attack on the new government’s troops across Latakia and Tartus provinces. To quell the unrest, the government rushed reinforcements to the region, an Assad stronghold with a large number of Alawites, who practice an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

In the chaos, thousands of other gunmen arrived with a different agenda: targeting Alawites in a rampage of sectarian killings.

Many of those killed in Baniyas were buried in a mass grave under the supervision of government security personnel, according to residents who were at the burials as well as photographs and videos of the site verified by the Times.

The new Syrian authorities effectively sealed off the region to foreign reporters as the violence unfolded, forcing us to leave the city. But we spoke by phone with more than 40 residents and interviewed local leaders, Syrian officials, war monitoring

groups, analysts and human rights experts.

We also obtained and verified dozens of videos and photographs taken during the killings and their immediate aftermath, despite a government ban on documenting evidence of the violence.

We found that armed civilians and former rebel groups carried out many of the killings in Baniyas. At least some government soldiers deployed to restore order also participated in the killings, according to a Syrian government official and residents.

Our reporting showed how little control the new government and its leader, former jihadi and rebel commander Ahmad al-Sharaa, now exercise over the various armed groups and former rebels that have nominally joined his government. They include Sunni Muslim extremists and foreign jihadis who consider Alawites to be heretics. Many of them, along with those in al-Sharaa’s own rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, also want vengeance for brutality committed by the Alawite-dominated Assad regime.

Syrian government security in Baniyas, Syria

The exact identities of all of the armed groups involved in the killings remain unclear.

Syria’s authorities have denied that their security forces committed atrocities but said that they were investigating and holding to account anyone who had harmed civilians. In March, the government formed two committees: one to investigate those involved in violence against civilians and another to protect Alawite communities on the coast from further violence.

Security forces have arrested at least two people in connection with the violence, officials said, though the investigation remains ongoing. No evidence has surfaced to suggest that senior leaders in the new government directed the killings, according to war monitors and diplomats. Government officials did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

In Baniyas, the government’s assurances have meant little to residents who saw the chaos.

Over the past month, around 20,000 Syrians have fled to Lebanon, according to Lebanese officials and rights groups. Thousands more are still hiding at friends’ homes and sheltering inside a Russian air base in the region.

“They killed the people. They burned the houses. They broke into the stores,” said Siba, 30, a Baniyas resident, who like most people we interviewed preferred to go by only her first name, for fear of retaliation. “I’m terrified.”

The Ambush

The heartland for Syria’s Alawite minority lies along a 110-mile stretch of mountainous coastline tucked between Lebanon and Turkey. Baniyas, home to around 40,000 people, sits at its center.

The city is divided along sectarian lines: The south is home mostly to Sunni Muslims, while the northern neighborhoods are mostly Alawite. Although some Alawites in Baniyas served in Assad’s military, many others were disenfranchised under his government, according to residents.

When Assad was ousted in December, many feared the coast was a powder keg. Elite forces from Assad’s military had retreated to the area, former regime officers said. Some called for Alawites to mobilize an armed response against Syria’s new authorities.

Then, on Thursday, March 6, those fears were realized.

That afternoon, former security forces in the Assad regime launched a series of ambushes on government troops across the coast. Syrian authorities responded in force, and gunfire and artillery consumed

Latakia province for hours.

The clashes reached Baniyas around 2 a.m. Friday. Assad loyalists laid siege to the main police station, residents and officials said. As wounded police officers flooded into Baniyas’ state-run hospital, snipers began picking off government personnel guarding its doors.

By dawn, the coast was imploding.

The Gunmen

On Friday morning, Siba, 30, a kindergarten teacher, was sitting in her living room in al-Qusour, a predominantly Alawite neighborhood in Baniyas. She scrolled through the state media’s Telegram channel, where the government announced it was sending reinforcements to search for the armed groups that had attacked its troops.

Siba said she and her brother, Ahmad, 36, were relieved. They had barely slept the night before as gunfire rang out, and she hoped government troops would be able to restore calm.

“We thought, it’s OK; we’ll stay inside, and all the blasts and gunfire would be over soon,” she said.

A few hours later, around a dozen men who said they were from the government’s elite General Security forces — units made up of the rebels who overthrew Assad — arrived at Siba’s door, she said.

Her brother and their 70-year-old father walked outside, their hands raised.

Ahmad explained that he had worked as a military officer under the Assad government and handed them a document, issued by Syria’s new authorities, proving he had surrendered his weapons. Her father told the soldiers he was retired and had worked for the city’s state-owned power plant.

Siba said the security forces inspected the document, searched the house for weapons and, finding none, told the family to remain inside.

