Five Towns Jewish Home 07.17.25

Rabbi Wolowik Escorts

Chief

Yosef to the Ohel

Dear Readers,

It’s camp season, which means that I’m tethered to my phone.

Any parent who has kids in sleepaway camp can understand this feeling. It means that any unknown number that comes up has to be answered. It also means that calls can come in at any time – 12:30 in the morning or a minute before licht benching. Really, it’s any time that your child can get a hold of a phone and call home.

Sometimes, the phone calls are short. Their counselor said they could call and they only have a minute so they want to say hi but really they ran out of toothpaste (already?!) and can you send up more cases of seltzer and they got poison ivy and their friend has pneumonia and their fan just broke and they really need more croutons and chocolate and squeezy candies but camp is great.

Other times, usually the first call home, you pick up the phone and there’s no one there. Or at least, you thought there was no one there, but then there’s a sniffle and you realize that your child is holding back tears. Or maybe they’re not holding them back so well. But it doesn’t mean that they’re always sad and they’re missing you all the time. It really just means that hearing your voice has brought back a flood of emotions. They’re OK, for real, they just really like hearing your voice and all that represents. So camp’s great, but they remember that they like it a lot at home, too.

Years ago, I was a camper in Camp Sternberg. Back then (I don’t know the rules now), there were no phone calls allowed. And they meant no phone calls – legit. And because I’m such a dinosaur, there were no cell phones, which meant that if you wanted to call home, you had to search out the five pay phones (re-

member those?) they had scattered around camp. And if you got caught calling home without permission? Well, we didn’t want to know of those consequences. So communication was really down to paper and pen.

There were lots of letters: “Dear Tatty and Mommy, how are you? I am fine. Camp is great. My counselors are great. Today we had shiur and volleyball. How is it by you? How is the weather? Did you get to go swimming? Did Chana have a baby yet? Miss you. Love you.”

And of course, the answers to all those important questions had to wait until the snail mail came back two weeks later with answers like: “We are fine. The weather is nice. I went swimming today. Chana didn’t have a baby yet.”

Despite the really slow communication (or lack of it), we survived, and we enjoyed our summer. And kids nowadays? They’re also enjoying their summer. They’re loving it even though their fan broke and they ran out of croutons and they got poison ivy. Kids years ago had those challenges, too. Parents just didn’t know about them until their kids came home, and at that point, it didn’t really matter that they ran out of toothpaste three days into camp.

For now, though, for the next few weeks, I’m going to stay tethered to my phone. I love hearing about their time in camp – bumps in the road and all. I like hearing that they ran out of croutons and seltzer. After all, it’s not like I’m sending them any more (thank you, camps, for your no-package policy!), and this way, they’ll have to figure out how to eat soup without croutons and drink water instead of seltzer.

Isn’t that why we send them to camp?

Wishing you a wonderful week, Shoshana

Yitzy Halpern, PUBLISHER publisher@fivetownsjewishhome.com

Yosef Feinerman, MANAGING EDITOR ads@fivetownsjewishhome.com

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Thunder Storms

Dear Editor,

During these Three Weeks, it is important to rectify what happened during this tragic time in our history: build the world. In a world that’s filled with fake news, we have to be the ones who stand for truth, justice and the Torah way.

The Gemara in Shabbos (104a) tells us why the letters that spell sheker (falsehood) stand close together while the letters that comprise the word emes (truth) are far apart. This is because falsehood is easily found while the truth is only found with great difficulty.

There are so many lies told about the Jews: we are white colonists, we kill Palestinian civilians, we control Hollywood. Sheker is so pervasive that we can sometimes believe it ourselves, r”l, and forward it many times. One should therefore do their due diligence and try to ascertain the truth of the statements they read – and certainly before sending them around. Even then, one should ask their rav if such messages should be forwarded at all. There are things that need to be said, yes, but think and ask first. Let peace go viral: share a dvar Torah, give a compliment, invite someone over for Shabbos. Do what is pleasing before Hashem.

We need not please the liars; they’re not going to like us anyway. Instead, we should ask ourselves: “What is the ratzon Hashem,” as Dovid Hamelech did. The result was 150 chapters of Tehillim: songs of praise to Hashem for any occasion. If we daven to Hashem, learn Torah, and make peace with our fellow Jew, we will merit the coming of Moshiach soon.

Chaim Yehuda Meyer

Dear Editor,

We’re in a period of difficulty now, but we must investigate whether difficulty is a positive manifestation.

My uncle, Rabbi Genack, quotes Rabbi Nissen Alpert, zt”l, a close talmid of Rabbi

Moshe Feinstein, regarding how to understand suffering. Rav Alpert quotes from the verse in Tehillim (23:4), “Your rod and Your staff – they comfort me.” He asks how there can be comfort in a rod and staff when these are instruments of discipline and punishment. He answers that punishment from G-d is really the greatest comfort, as it opens up the path for yeshuos.

I believe one way to understand Rav Alpert’s words would be to say that a rod and staff symbolize tools to correct one’s path. Therefore, G-d’s meting out of hardships is really a gift, a signal to contemplate where self-improvement is necessary. We act similarly: when we discipline our children, it’s out of deep love, because we want them to grow into upstanding individuals.

This overlaps with the Chazon Ish’s modern-day understanding of bitachon. It’s not about expecting a positive outcome in all situations, but about realizing that G-d is in control of every detail and that whatever occurs is for our best. Therefore, we have a twofold comfort in any kind of suffering: it’s a loving gesture to move us toward self-improvement and it’s a way for us to come closer to G-d, knowing that any difficulty or suffering we endure is specifically coming from the Creator to perfect our future.

Steven Genack

Dear Editor,

L’toeles harabim: There are a few new chats set up for connecting people on vacation to make minyanim this summer in different areas in the U.S., including the Southwest; Colorado and Yellowstone; Kentucky, Tennessee, and The Great Smoky Mountains; and New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. Last year, hundreds of people were able to arrange minyanim on vacation from these chats. You don’t need a smartphone to join.

Continued on page 12

Continued from page 10 Text 218-464-6926 to join or for more info.

The Lonner Family

Dear Editor,

Zohran Mamdani’s victory in last month’s Democratic mayoral primary was more than a win for socialists within the party; he has now become the face of the party, as Republicans are concerned. However, the arguments made by Assemblyman Ari Brown’s opinion column last week, “Always a Republican, Proudly Pro-Israel, and Fiercely American -Democrats Have Abandoned All Three,” distorts the situation within my party.

The pro-Israel community knows Sen. John Fetterman and Ritchie Torres as the most outspoken voices supporting Israel, having been honored by Touro and Yeshiva Universities, a handful of local Orthodox organizations, and Orthodox news publications.

Seemingly out of the spotlight are Nassau Reps. Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen, who spoke out against Mamdani’s policies and views after his primary victory, while some of their colleagues rushed to congratulate him. Perhaps it is not in the interest of Assemblyman Brown to say something nice about his Congresswoman because she is in the other party, having won the seat last year by a two percent margin.

If we truly care about Israel’s security and combating antisemitism, we must recognize that it is in the best interests of Israel and the Jewish community when members of both parties stand with us. New York Post and Fox News Channel certainly are not mouthpieces for the Democratic Party, and as they recognized Gillen and Suozzi’s principled opposition towards socialists within my party, I would like to see this in local Jewish media as well.

If Brown is curious why there are still Jews in the Democratic Party, I can only speak for myself. I am concerned about the due process that is routinely violated by immigration enforcement agents, the growing power of one branch over the others, and the abandonment of our NATO allies and Ukraine. I believe that labor unions are necessary in securing safe working conditions, good benefits and wages, and legal representation. As an immigrant, I want people to come here and contribute to our economy, with a path towards citizenship rather than obstacles. I believe in clean energy that can be harnessed from the vast ocean facing Long Island, which Assemblyman Brown opposes.

I also recognize the electoral power of pro-Israel Democrats in primary elections, such as last year in Westchester when Rep. Jamaal Bowman was ousted in favor of George Latimer.

To summarize, Nassau County’s Democrats are not the same as those in Astoria. We know exactly why we are Democrats and we can speak for ourselves. Sergey Kadinsky West Hempstead, NY

Dear Editor,

Kudos to Bret Stephen’s article in last week’s paper explaining the term “Globalize the Intifada.” It was a timely article for me, personally, as someone in a chat group had said that this statement was not antisemitic as “intifada” meant “shaking off.” The article gave practical personal examples of how the term implies violence and murder.

Language changes with time. Inevitably, the definition of a word or phrase is defined not by people’s emotions but rather by physical actions tied to a word or phrase’s usage. For example, when you say, “I’m taking a shower,” you don’t intend to physically possess the shower and move it from one place to another one. You mean that you are washing yourself in the shower. Similarly, the intifada was demonstrated by peaceful resistance and rallies in its early days. Yasser Arafat changed its meaning by encouraging physical violence by murder and injury. Hezbollah, Fatah, Hamas and other terrorists know exactly what the word “intifada” means. So does Mamdani. That’s exactly why he won’t condemn those who use this term. Anyone who thinks that “Globalize the intifada” is not antisemitic is a fool. Mamdani doesn’t want to “police other people’s speech.” But when someone says something against him, he claims that his opponent is racist or Islamophobic. It seems that such speech he will police.

It’s interesting to note how many Jews don’t consider this as well as “From the River to the Sea, Palestine shall be free” as antisemitic expressions. These are usually Jews that don’t understand or internalize the axiom that the physical land of Israel is essential and fundamental to Judaism. They feel that Israel is dispensable, and Jews can happily live elsewhere in the world. I don’t understand such thinking at all especially if the intifada is meant to be globalized. I would call such people reflexive antisemites, as they hate themselves, as well as causative antisemites as they encourage other Jews to hate both themselves and others.

Stop being foolish and recognize the meaning of the rhetoric by viewing the actions associated with it. Fight back against anyone using this antisemitic inflammatory language and stop excusing it and altering its meaning from exactly what the speakers intend.

Daniel Feldman

S. African Police Minister on Leave

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa placed police minister Senzo Mchunu on immediate leave of absence on Sunday. Mchunu has been accused by Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, a top police official, of colluding with a criminal syndicate and interfering in high-profile investigations.

Mchunu denied the allegations by Mkhwanazi, police commissioner of KwaZulu-Natal province, last week.

Ramaphosa, whose rise to the highest office was built on promises to fight corruption, has been under pressure to act swiftly as political parties and citizens said the allegations called into question the integrity of the criminal justice system.

Investors have for years expressed concern over rampant crime that the World Bank estimates costs South Africa an estimated 10% of gross domestic product each year.

“These allegations therefore call for an urgent and comprehensive investigation,” Ramaphosa said in a public address, adding he would establish a judicial commission of inquiry for this purpose.

For now, Ramaphosa will appoint law professor Firoz Cachalia as acting minister of police.

Mchunu is a senior figure in Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) party, and political analysts have said he could run for a leadership position at the ANC’s next elective conference in 2027.

Citing digital evidence such as WhatsApp messages, Mkhwanazi’s allegations included that Mchunu had disbanded a police unit tasked with investigating politically motivated killings to protect politicians, police officers and other people linked to a criminal syndicate. Mkhwanazi said more than 100 case

files were taken away from the political killings task team and have not been investigated further since.

The Democratic Alliance party, the ANC’s main coalition partner, called for a parliamentary inquiry into the allegations against Mchunu. At least one opposition party has called for his suspension.

Delta Detour

On Sunday, Delta Flight 127 departed Madrid, Spain, heading to New York. But four hours into the journey, the Airbus 330 made an unexpected detour to a small island in middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

The plane landed at Lajes Airport on the Portuguese island of Terceira. It’s part of the Azores, a remote archipelago that’s nearly 1,000 miles away from the country’s mainland.

The airport shares its runway with a military base and only serves about a dozen destinations commercially.

“As safety comes before all else at Delta, the flight crew followed procedures to divert to Lajes, Azores, after indication of a mechanical issue with an engine,” explained an airline spokesperson.

Losing an engine’s functionality can be frightening, although pilots are well trained in such situations.

The 21-year-old A330, registered as N805NW, was still parked at the Lajes Airport as of Friday.

To get the passengers back on their way, Delta had to send another plane from New York.

About five hours after Flight 127 landed in the Azores, flight-tracking data shows another A330 left JFK Airport.

Passengers were disappointed with Delta’s lack of communication with them during the ordeal.

Flight 9927 then landed in New York at 10:22 p.m. ET — roughly 31 hours after passengers expected to touch down on U.S. soil.

“We sincerely apologize to our customers for their experience and delay in their travels,” a Delta spokesperson said. The flight had 282 passengers and 13 crew members.

This isn’t the first time a Delta plane has been forced to divert to Lajes Airport

16 In 2023, a flight from Ghana landed there due to a “mechanical issue with a backup oxygen system.”

In that incident, passengers spent 12 hours on the island.

Airlines typically try to divert flights back to their origins or hub airports when possible, because this makes it easier to reroute passengers and repair any problems with the aircraft. However, in cases like these, concerns about safety can require landing at the closest available airport.

S. Korean Medical Students End Boycott

For seventeen months, thousands of South Korean medical students and trainee doctors had been out of school. They

had walked out to oppose government plans to increase medical school admissions, arguing it would lower the quality of the education they received. This week, it was announced that the strike was partially over.

Prime Minister Kim Min-Seok welcomed the end of the boycott, describing it as a “big step forward.”

“It’s time to take a deeper look at the medical field, the Congress, and the government, so that citizens can help solve problems,” he wrote in a statement on Facebook.

The Korean Medical Association said, “We will place our trust in the government and parliament and commit to returning to school to help normalize medical education and the healthcare system.”

The government wanted to increase the annual admittance of medical students to universities from around 3,000 to roughly 5,000, saying more staff were needed to meet demand.

For now, no timeline for the students’ return has been provided by the association, but the group has urged the government to restore the academic calendar and improve training conditions.

While students are planning to return, junior doctors remain on strike, as they also protest working conditions.

Patients were suffering due to the walkout, with some surgeries delayed and patients being turned away from medical facilities.

Some 8,300 students are expected to return to school.

Former Nigerian President Dies

Muhammadu Buhari, a former Nigerian president and military commander, passed away in London following a “prolonged illness,” the presidential press office announced on Sunday. Buhari, whose presidency was marked by his relentless campaigns against government corruption, was 82.

Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who succeeded Buhari in 2023, called the late leader a “patriot, a soldier, a statesman” who showed a “deep commitment to the unity and progress” of Nigeria.

“He stood firm through the most turbulent times, leading with quiet strength, profound integrity, and an unshakable belief in Nigeria’s potential,” said Tinubu. “He championed discipline in public service, confronted corruption head-on, and placed the country above personal interest at every turn.”

Tinubu sent his condolences to Buhari’s widow. The vice president, Kashim Shettima, will escort Buhari’s remains from London to Nigeria.

Buhari originally came to power as the military governor of Borno, a state in Nigeria, following a 1975 military coup. After a 1983 coup, Buhari became military head of state. Two years later, he was ousted in yet another military coup.

Decades later, after his fourth run, Buhari won the 2015 presidential election in a landslide, declaring himself a “reformed democrat.” In 2019, he won another fouryear term.

Though Nigerians were largely excited after his initial victory, many grew frustrated with Buhari’s slow pace. Half a year into his first term, Buhari appointed his ministers. And then, when economic troubles fueled by a weak currency and dropping global oil prices suddenly hit Nigeria, he acted slowly. It took him months to agree to devalue the naira, his

country’s currency. According to experts, Buhari was skeptical of free markets and modern economic policies due to his overthrow in 1985.

During Buhari’s first term, he faced off against several rebel groups, including Boko Haram, the pro-Biafra movement in eastern Nigeria, and Fulani herdsmen. In his second term, he struggled against mass anti-police brutality protests.

Buhari, a Fulani Muslim, was born in December 1942 in Daura, Katsina state. He was married twice and has ten children. His military training took place in Kaduna state, Britain, the United States, and India.

BBC Breached Editorial Guidelines

Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone was made for the BBC by independent production company Hoyo Films. The narrator of the documentary was Abdullah, the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who served as Hamas’ deputy minister of agriculture.

BBC conveniently forgot to let viewers know that the son of a Hamas member was narrating the film. Once that revelation became known and an uproar ensued, BBC pulled the film.

Now, after an independent review led by Peter Johnston, the director of editorial complaints and reviews, it was confirmed that the program violated accuracy standards for “failing to disclose information about the child narrator’s father’s position within the Hamas-run government.”

Even so, Johnston’s review found no other breaches of editorial guidelines, including those related to impartiality. It also determined there was no evidence that outside interests “inappropriately impacted on the program.”

The report said that “careful consideration of the requirements of due impartiality was undertaken in this project, given the highly contested nature of the subject matter.”

The detail of the background information regarding the narrator’s father is deemed as “critical information,” which

18 the report says was not shared with the BBC before broadcast. The BBC says that Hoyo Films did not “intentionally” mislead the BBC about the position of the narrator’s father, but says the independent production company “bears most responsibility for this failure.”

However, it further adds that the BBC also “bears some responsibility.”

The BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, said, “Peter Johnston’s report identifies a significant failing in relation to accuracy in this documentary. I thank him for his thorough work, and I am sorry for this failing. We will now take action on two fronts – fair, clear and appropriate actions to ensure proper accountability and the immediate implementation of steps to prevent such errors being repeated.”

The BBC board said, “Nothing is more important than trust and transparency in our journalism. We welcome the actions the executive are taking to avoid this failing being repeated in the future.”

Cereal Conglomerate

Like Rice Krispies? Enjoy Ferrero Rocher chocolate? Well, now these classics are a team.

Last week it was announced that the European confectionary company Ferrero has agreed to buy WK Kellogg Co., the manufacturer of iconic American cereals, for $3.1 billion.

The acquisition is set to bring the publicly traded maker of Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes and Rice Krispies under the privately owned Italian manufacturer of Nutella, Tic Tacs and Kinder chocolates.

WK Kellogg, based in Battle Creek, Michigan, was spun off from Kellogg’s in 2023, splitting the company’s North American cereal business from its other snack products like Pringles and PopTarts, a unit that is now owned by the publicly traded conglomerate Kellanova. WK Kellogg is one of North America’s largest cereal makers.

The agreement comes after years of slowing demand for sugary breakfast cereals as many consumers look for healthier options.

Ferrero, perhaps best known for its namesake Ferrero Rocher chocolates in gold foil, originated in Alba, Italy, after World War II and is now a multinational food maker headquartered in Luxembourg. The company reported revenue of €18.4 billion last fiscal year, up nearly 9% from the one before.

Ferrero executive chairman Giovanni Ferrero described the acquisition on Thursday as “a key milestone” in an effort to grow its footprint in North America, where the closely held company sells an array of popular candies.

Ferrero bought Butterfinger, Baby Ruth and other U.S. candy brands from Nestle in 2018, then acquired Kellogg’s bakery business, including Famous Amos and Keebler’s, in 2019 along with the manufacturer of Halo Top ice cream in 2022.

Clashes in Southern Syria

Clashes between Bedouin tribes and local fighters in the predominantly Druze city of Sweida in southern Syria have killed 37 people, a war monitor said on Monday.

Members of the Druze community and security forces had also clashed in April and May. Dozens of people died in those skirmishes.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that at least 37 people had been killed in the recent fighting, 27 of them Druze, including two children, and 10 of them Bedouin.

Syria’s interior ministry put the toll at “more than 30 deaths and nearly 100 injuries” and said it would deploy troops in coordination with the defense ministry.

Those troops “will begin direct intervention in the area to resolve the conflict, stop the clashes, impose security, pursue those responsible for the incidents, and refer them to the competent judiciary,” an interior ministry statement said.

Sweida Governor Mustapha al-Bakur called on his constituents to “exercise self-restraint and respond to national calls for reform.”

Several Syrian Druze spiritual leaders

also called for calm and asked Damascus to intervene.

The largest community of Druze living in Syria call Sweida their home. Before the civil war, around 700,000 Druze lived in Syria.

Bedouin and Druze factions have a longstanding feud in Sweida, and violence occasionally erupts between the two.

The interior ministry said the violence was “the result of unfortunate armed clashes that broke out between local military groups and clans…against a backdrop of accumulated tensions over previous periods.”

Since the overthrow of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad, concerns have been raised over the rights and safety of minorities under the new Islamist authorities, who have also struggled to re-establish security more broadly.

What Happened to Air India Flight?

An Air India flight crashed on June 12 and killed at least 260 people. Now, a report has emerged that attempts to understand why the Boeing 878-8 Dreamliner crashed just 30 seconds after takeoff.

According to a preliminary investigative report, fuel control switches for the engines were moved from the “run” to the “cutoff” position moments before impact, starving both engines of fuel.

The report, issued by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, also indicated that both pilots were confused over the change to the switch setting, which caused a loss of engine thrust shortly after takeoff.

There were 240 passengers on the plane, along with 12 crew members. Nineteen people on the ground were killed in the crash as well.

According to the report, once the aircraft achieved its top recorded speed, “The Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another” within a second. The report did not say how the switches could have flipped to the cutoff position during the flight.

The switches were flipped back into

the run position, the report said, but the plane could not gain power quickly enough to stop its descent after the aircraft had begun to lose altitude.

“One of the pilots transmitted, ‘MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY,’” the report said.

It also indicated confusion in the cockpit moments before the crash.

In the flight’s final moment, one pilot was heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he cut off the fuel.

“The other pilot responded that he did not do so,” the report said.

One expert noted that it is nearly impossible to pull both fuel switches at once, while other experts have said a pilot would never normally turn off the switches in flight.

Air India in a statement said it is fully cooperating with authorities investigating the crash.

“Air India is working closely with stakeholders, including regulators. We continue to fully cooperate with the AAIB and other authorities as their investigation progresses,” it said.

The plane’s black boxes — combined cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders — were recovered in the days following the crash and later downloaded in India.

Russia Has Seized $50B in Assets

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, authorities have confiscated nearly 3.9 trillion rubles, or about $50 billion, worth of assets, according to a report by the Moscow law firm Nektorov, Saveliev and Partners. The analysis found that Russian authorities had seized 102 private assets over the past three years. They spanned a variety of industries, and some were resold to owners including the state.

Targets included domestic and foreign companies, such as the Danish brewer Carlsberg and the French food giant Danone. The Kremlin has cited reasons ranging from corruption to extremism to justify the asset seizures.

In 2024, Russia’s federal budget received 132 billion rubles from property

22 sales, the Russian news outlet Interfax reported. Roughly a quarter of that total came from the sale of Rolf, the country’s largest car dealership. The company was previously owned by the family of a Kremlin critic now living in exile.