“They said it was safer to stay in our

home, that they were only going after the remnants of the regime that attacked them,” Siba said. The forces, she added, “were very respectful with us.”

Like many other residents, Siba did not realize that other armed groups were also coming with a different motive: hunting down Alawites.

Many residents said that, at first, they assumed those gunmen were members of the government’s elite security forces. Most wore military fatigues and drove trucks outfitted with machine guns, similar to those in photographs on the state media’s Telegram channel, according to photographs and videos we verified.

But as the groups tore through the streets, residents said, they realized these were not government reinforcements sent to restore order.

Some of the gunmen shouted in formal or broken Arabic and were dressed in salwar kameez, the long-sleeved tunic and long pants worn in South and Central Asia — a clue to locals that they were likely foreign jihadis. Others appeared to be armed civilians seeking revenge for wrongs committed during the civil war, residents said.

By late Friday morning, those groups far outnumbered government forces in the region, according to two Syrian officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

Around 20 minutes after the government forces left Siba’s house, one of the soldiers returned with a different group of armed men, she said. They shouted for Siba’s father and brother by name and dragged them outside. Siba followed them to their back garden.

The gunmen shot her brother five times, according to Siba and her husband, Muhanad, 40, who was not home when the gunmen arrived but later recovered Ahmad’s body.

When her father cried out, “No! No!”

the gunmen shot him too, Siba said.

“I was screaming and crying,” she said. “I lost my mind at that moment.”

Before they left, Siba said one of them paused and stared her down. “What, are you scared now?” he growled. “We’ll come back for you.”

Siba raced back inside and dropped to the ground, her entire body trembling.

When the gunshots subsided, she ran to a forest line’s thicket nearby. She stayed there for two days, unable to shake the image of her father and brother lying bloodied in their yard.

“My father was our love. He was our pillar,” she said. “The men were like Satan. They just killed him.”

The Killing Spree

Over the next three days, the armed groups rained terror across Baniyas.

The gunmen went door to door, killing Alawites in their homes, residents said. At one apartment building, a group of men shoved a resident onto his knees, called him an “Alawite dog” and demanded he bark before shooting him, according to two of his neighbors.

Other gunmen drove over the bodies of those killed in the street, videos verified by the Times show.

The overtly sectarian killings sowed panic across Baniyas, where many had started to trust Syria’s new authorities. In their first three months in power, the government’s security forces in Tartus province had largely made good on their promises to maintain stability.

Jihan, 30, who worked in a farm supply store, had found those forces professional and respectful. She said that she and her family did not support the Assad government and that when his regime collapsed, she was relieved.

Then on Saturday morning, Jihan saw a convoy of gunmen set her neighbor’s house aflame on the outskirts of al-Qusour. She rushed upstairs and hid in a bedroom with her brother, Qusay, and other relatives.

A few minutes later, men forced open their front door. The family heard plates and glasses shatter — and then boots stomping up the stairs.

Two masked men in military fatigues burst in and pointed their rifles at Qusay, Jihan said. He held up his ID card, showing he was a civilian. The gunmen tossed it aside.

They dragged him downstairs and forced him onto his knees, Jihan and two of her relatives said. As they rifled through the family’s belongings, Qusay recognized one of the men. He had been a customer at his grocery store and a member of the new

government’s forces, according to Jihan and a store employee sheltering with them.

“You know me, please,” Qusay begged. The man told Qusay that he could not help.

Upstairs, an older man with the militia demanded that Jihan hand over all of her cash, gold and phones, or her nieces would be killed. Then the gunmen threw Qusay in their car and sped away, according to Jihan, the employee and another person present.

Moments after the gunmen left, she and her relatives dashed out their back door and ran for the mountains outside the city. When Jihan called her brother’s phone a few hours later, a man with a gruff voice picked up. Jihan asked if her brother was still alive.

The man laughed, Jihan recalled. “We killed your brother on the street,” he said. Days later, Jihan’s father combed through the bodies on the roads, one by one. After hours of searching, he found Qusay, his chest riddled with bullet wounds and blood staining the pavement.

The Escape

As terror swept through the city, thousands of desperate Alawites fled. Some hid in the forests on the city’s outskirts, surviving for days on leaves and

river water, according to residents. Others left in their cars, dodging bodies that lay in the streets.

As the massacre dragged on, escaping the city grew difficult. Gunmen had fanned out and set up checkpoints to prevent Alawites from leaving. Some Sunni Muslims tried to help their neighbors who were unable to sneak out.

Ahmad, 38, a businessperson in al-Qu-

Ahmad’s friend swerved onto a back road, but it was blocked with bodies and burning cars. The family doubled back to the intersection, where a gunman stopped them and ripped open the driver’s seat door.