Russia needs to raise funds as its economy is faltering. Just last month, Russia’s economy minister, Maxim Reshetnikov, warned that the country was “on the brink” of a recession

Russia’s GDP grew 1.4% in the first quarter of the year from a year ago, according to Rosstat, the country’s official statistics service. This is a steep slowdown from the 4.5% growth it posted in the fourth quarter of last year. In 2024, Russia’s economy grew 4.3% for the full year.

World’s Oldest President

He may be 92 years old, but he has no thoughts about retiring.

President Paul Biya, of Cameroon, is the world’s oldest head of state. This week, he announced that he will run once again for re-election come October, hoping to extend his 43 years in power.

“Rest assured that my determination

to serve you matches the urgency of the challenges we face,” he said in a post on

X

He added that his decision to go for an eighth term came after “numerous and insistent” calls by people from all regions in Cameroon and around the world.

Biya’s administration has faced criticism over corruption, embezzlement, bad governance and failure to tackle security challenges. There have also been concerns about his health and ability to govern.

His absence from the public for more than six weeks last year led to speculation about his well-being and unfounded rumors that he had died.

Biya has never lost an election since taking power in 1982, and if he wins another seven-year term he could be president until he is nearly 100.

There have been growing calls from

inside and outside Cameroon for him to step aside and give way for fresh leadership in the central African nation.

Biya’s run won’t be so easy this time. His candidacy follows a recent political divorce from key allies from the northern regions, who had been crucial in helping secure votes in previous elections from that part of the country.

Two of these men – prominent minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary and former Prime Minister Bello Bouba Maigari – recently quit the ruling coalition and separately announced plans to run in the election.

Last month, Tchiroma said the Biya administration he belonged to had “broken” public trust and he was switching to a rival party.

Multiple opposition figures, including 2018 runner-up Maurice Kamto, as well as Joshua Osih, Akere Muna, and Cabral Libii, have also announced their candidacies.

However, members of the governing Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement and other supporters have since last year publicly called for Biya to seek another term. He was already the de-facto candidate as the party leader.

Biya abolished term limits in 2008, enabling him to seek the presidency indefinitely. He won the 2018 elections with more than 71% of the vote, although opposition groups accused the process of widespread irregularities.

Cameroon borders Nigeria, Chad, Central African Republic and Equitarial Guinea. Due to its strategic position at the crossroads between West Africa and Central Africa, it has been categorized as being in both camps. The official languages are French and English, with most citizens practicing Christianity.

Iranian Pres. Was Injured During Strike

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was supposedly wounded in the leg during an Israeli airstrike that targeted a meeting of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. The leader had to escape through an emergency hatch after Israel

struck the gathering in Tehran with six missiles during the 12-day war in June.

The news was revealed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated Fars news agency. In a recent interview, Pezeshkian said that Israel had tried to assassinate him.

“The attack occurred before noon on Monday, June 16, while a meeting of the Supreme National Security Council was being held with the heads of the three branches of government and other senior officials in the lower floors of a building in western Tehran,” said the report.

“The attackers targeted the building’s entrances and exits by firing six bombs or missiles to block escape routes and cut off air flow.”

Other people at the meeting included Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the parliamentary speaker, and Mohseni Ejei, a judiciary chief.

Fars reported that others were also injured in the attack. It stated that “some officials, including the president, suffered minor injuries to their legs while leaving” and added that they escaped through “an emergency hatch that had been planned in advance.”

It added, “After the explosions, the electricity on the floor was cut off.”

Iran has arrested more than 700 people in the wake of the war on charges of collaborating with Israel and has attempted to push through a new emergency spy law that aims to impose harsher penalties, including the death penalty.

In a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, Pezeshkian accused Israel of trying to assassinate him but did not admit to having being injured. “They did try, yes... They acted accordingly, but they failed,” the 70-year-old Iranian leader said.

The interview drew major criticism from MPs in Iran, with 24 of them joining in a public letter accusing the president of undermining national security.

They said his openness to renewed negotiations with the U.S. in spite of the American strikes on three key nuclear facilities, and his willingness to co-operate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has since been expelled from the country, showed weakness.

“From a national security standpoint, such messaging risks inviting further aggression,” the MPs wrote. “If, before June 12, there were diverse views on resisting American overreach, this war generated rare unity around the necessity of confronting the United States and its proxy, the Zionist regime.”

During Israel’s recent conflict with Iran, the Jewish state attacked Iranian military leaders, scientists, nuclear facilities, and the country’s ballistic missile

24 program in an effort to stop Tehran from building weapons of mass destruction. During the 12-day war, Israel assassinated Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chief Gen. Hossein Salami; Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the IRGC’s ballistic missile program; and IRGC Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, the armed forces’ second-in-command. In response, Iran fired more than 500 ballistic missiles and about 1,100 drones at Israel, killing 28 and injuring more than 3,000 people in Israel.

Israeli officials say they did not target political leaders, with Defense Minister Israel Katz noting that “regime change was not” the Jewish state’s goal.

The conflict ended two days after the United States, at the urging of Israel, bombed Iran’s Natanz, Fordo, and Isfahan nuclear sites. Later, U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that Israel had an opportunity to assassinate Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei but that he vetoed the killing.

Netherlands Rations Electricity

According to Netbeheer Nederland, the association of Dutch grid operators, over 11,900 businesses, along with thousands of homes, buildings, hospitals, fire stations, and more, were without power due to electricity network delays caused by an overloaded power grid, forcing network operators to ration electricity.

Dutch officials and business leaders warn that prolonged delays in electricity connections are stalling economic growth and may compel companies to reconsider their investment strategies. Although work is underway to expand the grid with new cables and substations, network operators say that in some regions, new connections won’t be available until the mid-2030s. The government would have to invest around 200 billion euros to cover the necessary power grid costs. Those costs will likely be funded by increased tariffs.

This power shortage comes as the Netherlands quickly phases out gas use. In 2023, the country shut down produc-

tion at Groningen, its massive onshore gas field. Due to the European Union’s 2022 energy price crisis, companies also sped up efforts to discontinue gas use. Over 2.6 million homes in the Netherlands are equipped with solar panels on their roofs, according to Netbeheer Nederland.

However, the country’s move to electricity was so fast that power grid upgrades couldn’t keep up with the pace, according to Tennet, the country’s national power grid operator.

Currently, grid bottlenecks have caused electricity costs in the Netherlands to surge. According to the Ember think tank, it costs around $35 more a month to pay for electricity in the Netherlands than in France.

As part of the rationing, Tenet and regional grid operators are using discounts to incentivize families to use electricity at non-peak hours. Starting on April 1, operators said they might give large industrial users lower tariffs if they don’t connect to the grid during peak hours. Additionally, officials have been using ads to encourage citizens to avoid charging bikes and cars during peak hours.

Officials fear companies may stop investing in the Netherlands if the rationing continues.

Other European countries may face similar problems in the future.

“Belgium is in trouble. The UK is in trouble. In Germany, there’s lots of trouble because in Germany all the wind is in the north and the demand is in the south,” said Eefje van Gorp, a spokesperson for Tennet, in a warning to other countries.

Beetles Threaten Ancient Books

An unprecedented drugstore beetle infestation is threatening the Pannonhalma Archabbey’s ancient book collection.

The abbey, the oldest library in Hungary and a UNESCO World Heritage site, is expected to be closed while staff handle the infestation. Currently, workers are relocating around 100,000 handsewn books to crates. Once removed, the books will be moved into big, hermeti-

cally sealed plastic sacks, which have no oxygen whatsoever, for six weeks, which will hopefully kill the remaining beetles. Then, the library plans to inspect and clean each book before putting them back on the shelf.

“This is an advanced insect infestation which has been detected in several parts of the library, so the entire collection is classified as infected and must be treated all at the same time,” Zsófia Edit Hajdu, the project’s chief restorer, said. “We’ve never encountered such a degree of infection before.”

The drugstore beetles, which are also referred to as bread beetles, have been spotted in an area that holds around a quarter of the library’s collection. The bugs were initially found by staffers during a routine cleaning.

In total, the abbey — which was established in 996, four years before the Kingdom of Hungary’s founding — has around 400,000 books, including ancient manuscripts such as a complete 13th-century Bible and hundreds of pre-printing press manuscripts. The abbey, an expansive Benedictine monastery, is among Central Europe’s most important religious and cultural sites.

Drugstore beetles are usually found in grains, flour, spices, and other dried food products, though they are also sometimes spotted on gelatin and starch-based book adhesives.

tioned at the Rami Levy supermarket when the two terrorists arrived at the scene in a stolen blue car, stabbed the victim, grabbed the guard’s gun, and shot Zvuluny at close range. The terrorists then engaged in a brief gunfight with a soldier who was in civilian clothes and an armed civilian. The two Israelis wound up shooting the two terrorists dead.

According to reports, the terrorists were 23-year-old Mahmoud Abed and 23-year-old Malik Salem. Abed — from Halul, a city north of Hebron — and Salem, from Tulkarem, were both newly trained Palestinian Authority police officers without a criminal history in Israel, officials said.

The civilian who responded to the incident was in line at the checkout when the attack began.

“Someone entered the store and yelled that there were terrorists outside. I left everything in the store and immediately ran outside together with a soldier who was in civilian clothing,” the armed civilian said. “There was a lot of shooting. We didn’t know exactly where it was coming from. In the end, we managed to identify the two terrorists who were hiding and killed them.”

Earlier that day, another Palestinian terrorist stabbed an IDF soldier near Jenin.

Since the October 7 massacre, terrorist attacks in Israel, including in Judea and Samaria, have taken 53 lives. Additionally, eight Israeli security officials have died while in combat with terrorists in Judea and Samaria.

So Much Pain

Terror at Gush Etzion Junction

Last Thursday, two Palestinian terrorists murdered Shalev Zvuluny, a 22-yearold Israeli man from Kiryat Arba, at a shopping center at the Gush Etzion Junction in Judea and Samaria. The incident was a “combined shooting and stabbing attack,” according to the Israel Defense Forces.

Zvuluny, a security guard, was sta-

On Monday, three soldiers lost their lives when a tank they were in was hit by a blast in the northern Gaza city of Jabalia. An officer was injured in the incident as well.

The three heroes were named as Staff Sgt. Shoham Menahem, 21, from Yardena; Sgt. Shlomo Yakir Shrem, 20, from Efrat; and Sgt. Yuliy Faktor, 19, from Rishon Lezion.

All four troops were serving with the 401st Armored Brigade’s 52nd Battalion. It is unclear what caused the blast.

Initially it was thought that the tank was hit by a Hamas rocket propelled grenade. Hours later, the military began to believe that the explosion may have been caused by a malfunctioning shell that detonated inside the turret.

Shoham joined the Tank Corps 50 years after his father, Shmuel, a former prisoner of war, was captured on the first day of the Yom Kippur War. His father had served as a tank driver.

“Shoham’s father was taken captive on the first day of the Yom Kippur War,” Sharon Menahem, Shoham’s cousin and a 21-year-old resident of Moshav Yardena in the Beit She’an Valley, told Ynet. “He served in the 401st Brigade’s 52nd Battalion as a tank driver. He was captured by Egyptian forces while fighting in the Sinai and spent over 40 days in captivity. We all grew up with that story—Shoham, too. Our whole family serves the country and doesn’t shy away from military service. We’re all fighters.”

Shoham had always dreamed of serving in his father’s brigade and battalion. “At first, he was assigned to the 188th Brigade. He spoke to me and said he wanted to join the 401st, and he made it happen. He even served as a tank driver, just like his father.”

Sharon added, “Shoham had been fighting in Gaza since October 7, 2023. He felt a strong sense of mission and would always say, ‘We’re doing a good job, we’re winning.’ His father worried about him, as any parent would, but at the same time, he supported and encouraged him and was incredibly proud. Their home is covered in Israeli flags alongside the 401st Brigade’s flag.”

At Shlomo Shrem’s funeral on Tuesday in Kfar Etzion, his mother, Hindi, lamented the tragic loss.

“I stand here in unbearable pain, a grief so deep it cannot be contained,” Shlomo’s mother said. “Please give us the strength to carry on for the family. Everyone came to escort you on your final journey.”

She shared Shlomo’s last message to her: “‘I’ve reached the base, everything’s fine, thank G-d. Don’t worry, even though it’s your job as a mom to worry. I have an amazing team that does everything. See you on Shabbat, looking forward to the family vacation.’ You were so close to coming home, just a few days, we hadn’t seen you in two weeks.”

Shlomo’s mother added, “You always found time for Torah study, charming everyone with your humility and desire to give. Even exhausted at home, you’d drop your bag and spend endless time with your special younger brother. Now

that bond is broken forever. You were grateful for every little thing, even when it wasn’t needed. You were too good, and this wound is too deep. I’m bleeding, my heart is burning. I’m a nurse, caring for soldiers for 26 years, but I can’t bring you back, even in my dreams. I felt this coming, months ago, I said I was preparing a eulogy for my son every night. I asked if that was normal, and they said yes.” Hindi recalled, “Shlomo, you were the light of our family, the light we waited for

again and again. You said, ‘Mom, nothing happens without divine precision. There’s a bigger plan we can’t yet understand, but it will lead to redemption and great light.’ I hoped you’d come home. The cost is unbearable. I needed to hear from you to get through the day. We were supposed to go on a family vacation Sunday, just days away, and now life has stopped. Give us strength, Shlomo. I’m torn between wanting to be with you and staying here for my other children.”

Shlomo’s father, Shaul, said, “You were a cherished and extraordinary son, so easy to raise, a remarkable figure who lived your 20 years to the fullest. We don’t know how we were blessed with such a righteous son. Your pre-military academy, hit so hard by losses in this unending war, shaped you into a man of uncompromising values. Yet, your bond with your friends was admirable, they loved you, and you loved them.”

He added, “Everything you did was

with joy. Even when tasks were dull, you said it was the mission and had to be done perfectly. You thrived in the armored corps, proud to fight for Israel, fearless in your tank. I always told you to stay safe, and you assured me you were secure inside. Please give us strength to endure this nightmare. We’ll try to be strong for you, because you were there for our family. May this war end in total victory. Thank you, Shlomo, for being a wonderful son.”

Yuliy graduated last year from the Atid Youth Village named for Joanna Jabotinsky.

“Yuliy was a brilliant, curious and caring student with a big heart,” the school said in a statement. “He gave his life defending his homeland. May the memory of this Israeli hero be a blessing.”

A friend named Tali wrote in an online tribute: “Yuliy Faktor, only 19. Just a week ago, you spoke with a sparkle in your eyes about how happy you were, how much you loved and belonged to your battalion. And now hell has come to your family’s door, too. A gentle soul, intelligent and kind—rest in peace. You’ll always be in our hearts.”

These three recent deaths raised the Israeli toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip to 454 soldiers, including two police officers and three Defense Ministry civilian contractors.

AG’s Dismissal Hearing

On Monday afternoon, the Prime Minister’s Office held a hearing regarding the potential dismissal of Attorney General Gali Baharav Miara. The hearing was held by a committee composed of five ministers who have the power to decide to fire Baharav-Miara, thanks to a cabinet resolution passed in June. The ministers were Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli; Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich; National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir; Science and Technology Minister Gila Gamliel; and Religious Services Minister Michael Malkieli.

Chikli, who headed the meeting, put forth an 84-page document outlining the many charges Justice Minister Yariv Levin prepared against the attorney general.

However, Baharav-Miara did not come to the panel, which she blasted as a “sham hearing with a predetermined outcome.”

“It signifies heavy damage to the rule of law and Israeli democracy,” Baharav-Miara said, claiming that the committee’s existence would allow the government to fire her and any of her successors based on “irrelevant and corrupt considerations,” including “political dealings.”

Due to her absence, the committee has summoned her for a second hearing, which is expected to take place on Thursday, July 17.

The government has accused Baharav-Miara of repeatedly obstructing its ability to carry out its policies. She has defended herself, saying that she is doing her job by forcing the government to act in accordance with the law, investigating or indicting members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, and declining to halt an active criminal case involving a current minister.

President Isaac Herzog has also defended Baharav-Miara.

“She made very courageous decisions, gave full backing to the government, the cabinet, the army, and the security services, with courage and integrity,” he said. “That helped protect us, even on the international stage.”

“I use a metaphor of a roller coaster that’s lost its brakes and has pandemonium in the conductor’s car,” Herzog said. “Everyone is attacking everyone, everyone is blaming everyone, everyone is lashing out at everyone. It’s a very dangerous situation, and the enemy, from the outside, wants to burn the roller coaster on seven fronts.

“And I say to everyone: We must stop,” the president added. “Stop before we collapse under the avalanche, truly. It’s that dangerous.

“It’s legitimate to criticize. There’s harsh criticism, and that’s understandable given the nature of the role, but it must be done responsibly,” said Herzog. “That’s what I call for — responsibility.”

During the attorney general’s dismissal hearing, dozens of demonstrators stationed themselves in front of the Justice Ministry building, protesting the hearing until they were forced to leave. Other protests in support of Baharav-Miara also took place, including outside the Tel Aviv District Courthouse.

Burn Breakthroughs

A team of researchers from Tel Aviv University and Sheba Tel Hashomer Medical Center have developed a unique bioengineered skin to use for grafting in burn victims.

The groundbreaking innovation, made entirely from a patient’s own cells, is stable, easy to handle and flexible. The artificial skin can speed up healing, close wounds in half the time compared to current methods, and may transform the treatment of severe burn injuries.

“This type of skin has never been produced before,” said Prof. Lihi Adler-Abramovich, 46, a lead researcher on the study from TAU’s Laboratory for Bio-Inspired Materials and Nanotechnology. “It’s already showing promising results.”

The researchers included Prof. Amit Sitt from TAU’s Faculty of Exact Sciences, PhD student Dana Cohen-Gerassi, and Dr. Ayelet Di Segni and her scientific team at Sheba’s Green Skin Engineering Laboratory. They decided to combine their expertise in chemistry, medicine, and clinical care to speed up the process to help burn victims soon after the war began on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed Israel, killing 1,200 people and wounding thousands.

The study was recently published in the prestigious journal Advanced Functional Materials.

The traditional treatment for burns involves taking healthy skin from another area of a patient’s body. But in extensive burns, patients often lack enough healthy skin for this process. One alternative used in Israel is to grow lab-made skin from a small skin biopsy. However, this method has major limitations because it takes time and only regenerates the top layer of skin.

The new technology to manufacture artificial skin is based on a production method known as electrospinning, in which special fibers are spun into fabric-like sheets. This method then creates a nanofiber scaffold, which is a type of

structure used to repair or regenerate damaged skin.

Resembling a web-like net, the scaffold contains nanofibers that are thousands of times thinner than a human hair.

Adler-Abramovich, whose specialty is in the field of peptide nanotechnology, said she then incorporated “a very short peptide sequence” into the scaffold.

“Peptides are a sequence of amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein,” she explained. “We included a specific sequence of three amino acid-based peptides that is modeled on that in the human body.”

“The design of the scaffold with the peptide is the novelty of this project,” Adler-Abramovich explained. “It allows cells to attach properly and regenerate the skin effectively, promoting cell growth and adhesion. The scaffold is strong and easy to implant.”

In preclinical trials on mouse models, the results were dramatic.

“We saw better scarring,” Adler-Abramovich said. “The skin looked functional. The healing process is much faster which can reduce hospitalization time and lower the risk of infection for patients. And we could see the growth of hair follicles.”

Despite the success, it can take years until this product comes to market.

“The collaboration between the researchers is amazing,” Adler-Abramovich said. “It’s really exciting. We’ll continue to work together and hopefully make the skin even better.”

UTJ Quits Government

The United Torah Judaism party quit both the government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition on Monday evening in protest of conscription laws.

The party’s Degel Hatorah faction was the first to announce its withdrawal, with a spokesman for the faction’s rav, Rav Dov Landau, shlita, declaring in a statement that “in accordance with [the rabbi’s] instructions, Degel Hatorah Knesset members will leave the government and

coalition today.”

Accusing the government of seeking “to increase the hardship of the lives of Torah students” and repeatedly “failing to fulfill their obligations to regulate the legal status of the dear yeshiva students,” Rav Landau stated in an accompanying letter that “participation in the government and the coalition should be immediately terminated, including immediate resignation from all positions.”

The UTJ delegation in the Knesset accused Netanyahu’s government of having “repeatedly violated its commitments to care for the status of yeshiva students” — adding that all its members “have now announced their resignation from the coalition and the government.”

Degel Hatorah was soon joined by UTJ’s Agudat Yisrael faction.

Jerusalem Affairs Minister Meir Porush explained that the decision to resign was made after viewing a new charedi conscription bill on Monday, which he said did not “satisfy the demands” of the faction and its spiritual leaders.

Among those resigning as part of UTJ’s exit were Knesset Finance Committee chairman Moshe Gafni, Deputy Transportation Minister Uri Maklev, and Jerusalem Affairs Minister Meir Porush.

Their resignations will take 48 hours to come into effect, giving Netanyahu time to attempt to convince them to reverse course.

Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein has long blocked the passage of a government-backed bill enshrining the broad exclusion from IDF service for charedi men. He agreed, however, last month to soften some of the harsh sanctions included in his proposed legislation, in a last-minute deal with Shas and UTJ to prevent them from voting in favor of an opposition-backed bill to disperse the Knesset and call early elections, in the days ahead of the war with Iran.

But as Edelstein’s new, watered-down version of the bill failed to materialize in recent days, having been pulled from the committee’s agenda for this week, the charedi parties began to run out of patience.

The Shas party has not yet left the government, although it is rumored to be leaving later in the week.

With only seven seats, UTJ is not large enough to topple the government — which holds 68 out of 120 Knesset mandates — on its own. Were Shas to quit as well, the coalition would lose its majority, falling to 50 seats.

Duffy to Head NASA

Last week, President Donald Trump tapped Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy to serve as the interim administrator of NASA. The announcement came weeks after Trump abruptly rescinded the nomination of entrepreneur Jared Isaacman as the agency’s next leader.

“He will be a fantastic leader of the ever more important Space Agency, even if only for a short period of time,” Trump said of Duffy on social media.

Duffy said on social media after the appointment that he was “honored to accept this mission.” The former Wisconsin congressman and reality television star was the second Fox News host — after Pete Hegseth — to be selected by Trump for his Cabinet.

Duffy becomes another senior Trump official to wear multiple hats. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is also serving as interim White House national security adviser and the acting head of the U.S. Agency for International Development. During Trump’s first term, Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, was named the acting White House chief of staff.