“Sunni or Alawite?” he asked.

Ahmad’s friend said that he was Sunni and had come to collect other relatives trapped in the neighborhood. The gunman

The family heard plates and glasses shatter — and then boots stomping up the stairs.

sour, said he called a Sunni Muslim friend begging for help. The friend asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.

He soon arrived at Ahmad’s apartment with a plan: He gave Ahmad’s sister-in-law and nieces hijabs so they would look like Sunni women, and they set off in his car to another friend’s home outside the city.

Within minutes, they saw gunmen in military fatigues swarming a major intersection, according to Ahmad and one of his relatives.

paused, took a photograph of both men and said if they were lying, they would suffer. Then he waved them through.

Some residents unable to escape hid in orchards and abandoned buildings throughout the city. The armed groups took advantage of the deserted buildings, ransacking homes and shops.

They took everything they could find: solar panels from roofs, furniture from apartments, lithium batteries for generators.

When the three-day rampage ended, at least 368 people, including 13 children, had been killed in Baniyas, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitoring group.

Bodies were everywhere. Sprawled across living room floors. Hunched over in citrus orchards. Lying bloodied on roads. The hospital’s morgue was overflowing, as was a refrigerated mortuary truck.

A handful braved the streets, desperate to find and bury their loved ones.

Siba, whose father and brother were killed, was too terrified to return home. But her husband, Muhanad, drove back and found the bodies crumpled on the ground.

With the help of emergency workers, he wrapped them in white tarps and took them to the cemetery on the outskirts of Baniyas. He heard women wailing across the hillside.

Muhanad carried his relatives’ remains to a newly dug mass grave. He lowered them into the deep brown earth. Then he recited a short prayer.

“What can I say? We are living in fear,” Muhanad said days later. “Death, death is everywhere.”

© The New York Times

Forgotten Her es The Sinking of the Ships

By Avi Heiligman

While battleships were the heaviest ships afloat during World War II, smaller ships like destroyers and submarines played a pivotal role in control for the high seas. Protecting shipping lanes was a priority for the Allied navies and destroyers that were designed for this purpose. Not only were they equipped with anti-submarine weapons, they also carried torpedoes that if the opportunity presented itself could take down large vessels including mighty battleships.

Destroyers played important roles during the sinking of several large Japanese and German warships. The German battleship Scharnhorst was a 32,000-ton capital ship that had been responsible for sinking several British ships including the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious. The Scharnhorst was one of two German battleships to have made the Channel Dash in February 1942. Together with other German ships, they made a run through the English Channel and for the most part avoided the British Navy. The Scharnhorst was damaged by a mine and was out of action for a year. Finally, during the Battle of the North Cape in December 1943, she was severely damaged by the battleship HMS Duke of York. Destroyers were on the scene and launched torpedoes into the stricken battleship. Finally, a salvo of nineteen torpedoes from Opportune, Virago, Musketeer and Matchless caused the German battleship to capsize.

The Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944 was a last ditch naval venture by the Japanese to stop the Americans

landings in the Philippines. The Battle of Surigao Strait was the southernmost action of the larger Battle of Leyte Gulf and was the last battleship vs. battleship engagement in history. American forces were able to achieve the classic naval warfare maneuver of crossing the “T” of the Japanese warships. The Japanese battleship Yamashiro was sunk in this engagement with American destroyers heavily involved in taking down the 35,000-ton battleship. Torpedoes from the destroyers damaged the much larger ship, and she was sunk by cruisers and battleships.

the area the same day and went on patrol for the next four days. Early in the morning on October 25, she teamed up with two other destroyers during the first part of the Battle of Surigao Strait. Shortly after 3 AM in the morning, she launched torpedoes, which scored hits on the Japanese battleship Fuso. The Fuso was a 29,000-ton ship that carried 14-inch and 16-inch guns. She sank in about a half-hour after the torpedo attack caused widespread damage on the battleship. This marked the first and only time that a destroyer sank a battleship unassisted.

This marked the first and only time that a destroyer sank a battleship unassisted.