In late May, Isaacman was preparing for a confirmation vote in the full Senate when he was told that Trump had rescinded his nomination. On Sunday, Trump said he had withdrawn the nomination because of the entrepreneur’s ties to Elon Musk and after learning that Isaacman was a “blue blooded Democrat who had never contributed to a Republican.”

In a statement Monday, Isaacman said, ”The President is entitled to assemble the leadership team he believes will best serve his administration” but rejected Trump’s characterization of him.

“I have been relatively apolitical — a right-leaning moderate — and my political donations across both parties (though

32 10x more to Republicans) were disclosed in writing, with rationale, before my nomination was ever submitted to the Senate,” Isaacman said in the statement.

On Wednesday, he backed Duffy’s appointment, saying on social media that NASA “needs political leadership from someone the President trusts and has confidence in.”

Most Dangerous Beach

A day at the beach is not all fun and games, especially in the Sunshine State. According to AAA, a recent study by Tideschart, a tide and weather forecasting platform, revealed that all ten of the most dangerous beaches in the United States can be found in Florida.

Tideschart examined data in three

categories: shark attacks, surf zone fatalities, and hurricanes. After the numbers were crunched, New Smyrna Beach in Volusia County topped the list as the most dangerous beach.

New Smyrna Beach’s total score of 76.92 was more than nine points higher than Laguna Beach, which came in as the second-most dangerous. All of the Florida beaches had the same hurricane score (126), while New Smyrna’s 12 surf fatalities in 2024 was less than Laguna, which had the most with 39, and also fell below Daytona Beach (27) and Miami Beach (13).

But if you’re heading to New Smyrna, beware of sharks. New Smyrna’s shark attack total, a whopping 277 on record, was way more than its counterparts and was the reason for it taking home the No. 1 spot.

“Florida alone represents 30 percent of unprovoked [shark] attacks worldwide,” AAA wrote, citing a 2024 study by the International Shark Attack File from the Florida Museum of Natural History. “Even more unsettling: Half of these encounters happen when people are simply swimming and wading in the water. Cocoa Beach, Daytona Beach, and New Smyrna Beach rank among the most shark-active shores, with New Smyrna

reporting a staggering 277 shark attacks on record.”

New Smyrna is colloquially referred to as the “shark bite capital of the world.”

Following New Smyrna Beach in the top ten most dangerous beaches were Laguna Beach, Daytona Beach, Miami Beach and Indialantic Boardwalk. Cocoa Beach, Palm Beach, Miramar Heights Beach, Cape Canaveral, and Jupiter Beach Park rounded out the top ten.

Yaccarino Leaving X

Last week, Linda Yaccarino announced that she will be stepping down as CEO of X after two years leading Elon Musk’s social media company.

Yaccarino announced her departure in a post on X, saying she is “immensely grateful” to Musk for “entrusting me with the responsibility of protecting free speech, turning the company around, and transforming X into the Everything App.”

She added, “Now, the best is yet to come as X enters a new chapter with @ xai,” she said in the post. “I’ll be cheering you all on as you continue to change the world.”

Musk replied to Yaccarino’s post with a terse response: “Thank you for your contributions.”

Musk sold X, his social media company, to xAI, his artificial intelligence company, a few months ago. The move formally combined the two entities that were already closely intertwined.

Yaccarino, a former NBCUniversal marketing executive, took over from Musk as CEO of X — at the time, it was called Twitter — in June of 2023, about eight months after the billionaire bought the social media platform. She was brought on to help fix the platform’s flagging advertising business.

But her tenure has been marked by repeated public relations crises, including scrutiny over antisemitic and other hateful content spreading on the platform, viral false claims around international conflicts, and ads that appeared alongside pro-Nazi content on the site. That led some brands to pull their spending.

The company has also had to contend with a rush of new competitors, including Bluesky and Meta’s Threads.

Yaccarino repeatedly touted the company’s “freedom of speech, not freedom of reach” policy that aims to limit the reach of so-called “lawful but awful” content on the platform. Under her leadership, X also said it had rolled out additional brand safety controls for advertisers, including the ability to avoid having their ads show next to certain content.

Cuomo Still Running

Despite an embarrassing loss in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York in June, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is not leaving the race. On Monday, he announced that he would be running in November on an independent ticket

Cuomo made the long-rumored run official in a video posted to X with the caption, “In it to win it.”

“I made mistakes in the primary,” Cuomo acknowledged in an accompanying press release. “I was not aggressive enough in communicating my vision for a fairer, safer, more affordable New York or in debunking Zohran Mamdani’s unrealistic proposals and divisive agenda.”

Mamdani won the first round of ranked choice voting with 44% to Cuomo’s 36%, causing the former governor to make an unexpected concession on election night. The final round handed Mamdani a more than 12-point win.

“What we saw was New Yorkers’ hunger for a new kind of politics,” Mamdani said after accepting the endorsement of the American Federation of Musicians Local 802, a union that represents musicians on Broadway and elsewhere in the city. “I understand that it is difficult for the former governor to come to terms with that, because it is a repudiation of the kind of politics he has practiced and he has known for so many years.”

New York State does not have a socalled “sore loser“ law that would prohibit a defeated primary candidate from

running in a general election.

The general election ballot will see both Cuomo and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams on independent party lines, as well as Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, run against Mamdani.

Still, Cuomo said in the press release that he accepted a proposal from former Governor David Patterson and longshot independent candidate Jim Walden to coalesce behind the candidate who appears most likely to defeat Mamdani.

“In mid-September, we will determine which candidate is strongest against Mamdani and all other candidates will stand down, rather than act as spoilers and guarantee Mamdani’s election,” Cuomo said.

Sliwa said that the two major independent candidates were playing “musical chairs on a sinking ship.”

“Andrew Cuomo lost his primary and hides in the Hamptons. Eric Adams skipped his and fled to Fort Lauderdale. Now they’re both running as independents to cling to relevance,” Sliwa said.

Adams said at a news conference Monday that voters had already rejected the former governor.

“Andrew is a double-digit loser in the primary,” Adams said. “He had his opportunity.”

Fatal Church Shooting in Kentucky

On Sunday, two people were killed at a church in Lexington, Kentucky, after a gunman opened fire. The two women, Beverly Gum, 72, and Christina Combs, 32, died in the attack at the place of worship, and two male parishioners were injured.

The perpetrator shot a state trooper during a traffic stop before car-jacking a vehicle and driving 16 miles to Richmond Road Baptist Church, where he opened fire on parishioners before law enforcement shot him dead.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear posted on X that “violence like this has no place in our commonwealth or country.”

The shooter was identified as 47-year-

old Guy House.

“Preliminary information indicates that the suspect may have had a connection to the individuals at the church,”

Lexington Police Chief Lawrence Weathers said.

The county coroner official said the church was small and most attendees were either related or close friends.

“It’s a very tight-knit group of people,” he noted.

U.S. Sanctions U.N. Official

In a social media post published last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the United States would be sanctioning Francesca Albanese, the U.N.’s “special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories,” for her role in the International Criminal Court’s recent efforts targeting U.S. and Israeli officials and entities.

The sanctions follow an executive order issued by President Donald Trump in February, endorsing punitive measures against the ICC due to its “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.” That executive order is the basis for the sanctions imposed on Albanese, Rubio stated.

Since Trump came into office, the U.S. has also sanctioned four ICC judges and the court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, who requested and secured arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The arrest warrants were issued in November 2024.

According to Rubio, Albanese prompted the ICC to take “action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” Albanese, Rubio said, “has directly engaged with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without the consent of those two countries,” which is “a gross infringement on the sovereignty of both countries,” being that the U.S. and Israel are not signatories to the Rome Statute, the treaty that formed the ICC.

“The United States has repeatedly

condemned and objected to the biased and malicious activities of Albanese that have long made her unfit for service as a Special Rapporteur,” said Rubio, noting that Albanese has demonstrated disdain for Jews, the U.S., Israel, and the West and has favored terrorists. “That bias has been apparent across the span of her career, including recommending that the ICC, without a legitimate basis, issue arrest warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.”

The sanctions, which were announced during Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, D.C., were praised by Israeli officials, including Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon.

A day after the announcement, Volker Türk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, called for the sanctions’ “prompt reversal,” urging the U.S. to instead employ diplomacy.

Since Albanese’s position is for an “independent expert,” she was appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council instead of the U.N. Secretary General. According to the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, her job is “to follow and report on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

A week ago, the U.S. came out against Albanese’s reappointment as special rapporteur, urging the U.N. secretary general to “directly condemn Ms. Albanese’s activities and call for her removal as Special Rapporteur.”

Rubio said last Wednesday that Albanese had authored “threatening letters to dozens of entities worldwide, including major American companies across finance, technology, defense, energy, and hospitality, making extreme and unfounded accusations and recommending the ICC pursue investigations and prosecutions of these companies and their executives.”

“We will not tolerate these campaigns of political and economic warfare, which threaten our national interests and sovereignty,” Rubio said.

On June 30, Albanese wrote a report, accusing several U.S. companies of financially benefiting “from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid and now genocide.”

L.A. Tunnel Collapse

Last Wednesday night, a Los Angeles tunnel in Wilmington partially collapsed, stranding 31 men around 400 feet underground. The workers were later rescued. Miraculously, none were visibly hurt, though many were understandably shaken from the incident.

When the tunnel, which stretches for seven miles, partly collapsed, the workers were five to six miles away from the tunnel’s only opening. The men had entered the tunnel aboard a transport vehicle to supervise a machine that digs, builds, and advances the tunnel using the very panels it installs, according to Michael Chee, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts.

According to Robert Ferrante, chief engineer and general manager of the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, the workers had to retrace their steps to the collapse site and scale a 12- to 15-foot mound of loose soil before being transported by vehicle to the shaft site. The vehicle could only travel about a mile before it was stopped by the debris.

In response to the collapse, over 100 Los Angeles Fire Department responders rushed to the tunnel. Officials and family members feared the worst. Using cranes and rescue cages, fire officials were able to rescue all the workers.

Officials plan for the tunnel to be part of a complex $700 million municipal project meant to transfer wastewater to the Pacific Ocean. The project, which is intended to replace two big tunnels, started around two years ago.

Authorities are investigating the cause of the collapse. Until the incident is investigated and the tunnel’s safety is ensured, the project will be paused. According to Ferrante, the collapse happened due to “squeezing ground,” which refers to significant soil deformation that occurs during excavation.

Tim McOsker, Los Angeles City Council District 15’s councilman, praised the highly skilled workers.

“This is a highly technical, difficult project, and they knew exactly what to do.

36 They knew how to secure themselves,” he said. “They knew how to get to the train that brought them back. They knew all of the signals as we spoke to them.”

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass announced that she had met with some of the workers.

“I know when we raced down here I was so concerned that we were going to find tragedy. Instead, what we found was victory,” she said.

Report: Secret Service Failed at Butler

On Sunday, the bipartisan Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee, led by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, released a 31-page report

detailing the “cascade of preventable failures” that led to the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. The report was released exactly one year after the attack.

The committee noted that poor communication and the agency’s refusal to grant Trump extra security allowed Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old gunman, to station himself on a nearby roof and shoot the then-candidate, hitting Trump in the ear, just a quarter of an inch away from his head.

“A 20-year-old gunman was able to evade detection by the country’s top protective agency for nearly 45 minutes,” noted the committee. “Not a single person has been fired.”

After carrying out 17 interviews with Secret Service members and reviewing thousands of legal documents, the committee concluded that the agency’s failures led to the assassination attempt.