The USS Melvin (DD-680) was present at the Battle of Surigao Strait and made history by singlehandedly taking down a battleship. Launched in October 1943, Fletcher Class destroyer USS Melvin weighed 2,000 tons and was armed with five 5-inch guns. She also had ten torpedo tubes and depth charge projectors that would come in use if submarines were encountered on escort duty. The ship was assigned to a variety of duties including escorting merchant ships, shore bombardment, anti-submarine patrol and screening for larger ships in the fleet. American troops had landed on Leyte on October 20, 1944. The Melvin entered

There are other known incidents where destroyers have taken on much larger ships and emerged victorious. Four Allied destroyers, Legion, Sikh, Maori and Isaac Sweers , located two Italian cruisers on December 13, 1941, near Cape Bon in the Mediterranean Sea. The destroyers used radar to locate the light cruisers Alberto di Giussano and Alberico da Barbiano. The Sikh fired first at a distance of 1,000 feet. Using their main guns and torpedoes, the other destroyers soon joined in the battle. Several hits were scored on both ships. They were sunk without damage to the Allied destroyers.

During the Battle of Cape Esperance on October 11, 1942, the destroyer, USS Duncan, fired a salvo of torpedoes at the Japanese cruiser Furutaka. Gunfire from other ships caused the Japanese cruiser to sink, but the Duncan was mortally wounded in the engagement. Attempts were made to save the American destroyer as the fires raged on board but it was of no help. The call to abandon ship was given and most of the crew was rescued. The Duncan’s commander, Edmund B. Taylor, was awarded the Navy Cross. His citation reads in part: “Although his ship had sustained heavy damage under hostile bombardment, Lieutenant Commander Taylor, by skillful maneuvering, successfully launched torpedoes which contributed to the destruction of a Japanese cruiser. Maintaining the guns of the Duncan in effective fire throughout the battle, he, when the vessel was finally put out of action, persistently employed to the fullest extent all possible measures to extinguish raging fires and control severe damage.”

During World War II it wasn’t a common occurrence for a small surface ship to take on and be victorious against a larger warship. The Forgotten Heroes on these destroyers who successfully took on larger ships is history to be remembered.

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.

Edmund B. Taylor, commander of the Duncan

Ships during the Battle of Leyte Gulf

The German battleship Scharnhorst

The Japanese battleship Yamashiro

Classifieds

SERVICES SERVICES SERVICES

VACUUM SALES AND REPAIR

All areas call Max Flam 718-444-4904

THE LEATHER SHOPPE

The spot for all your custom leather Judaica. Tallis/tefillin bags, lulav and esrog bags, havdallah sets, challah covers, shtenders, pesach sets, matzah/afikomen bags.  WhatsApp: (732) 523-0007 or email: theleathershoppe732@gmail.com for a full catalog. We ship.

PEACEFUL PRESENCE STUDIO

Men’s private yoga, Licensed Massage & Holistic Health Guidance 436 Central Ave, Cedarhurst Info. & free video training www.peacefulpresence.com 516-371-3715

GERBER MOVING

FULL SERVICE MOVING

Packing Moving Supplies

Local Long Distance. Licensed Insured 1000’S Of Happy Customers

Call Shalom 347-276-7422

HANDYMAN AVAILABLE

For big or small jobs, Sheetrock, carpentry, painting, electrical, plumbing, install & repair appliances Call Ephraim at 347-593-4691

MANAGEMENT STAFF WILL ASSIST

you with:

* Obtaining Medicaid and Pooled Income Trust

* In-home Assessments, Individual and Family Counseling

* Securing reliable home care assistance

* Case and Care Management services

Dr. S. Sasson, DSW, LCSW (718) 544- 0870 or (646) 284-6242

HAIR COURSE:

Learn how to wash & style hair & wigs.

Hair and wig cutting, wedding styling

Private lessons or in a group

Call Chaya 718-715-9009

ZEVIZZ WOODTURNING JUDAICA

Challah knifes, batei mezuzah, besamim holder, kiddish cups, havdalah candle holders, yad for sefer torah, pens, stenders, bowls and more  952-356-2228

MY MOTTO IS DON’T WAIT TO buy real estate

Buy real estate and wait Your realtor for life

516-784-0856 Alexandra at Realty Connect USA

HOUSES FOR SALE

CEDARHURST

Don’t miss this opportunity!

4 Bedroom 21/2 Bathroom House  Perfectly located in Cedar Bay Park, walking distance to all. Oversized property for expansion,

A Must See. LOCATION, LOCATION.

For More Info call (516) 881-7727

Leave Message

WOODMERE

Beautiful, brick, colonial boasting

5 bdr 3.5 Bth in pristine condition.

Excellent location, near all! Move right in! RCUSA 516-512-9626

Classifieds

HOUSES FOR SALE

Don’t Get Stuck With a Two Story House Ya Know, It’s One Story Before You Buy It But a Second Story After You Own It! Call Dov Herman For An Accurate Unbiased Home Inspection InfraredTermite Inspection Full Report All Included NYC 718-INSPECT Long Island 516-INSPECT www.nyinspect.com

REAL ESTATE MANAGEMENT

Services – Do Not Manage Your Properties Alone!