A number of requests for more security were “denied or left unfulfilled,” according to the report, which also added that an inexperienced operator was put in charge of managing operations, despite the location’s vulnerabilities. Paul claims that Kimberly Cheatle, the former

Secret Service director who resigned after the incident, lied when she testified to the committee that there were “no requests that were denied.”

Almost a year following the assassination attempt, six Secret Service agents were suspended without pay or benefits for 10 to 42 days.

“The truth is, President Trump, and the nation, was fortunate. The onceagain President survived despite being shot in the head. Since that day, there has been another attempt on his life and further threats to do him harm, including most recently a renewed threat from Iran. This report reveals a disturbing pattern of communication failures and negligence that culminated in a preventable tragedy. What happened was inexcusable and the consequences imposed for the failures so far do not reflect the severity of the situation,” the report said.

In response to the report, Secret Service Director Sean Curran said his agency “will continue to work cooperatively with the committee as we move forward in our mission.”

“Following the events of July 13, the Secret Service took a serious look at our operations and implemented substantive reforms to address the failures that occurred that day,” Curran added. “The Secret Service appreciates the continued support of President Trump, Congress, and our federal and local partners who have been instrumental in providing crucial resources needed to support the agency’s efforts.”

Fire in

MA Assisted-Living Facility

On Sunday, at around 9:50 p.m., a fire broke out in the Gabriel House, an assisted-living complex in Fall River, Massachusetts. Nine people were killed, and 30 or more were injured. Of the facility’s 70 residents, those who survived lost much of their possessions and have since been transferred to a temporary housing center around half a mile away. Many survivors have also been hospitalized.

Around 50 fire officials, 30 of whom

were off duty, fought the flames and, with help from police, worked to save lives. On Monday, five injured firefighters were discharged after brief hospitalizations. According to some of the facility’s residents, staff members did not try to help any seniors evacuate from the burning buildings.

Seven of the victims were identified as: 64-year-old Rui Albernaz; 61-year-old Ronald Codega; 69-year-old Margaret Duddy; 78-year-old Robert King; 71-yearold Kim Mackin; 78-year-old Richard Rochon; and 86-year-old Eleanor Willett, said Bristol County District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn, III. Two other victims — a 70-year-old woman and a 77-year-old man — have not been named yet, pending notifying their next of kin.

The Gabriel House’s owner, Dennis Etzkorn, was cooperating with the ongoing “very extensive investigation,” according to Fire Chief Jeffrey Bacon. In 2012, Etzkorn was charged after another adult foster care home he owned was indicted on medical assistance fraud and kickback charges. In 2015, his charges were dropped.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey expressed her condolences to the victims’ loved ones and her gratitude to first responders. She also offered state assistance to the mayor of Fall River, one of the poorest cities in Massachusetts.

“Right now, the first order of business is to make sure we’re assisting the city in every way possible in rehousing what is a vulnerable population,” said Healey, who added that she wasn’t aware of any previous safety complaints. “All of these people need assistance. As you saw, many were in wheelchairs, many were immobile, many had oxygen tanks.”

Opened in 1999, Gabriel House has 100 units among its mostly three-story apartment buildings, with the dense neighborhood’s website offering studio apartments “for those seniors who cannot afford the high end of assisted living” and group adult foster care.

Escape in a Bag

A prisoner in France managed to escape jail by hiding in a laundry bag. The man had smuggled himself out of Lyon-Corbas prison, near Lyon, when his cellmate was released from jail, having served out his sentence on Friday.

38 Sadly, the cat was out of the bag on Sunday, as police managed to recapture the fugitive on Sunday when he was emerging from a cellar. His accomplice has yet to be found.

The inmate was serving several sentences, the prison service said.

He “took advantage of the liberation of his fellow inmate to hide himself in his luggage and get out,” the statement said.

Sébastien Cauwel, the director of the prison administration, said on Sunday that an “accumulation of errors” and “a series of serious malfunctions” led to the escape. “This is an extremely rare event that we have never experienced in this administration,” he added.

Sounds like a bag of tricks.

Lost & Found

Caroline Wilga is lucky to be alive. The 26-year-old German national had been driving in Western Australia’s outback when she lost control of her vehicle. Wilga hit her head in the crash, and

she left her car in a state of confusion.

“Some people might wonder why I even left my car, even though I had water, food, and clothing there,” Wilga said.

She said she “lost control of the car and rolled down a slope,” hitting her head “significantly” in the subsequent crash.

“As a result of the accident, I left my car in a state of confusion and got lost,” she explained.

The next few days were a blur of thirst and hunger and fear that she would never be found. Wilga survived by drinking water from puddles and sheltering in a cave.

Eventually, after eleven days of walking endlessly, a driver noticed Wilga waving from the side of the road.

She appeared to be in a “fragile state,” suffering from exhaustion, dehydration, insect bites and an injured foot, the driver, Tania Henley, recalled.

“Everything in this bush is very prickly. I just can’t believe that she survived. She had no shoes on, she’d wrapped her foot up,” Henley said. She had picked up Wilga 18 miles from where her car had crashed.

The rescue was down to “sheer luck,” acting police inspector Jessica Securo said.

Wilga is so grateful to all those who searched for her and helped rescue her.

“Western Australia has taught me what it really means to be part of a true community,” she said. “Here, humanity, solidarity, and care for one another are what truly matter – and in the end, that’s what counts most.”

All is not lost.

From Sea to Sea

Darcy Deefholts loves to surf. The 19-year-old went surfing off a northern

NSW beach in Australia on Wednesday afternoon. But hours later, Darcy didn’t come home, and his father became frantic.

Terry Deefholts, a real estate agent from Grafton, raised the alarm on social media, saying he was “fearing the worst.”

“HELP – I NEED BOATS, BEACH WALKERS, DRONES AND 4WDs and PLANES AT FIRST LIGHT,” his post read.

“My boy Darcy is still missing. Marine Rescue searched tonight from Bare Point to Pebbly Beach at sea. They have been stood down for the night but expect they will be back early to resume the search.

“I am asking anyone with a seaworthy vessel to please meet me at the main Wooli boat ramp and take me to sea to help with the search.”

Hours later, on Thursday morning, Darcy was found safe and sound – almost eight miles out to sea on North Solitary Island off Wooli.

His father described the story of survival as a “one-in-a-million miracle.”

“I haven’t had the chance to talk to him yet, I’m just so over the moon,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

He said Darcy was receiving medical treatment and he “could not fathom” how the teen survived being swept miles out to sea to the small island.

“I’m still just processing everything. We’ve had no sleep, and it has been a lot to deal with,” Terry said.

Only hours earlier, he had issued a desperate plea to search nearby islands.

“Boats – need one to go straight to North West Solitary Island,” he said in an update online. “That’s where they found a person last year that got washed up.”

No man is an island.

Pricey Purse

Sometimes a purse is worth more than what you put inside it. That’s definitely true if you own the first Hermes Birkin bag, which sold for a staggering 8.6 million euros ($10.1 million) – including fees – on Thursday in Paris to become the second most valuable fash-

ion item ever sold at auction.

The winning bid of 7 million euros drew gasps from the audience. The price crushed the previous auction record for a handbag — $513,040 paid in 2021 for a Hermes White Himalaya Niloticus Crocodile Diamond Retourne Kelly 28.

Now, the original Birkin bag, named after the actor, singer and fashion icon that Hermes created it for — actress and singer Jane Birkin — is in a new league of its own. Only one fashion item has sold at auction for more: a pair of ruby red slippers from “The Wizard of Oz,” which sold for $32.5 million in 2024, Sotheby’s said.

The buyer was not identified at the auction.

Paris fashion house Hermès exclusively commissioned the bag for the London-born Birkin in 1984 — branding it with her initials J.B. on the front flap, below the lock — and delivered the finished one-of-a-kind bag to her the following year. The subsequent commercialized version of Birkin’s bag went on to become one of the world’s most exclusive luxury items, extravagantly priced and with a years-long waiting list.

Years ago, in the 1980s, Birkin met the head of Hermes, Jean-Louis Dumas, on a flight to London. Birkin asked Dumas why Hermes didn’t make a bigger handbag and subsequently sketched out an idea for a larger purse on the back of an airsickness bag. He then had a sample made for her, and, as they say, the rest is history.

“There is no doubt that the Original Birkin bag is a true one-of-a-kind — a singular piece of fashion history that has grown into a pop culture phenomenon that signals luxury in the most refined way possible. It is incredible to think that a bag initially designed by Hermes as a practical accessory for Jane Birkin has become the most desirable bag in history,” said Morgane Halimi, Sotheby’s head of handbags and fashion.

The bag became so famous that Birkin once mused before her death in 2023 at age 76 that her obituaries would likely “say, ‘Like the bag’ or something.”

“Well, it could be worse,” she added. Yeah, like spending millions on a purse.

Around the Community

Summer Fun at Camp Areivim

Summer Fun at Camp Matov

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

“At Hillel Day Camp, we believe that teamwork makes the dream work!”

-Evan Liebowitz, Camp Director

During the incredible, energetic Week Two, it was evident on the fields, in the bunks, and out on trips, the value of working together toward a shared goal shone brightly throughout every division. Junior Olympics brought out the best in our campers, as they competed on different teams, each striving not just for personal victory but for the pride of their group. Medals were earned, but more importantly, memories were made and lessons in camaraderie were learned.

Upper Division leagues are in full swing, and the courts and fields have been buzzing with excitement. Basketball and soccer matchups have delivered competitive intensity alongside a deep commitment to middot and sportsmanship. It’s inspiring to watch our campers give

it their all—playing hard, supporting each other, and always remembering that how we win matters as much as the win itself.

It’s not just our campers who exemplify teamwork. Our devoted staff continues to work tirelessly, constantly training, role-playing, and collaborating to become cohesive, intentional units. They support one another, step up when needed, and make sure every child feels safe, seen, and celebrated.

iMovewithNaz shared her #RealFeels after running incredible dancing onegs on Friday for the 2-8 grade girls.

“I want to tell you I saw all the kids today smiling, dancing, and happy because the Hillel Day Camp staff is AMAZING! They know exactly how to handle all these amazing kids, different ages, different stages. I felt like the staff was there with

open arms to help you when you need something. That, from the background, tells you a lot about the staff and the infrastructure that makes this place such a special place. Seriously, parents – your kids are doing fantastic! Hillel Day Camp is THE PLACE TO BE! I just left feeling that everybody is happy to be here and they’re working b’yachad, with achdut and with love for each other. It’s what gets portrayed to the kids. They feel it, because I felt it!”

This week brought a full lineup of in camp activities and exciting trips that remind us how teamwork shows up in all kinds of adventures. Whether climbing, crawling, and balancing at Ferox Ninja, running and jumping through Rainbow Castle, exploring the brand-new Area 53 experience, or dancing together in an epic

dancing oneg Shabbat with iMovewithNaz, our campers discovered that cheering each other on, waiting their turn, and encouraging one another made every challenge more fun and more meaningful.

As we reflect on the Three Weeks, we begin to focus inward, reflecting on what kind of teamwork we can bring to the broader Jewish people. These weeks remind us that unity has the power to rebuild, and that every act of kindness, understanding, and connection brings us one step closer to the rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash. Let’s keep building— through sports, smiles, trips, and Torah— because at Hillel, teamwork doesn’t just make the dream work. It makes us who we are!

Summer Fun at Simcha Day Camp

Staff Appreciation Shines At Avnet

At HALB’s Avnet Country Day School, the desire to make everyone happy doesn’t end with the campers. Behind every incredible summer experience is a team of dedicated, passionate, and hard-working staff – and Avnet makes it a priority to ensure they feel appreciated. With seven divisions and campers ranging in age from 3 to 14, Avnet employs over 300 counselors and specialty staff members, ensuring personalized attention and exciting programming. At the helm, Avnet’s upper staff is comprised entirely of experienced educators, many of whom hold advanced degrees in special education and counseling, bringing professionalism, insight, and care to every aspect of camp life.

This spirit of intentionality extends to staff life after hours. Avnet fosters a culture of mutual respect, where every staff member feels valued. In the evenings, a full calendar of special events and social opportunities gives staff the chance to

relax, recharge, and bond with one another.

“We believe that a happy and connected staff creates the best possible camp environment,” said Camp Director Daniel Stroock. “Many of our staff are teenagers, and we understand that after a demanding school year, they want to enjoy their summer, too. While we set high expectations for their work during the day, we also believe it’s important to offer them opportunities to have fun at night and unwind with their friends.”

Recent staff events have included a Long Island Ducks game and a hilarious Let’s Make a Deal-style game night. This week featured a women’s swim night and men’s softball, and there’s plenty more ahead. Next week, the fun comes to camp with late-night laser tag, and the second month promises even more highlights –including tie-dye night, mini golf, bingo, and a special night exclusively for adult staff in August. All of the staff nights

wouldn’t be complete without delicious dinners like pizza, Chinese and BBQ. For added excitement, there is even an after-hours “Staff Life” WhatsApp chat with trivia and quizzes where participants can win prizes.

“I grew up at Avnet as a camper and now a counselor, and I can honestly say this is an amazing place to be,” said Elisha Weissman, who helps coordinate staff night programming along with Moshe Bekritsky another longtime participant. “These events and prizes are

CoJDS Summer Think Tank in Cedarhurst

School leaders, Jewish educators, and lay leaders from approximately 100 schools, coming from New York to Tucson and from Miami to Seattle, gathered recently in Cedarhurst for the 12th annual CoJDS (Consortium of Jewish Day Schools) Summer Think Tank, which has emerged as the premier professional conference for Jewish day schools. This year featured special programming for morahs, featuring presentations and Q&A sessions, as well as sessions tailored for new rebbeim who have joined a special mentoring program launching this year.

This year’s conference focused on Recruitment and Retention, presenting strategies and solutions to help Jewish

day schools find and keep highly qualified faculty members and engaged and supportive families.

One attendee reflected, “This was the first COJDS conference I attended. The topic was spot on and so relevant, the presenters were knowledgeable and engaging, and the crowd was supportive and welcoming to each other.”

The conference keynote address was delivered by Dr. Noam Wasserman, incoming Head of School at Yeshivat Ramaz, and focused on how the mindset and toolset of successful startup entrepreneurs can be applied to school leadership. Dr. Wasserman also led a group conversation with school leaders about best practices, opportunities, and chal-

Avnet’s way of showing appreciation, and it’s incredible.”

By creating space for connection, professional respect, and downtime, Avnet has built a staff culture that attracts top-tier talent – responsible, enthusiastic, and deeply caring individuals who give their all to the campers. Daniel shared, “When people are cared for they reflect that back to those around them. That, for both campers and staff, is the Avnet experience.”

lenges. Additional speakers included Rabbi Dr. Maury Grebenau and Mrs. Suri Ganz from the Jewish New Teacher Project, Rabbi Yaakov Sadigh from Hillel Yeshiva, Rabbi Simcha Dessler from the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland, and Mrs. Ahuvah Heyman of Bnos Yisroel school in Baltimore.

The conference also included organizations partnering with CoJDS, such as the Zucker Jewish Academy network.

One participant said, “This was an amazing session. It was worth it to come in just for this session.” A presentation from Accutrain on the topic of Responsibility-Centered Discipline was followed by Jay Zachter’s address to the conference, where he discussed using his Apploi plat-

form to find the best candidates.

A second theme of the conference was tefillah education. Rabbi Ahron Lopiansky began day 2 of the conference by discussing how focusing on the space and time of tefillah can help contemporary students connect to prayer in a meaningful way. Rabbi Sholom Kamenetsky spoke about approaching tefillah from a standpoint of gratitude. Both roshei yeshiva led robust Q&A sessions with school leaders on the topic of tefillah and other issues they face.

One school leader said that over the two days, he “heard some great ideas, met some great people, and was part of a great community!”

Summer Fun at Machane Hakayitz

On Sunday, the BACH Jewish Center’s Youth Department hosted a special Sunday Fun Day program where participants made duct tape art. The program was part of the BACH’s weekly series of youth events during the summer

Welcome to the CATCH Corner

CATCH Support, a community organization offering in-person, clinician-led support groups to those struggling with anxiety and depression, finally has its own home.

Our Catch Corner creates an atmosphere of warmth, relaxation, and comfort. Our hope is that it provides a space of authentic connection to those who

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi Cut Ceremonial Ribbon On New Police Training Village

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman was joined on Sunday by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Nassau County Commissioner of Police Patrick Ryder, and a host of federal, state, and local dignitaries for the ceremonial ribbon cutting of Nassau County’s new Police Training Village.

The opening of the Harry Singh, Bolla Charity Foundation Training Village is the latest initiative by the Blakeman administration to support Nassau County’s police force, ensuring they receive the best available training to protect local residents. County Executive Blakeman stated that investing in the brave men and women of Nassau County’s police department has been one of his top priorities since taking office.

“When I became County Executive, the first thing I did was declare that Nassau County is not a Sanctuary County. I said we would back the Blue, and we have hired 300 new police officers and over 200 new correctional officers. All of our major crimes are way down – rapes, murders, robberies – down 15% just in the last year,” Blakeman said.

Blakeman, Commissioner Ryder, and the men and women of law enforcement who made this vision a reality and keep Nassau County the nation’s safest county.”

Nassau County Commissioner of Police Patrick Ryder stated that federal, state, and local partners will be cross-training with Nassau County Police at the new training village. He thanked all of Nassau County’s law enforcement officers and government officials from every level of government for their ongoing support.

“Over the past several years, we’ve been challenged like we’ve never been challenged before. And we turn to our government, and we hope that they support us,” Commissioner Ryder stated. “We’ve got our Attorney General, we’ve got our County Executive, everybody in Nassau County stands with the men and women of law enforcement because – you know why? We stand with all of you.”

need. We will be offering journaling classes for women, emotion regulation classes for adults and children, breathwork, game nights, and evenings to chill and connect with others. We are so excited and can’t wait to share it with you.

To find out more, please text 347-4334742 or email info@catchsupport.org

That drop in crime follows Nassau County being named the safest county in America by U.S. News & World Report. It’s an accolade that Harry Singh, one of the generous financial backers of the new training village, takes pride in as a local resident.

“As a business owner and Nassau County resident, I am proud to have the opportunity to give back and financially support this world-class police training facility,” Singh said in a statement. “Thank you to County Executive

In her ribbon-cutting address, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi promised that her office and the Trump administration will continue to do everything possible to protect police officers across the U.S. She applauded all the stakeholders who made the new Police Training Village a reality and said it will save the lives of police officers.

“There’s no easy day in the life of a police officer. What [County Executive Blakeman and Commissioner Ryder] are doing is making it a lot easier, though. You will get the training you need. It will ensure that officers are prepared for all the dangerous encounters that they face,” Attorney General Bondi said.

Niggun Chabura Harmony Concert

On Tuesday night, July 8, while the weather was bleak and dark, there was warmth and light in the basement of Aish Kodesh. The occasion: The Niggun Chabura Harmony Concert—a soulful fusion of heartfelt music and deep Torah insight that brought together voices, hearts, and souls in perfect resonance.

The evening was built around the theme of “Harmony”—harmony of voices as singers collaborated, harmony of hearts and souls in the audience, and harmony between Torah and music. What unfolded was more than a concert—it was an experience, an elevated moment of connection.

Rav Yirmi Ginsberg, a mashpia in Aish Kodesh and founder of the Niggun Chabura, opened the night with a stir-

ring reflection on harmony as a form of achdus, true unity. “Only when two voices stop competing,” he explained, “can they blend into something beautiful.” He shared that the word Yisrael contains the same letters as Shir Kel—“the song of G-d”—reminding us that the Jewish people are Hashem’s song. When there is unity among us, the song is sweet and balanced. But when there is discord, the music falters, coming out off-key.

Rav Yirmi also spoke of another kind of harmony—d’veykus, the alignment of a person’s life with Hashem’s presence. He expanded, “When we see Hashem in both our ups—with gratitude—and our downs—with humility and surrender, we live in harmony with the Divine Composer of our personal symphony.” These themes resonated throughout the night,

echoing in the lyrics of the songs and in the silence between them.

The musical lineup was exceptional, featuring a stunning array of talent: Yosef Kugler, Yosef Gestetner, Eli Dachs, Avi Wisnicki, Meir Solomon, Dovid Rotberg, and Werntatty, with masterful musical accompaniment by Tani Frisch on guitar and David Schwartzman on violin. Each artist brought his own voice, and original songs, yet joined in a collaborative atmosphere that captured the evening’s essence.

The finale brought everyone together in a moving group rendition of “Uvnei” from Waterbury—a musical tefillah for Hashem to return to His city, Yerushalayim, and rebuild His home, the Beis HaMikdash. As voices joined and ascended, the harmony became something you

could feel. You didn’t just hear it; you were a part of it.

It was a night of inspiration, uplift, and deep emotional resonance—a reminder that when music and Torah join together, the soul can be aroused and felt.

The Niggun Chabura was founded in 2023 by Rav Yirmi Ginsberg, a mashpia in Kehillas Aish Kodesh of Woodmere. With a vision to fuse Torah and music, Rav Yirmi created a space where soulful niggunim and deep Torah insights come together to inspire and uplift. You can watch the concert on Aish Kodesh’s YouTube page. For more information, visit NiggunChabura.com or contact NiggunChabura@gmail.com.

Mercaz Academy Social Media Post Tops One Million Views

When Mercaz Academy’s principal, Rabbi Kalman Fogel, spoke to students before they departed for a field trip this past spring, he had no idea that his words would soon be heard around the world.

“When you go on a trip, you’re going to have a lot of fun, but…you’re not only representing yourself,” he began. “Who else are you representing? Your family, your school…the Jewish people. Which means effectively you’re representing Hashem.” Rabbi Fogel explained that especially at this time of war in Israel, it is important that they represent Judaism positively and that their politeness and thoughtful behavior would be remembered as an example of how Jewish children behave.

This particular 90-second lesson was caught on video. As an example of the school’s mission, it was posted on Instagram and Facebook one afternoon at

the end of May 2025. Mercaz Academy is a Modern Orthodox Jewish elementary school in the town of Plainview, on the eastern edge of Nassau County. The school serves 170 students from age two through sixth grade, so no one expected this clip to reach more than the few hundred people who followed Mercaz Academy on social media.