Contact Aliyah Suites for all your real estate management needs and affordable office space near you! (516) 366-1049 Management@aliyahsuites.com

Marc Jeret (MJ) Team Leader & Licensed Real Estate Agent

COMMERCIAL REAL ESATATE

HEART OF CEDARHURST

Entrance off Gourmet Glatt lot, second floor, shared bath, ideal for therapist/ office work, includes utilities, $600. Call 516-371-3715

HELP WANTED

COME JOIN THE TEAM AT Yeshiva Har Torah! Seeking for 2025-2026: - Elementary Judaic/General Studies Teachers - Middle School Judaic/General Studies Teachers - SETSS Providers - School Psychologist Excellent Salary and Benefits Package! Email resumes@hartorah.org

INSIDE SALES & ACCOUNT

HELP WANTED

5 TOWNS BOYS YESHIVA High School looking for General Studies Teachers for next school year Openings available in the following subjects: Math, English, Science, Personal Training/Fitness Excellent CompensationGreat Work Environment Qualified candidates should send resumes to: 5Tyeshivajobs@gmail.com

CAN’T AFFORD YOUR PROPERTY TAXES? MORTGAGE? Must sell for any reason? Call for FREE Consultation. Call now 212-470-3856 Cash buyers available!

HOUSES FOR RENT

BIG FULLY RENOVATED, Woodmere, spacious 4bedroom 2 full bath split level.2 car garage +driveway. Backyard on water SD#14. W&D. Tons of storage space. 347-517-3552

Manager – Long Island Join PEYD’s growing team! Hybrid role managing customer interactions via text, email, WhatsApp, and calls. Sales, service & detail-oriented skills required. $50-70K + commission. Send resumes to hr@getpeyd.com

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

SEEKING ELEMENTARY TEACHERS and assistants for General Studies for the ‘25-’26 year. Assistants should have skills to take over for teachers if needed. Far Rockaway area boys’ school, M-Th, PM hours, strong support. Excellent salary. Send resume to teachersearch11@gmail.com.

REGENTS EXPERT

Tutoring regents in Algebra and Geometry A Darchei Torah instructor. Guaranteed results Text 347-491-8045 WhatsApp 347-767-1755

Classifieds

classifieds@fivetownsjewishhome.com • text 443-929-4003

HELP WANTED BOOKKEEPER

Excellent growth potential, Frum environment, Excellent salary & benefits. Email resume to: resumetfs1@gmail.com

MDS REGIONAL NURSE

5 Towns area Nursing Home management office seeking a Regional/Corporate level MDS Nurse to work in our office.

Must be an RN. Regional experience preferred. 2-3 years MDS experience with good computer skills required. Position is Full Time but Part Time can be considered. Great Shomer Shabbos environment with some remote options as well. Email: officejob2019@gmail.com

HELP WANTED

JOIN OUR TEAM!

IVDU 5T Special Education

Elementary School in North Woodmere is hiring experienced, creative, and warm teachers for the 2025/26 school year. Monday-Friday. Send your resume to Hechtr@ou.org or call 516-665-0043 for details.

DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANT

A multi-tasker needed for general office work. The ideal candidate is someone who is detail-oriented, responsible, and can take ownership. Looking for someone who is eager to learn, and expand his/her skill set while possessing the ability to work independently and as part of a team. Experience with Excel required. Five Towns location. In-office position only, not remote. Please send resume to 5tpart.timecareer@gmail.com

YESHIVAT KOL YAAKOV

In Great Neck, NY, is seeking general studies teachers for both the elementary and middle schools, for the upcoming academic year. Mon-Thur afternoons. Competitive salary, warm and supportive environment.  Send resume to m.kalati@kolyaakov.org

THE MARION & AARON GURAL

JCC Early Childhood

Center is hiring Assistant Teachers and Substitute Teachers for the 2025-2026 school year, and summer camp counselors, lifeguards, and camp nurse. Applicants must be over 16-years-old for Summer, 2025. Please send resumes to JCC.Nursery@guraljcc.org or call (516) 239-1354.

HELP WANTED MISC. MISC.

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

SHMIRAS HALASHON

Text 516-303-3868 with a time slot of your choice to be careful on lashon hara. Be a part of the 1,000 people for klal yisroel!

LOOKING FOR GENTLY USED/

New wigs to be donated to help the hundreds of women that are single mothers, battling cancer, suffering from hair loss, brides, women that haven’t purchased wigs in years etc Drop off locations all over the Tristate area beyond!

Please reach out to Berta for more information 917-474-4305