“The night it was posted, I got a call from an old friend–someone I had known as a child, but hadn’t seen for 40 years,” Rabbi Fogel recalled. “He said, ‘I had to call after I saw you on my Instagram feed!’ I was very excited that the clip had made it to Maryland.” By the next morning, there were several thousand views… and it kept going. The post had definitely struck a chord. People were commenting from all over the U.S., and not just from the Jewish community. The day after that, the school sent an email to parents

and supporters to let them know that the post had more than 32,000 views. It kept going. School administrators thought it would be over by the end of the week and sent out press releases at 50,000 views. The post had garnered likes from people all over the world, across the spectrum of religions and denominations. The comments were overwhelmingly positive, ranging from those reminiscing about hearing something similar at their own parochial schools to those expressing support for the Jewish people and Israel. The post was noticed by a few celebrities–Jessica Seinfeld liked it, as did influencers like Claudia Oshry and public figures like Shabbos Kestenbaum. Many of Rabbi Fogel’s former students checked in to let Mercaz Academy know that they were still “representing.”

After three weeks, school was closing for the summer, and the post was still trav-

eling around the world with no signs of slowing down.

By the last week of June, Rabbi Fogel’s simple, heartfelt message had been viewed by over a million people. As of mid-July, it has racked up nearly 1,300,000 views, 70,000 likes, and over 2,200 comments. It has been shared 25,000 times.

“I am amazed that this message of simple courtesy and derech eretz that lies at the heart of our everyday lives has resonated with so many,” said Rabbi Fogel. “The speed at which it has traveled and the number of people who have loved it, saved it, and shared it is nothing short of incredible.”

As of this writing, the viral video is still traveling, sharing Mercaz Academy’s message of personal responsibility globally. Will it achieve two million views? Stay tuned to find out.

Rabbi Wolowik Escorts Chief Rabbi Yosef to the Ohel

On Tuesday, Rabbi Zalman

Wolowik, director of Chabad of the Five Towns, had the tremendous honor and merit to escort Israel’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef, to spend time praying at the Ohel.

Prior to going into the Ohel, Rabbi Wolowik and Rabbi Yosef had a lengthy conversation about Rabbi Yosef’s deep respect and admiration for the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s vast knowledge of all aspects of Torah and the tremendous clarity that the Lubavitcher Rebbe gave to every aspect of Torah and to how it relates to every detail in life. He mentioned his father’s custom of learning Rambam each day after Shacharis, in accordance to the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s teachings.

When asked by a visitor if it was the chief rabbi‘s first time at the Ohel, he

proudly responded that whenever he is in the United States, he makes it a point to come and pray at the Ohel.

Rabbi Yosef also emphasized his tremendous appreciation for the fact that the Rebbe was concerned about every Jew in the world, to make sure that they do not get lost or assimilated and that he established centers all over the world with his shluchim. Rabbi Yosef said that he has personally met hundreds of Chabad shluchim around the world and cannot hold back his wonderment at how the shluchim live their lives in the most remote places around the world. He mentioned that he knew another great rabbi who tried to emulate this idea, but no one wanted to leave the comforts of their communities. It was a tremendous honor and opportunity for the chief rabbi to come to

the holy resting place of the Rebbe.

While saying Tehillim at the Ohel, Rabbi Yosef said a very intense tefillah, saying out loud a very powerful prayer that all the hostages should be released, all the IDF soldiers wherever they are should be safe and return home, and all Jews wherever they are in the world should be safe.

As Rabbi Wolowik and Rabbi Yosef were walking out from the Ohel, they passed the grave of Rabbi Wolowik’s es-

teemed father-in-law, Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, z”l, who was the chairman of the Conference of Chabad Emissaries. Rabbi Yosef spoke of the selfless dedication that Rabbi Kotlarsky had to the mission of the Rebbe, and as a result, he was the extended arm of the Rebbe to establish Chabad centers throughout the whole world. Rabbi Yosef concluded that there is a no doubt that this is the best way to prepare the world for the ultimate redemption with the coming of Moshiach.

The Nikolsburger Rebbe in Woodbourne, NY, Welcomes All

Israela, Paving your Journey Home

By Sarah Abenaim

For many, the dream of Aliyah—the return to Israel—is filled with hope, but also uncertainty. Uprooting a life, especially from the comfort of familiar countries like the U.S. or the U.K., can feel overwhelming. The challenge grows even greater when there’s no family waiting in Israel, no familiar faces to ease the transition.

That’s where Israela steps in—not just as an organization, but as a lifeline.

For over 30 years, Israela has helped thousands of families turn their Aliyah dreams into reality. Founded by Shalom Vach to support French Jews seeking a new life in Israel, the organization has quietly and steadily changed lives—over 10,000 of them. Now, under the leadership of his son, Col. (Res.) Golan Vach, former head of Israel’s famed National Search and Rescue Team, Israela has expanded its mission to South America and English-speaking communities, bringing its uniquely personal and community-based approach to an even broader audience.

What sets Israela apart isn’t just logistics—it’s heart.

At the core of Israela’s success are three simple but powerful pillars:

1. Aliyah in community.

Families don’t move alone—they move together. Israela forms Aliyah groups that settle in the same communities, creating an immediate support system where deep friendships blossom, easing both emotional and practical hurdles.

2. Thoughtful placement.

Israela doesn’t simply drop families

into existing enclaves. They carefully select culturally diverse, welcoming communities that foster true integration. Each family is matched with one or two “adoptive” families—locals who embrace them, guide them, and help them feel at home from the start.

3. Long-term, on-the-ground support.

The first 18 months to two years post-Aliyah can be the most fragile. Israela sends a dedicated project manager to live in the new community, ensuring every detail—from paperwork to school registration—is handled with care. Schools even receive a specially trained teacher to serve as a bridge, making sure no child falls through the cracks as they adapt to a new language and culture.

The journey to Israel doesn’t start at the airport—it begins a year before, with a dream and a plan.

That’s when the work of Israela quietly begins to unfold. A new cohort—each one named in honor of a fallen Israeli soldier—is formed, typically made up of around 15 families. These families are thoughtfully matched by age, lifestyle, and interests, with potential Israeli communities scouted in advance for their ability and willingness to warmly welcome new olim. There is no cost to join the cohort.

It all begins with a few informational Zoom sessions, after which parents are invited on a pilot trip, to Israel. Over several days, they bond with one another forming a deep sense of excitement over this transitional time. Because they spend full days exploring the potential host communities—meeting locals, asking questions, and planning their lives there, the imag-

ined experiences they formerly had are now palatable. Many have said after the trip that in Chutz La’aretz, they live day to day; but being in Israel opened their eyes to the possibility of feeling truly alive. It is this pivotal emotion that solidifies the upcoming dream, the unity of the group, and the energy to overcome hurdles along the way.

At the end of the trip, the families vote on their preferred location. While unanimous consensus isn’t required, several families must choose to settle in the same place in order to access Israela’s full support. Nobody is ever locked into any group decision, and families are free to decide a direction that works best for them at any time.

A recent group from Anglo countries united families from Australia, Gibraltar, USA and Canada, before they settled together in Carmei Gat—where their community carefully prepared to receive them. Among them was Rabbi Ari Posner of Perth, Australia, who had served as rabbi at the Mizrachi shul for a decade. With five children and his eldest approaching high school, Rabbi Posner knew the time was right to make the move.

The cohort became like an extended family to the Posners, and the embrace

they felt from the receiving communities was immediate and deeply moving. It all began when Col. Golan Vach visited Perth to speak about Israela’s mission. Rabbi Posner was inspired—not only to make Aliyah, but to contribute more broadly. He now serves as the head of Israela’s Anglo branch for North America and is actively building its next English-speaking cohort and preparing for their pilot trip in November 2025.

Israela families from North America still make Aliyah through Nefesh B’Nefesh and are encouraged to utilize their resources, which go hand-in-hand with Israela’s program. Israela’s support is complementary – with the shared goal of making Aliyah as seamless, supported and successful as possible.

If you’re interested in joining the November Pilot Trip or an upcoming cohort, or would be open to hosting a parlor meeting to help bring this initiative to your community, reach out to Rabbi Ari Posner, Director of Aliyah-North America: +972-55-772-1382, or via email aposner@israela.org. You can also fill out a contact form, tinyurl.com/familyaliyah. Your journey home could start with just one conversation.

Multitudes of Amud HaYomi Learners All Over the World Begin

Masechta Pesachim This Week

HaRav Shmuel Auerbach greeting

HaRav Aharon Leib Shteinman, Dirshu Eruvin Siyum, 2013

By Chaim Gold

Did you know that if you start Masechta Pesachim this week with the Amud HaYomi, you can complete the entire masechta before the coming Pesach?! Yes, with a relatively small investment of time and effort every day, you can be koneh a masechta and know it well!

That is one of the unique facets of the Amud HaYomi. It affords a person the time to learn and complete masechtos in a way that he can actually retain a kinyan in the masechta

Now that the Amud HaYomi is embarking on its fourth large masechta, it has become clear to lomdim that this way of learning, one amud per day, empowers them time to look up shailos, peruse a Tosafos which asks a perplexing question, and in general be able to not only learn the day’s amud but to even chazer the previous day’s.

The special, remarkable kuntress called Iyun HaAmud compiled by great talmidei chachomim has been extremely well received by the lomdim. The kuntress consolidates so much of the important “reyd” on the sugya in the Rishonim and Acharonim, adding so much to the geshmak. It also includes the pages of the Gemara, explanations and supplements, marei mekomos and practical applications of the halacha

“My Father Had an Amud Yomi Seder”

HaGaon HaRav Yitzchok Sorotzkin has encouraged lomdim to undertake the new limud saying, “HaGaon HaRav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro, zt”l, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Be’er Yaakov, would often bemoan the fact that avreichim do not have a wide-ranging bekius in Shas

He would advise avreichim to take time during bein hasedarim or night seder to learn an amud yomi. My father, Rav Boruch Sorotzkin, zt”l, also had an amud yomi seder every afternoon.”

“Many Can Benefit from Learning an Amud a Day”

HaGaon HaRav Isamar Garbuz, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Orchos Torah, recalled that there had once been a kollel that put an emphasis on retaining what the avreichim learned in previous years. They devoted a certain amount each day to chazering the previous masechtos that they had learned. They decided to do an entire blatt daily. Initially, it worked but as time went on, many avreichim had difficulty keeping up. They went to consult with HaGaon HaRav Aharon Leib Shteinman, zt”l, and Rav Shteinman told them that they should chazer only an amud each day, because at times a daf a day is too much.

“I too,” Rav Garbuz proclaimed, “think that many will be able to benefit greatly from learning an amud each day. With perseverance they will finish and retain Shas.”

“Just Like a Person Cannot Live without Air”

That is exactly what Dirshu has seen in the year and a half since the Amud HaYomi machzor has begun. Lomdim have had great benefit, finding it easier to retain their learning when learning at such a pace.

As the Amud HaYomi completes Masechta Eruvin and embarks on Masechta Pesachim, lomdei Dirshu recall a siyum on Eruvin held by Dirshu twelve years ago at exactly this time of the year, the period of the Three Weeks, at the Binyanei Haumah Convention Center in Yerushalayim when Klal Yisrael was at a similar cross-

Harav Yitzchok Sorotzkin, Kinnus Olam HaTorah, 2024

roads. At that time, Gedolei Yisrael, led by the great senior Rosh Yeshiva, HaGaon HaRav Aharon Leib Shteinman, zt”l, who was nearly one hundred years old, and HaGaon HaRav Shmuel Auerbach, zt”l, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Maalos HaTorah, attended.

At that siyum, Rav Aharon Leib said, “Just like a person can’t live without air, so too a Jew cannot live spiritually without Torah. The world cannot exist without Torah. A Jew cannot exist without Torah. If a person chalila does not have an esrog on Sukkos, he can still be a Yid. If he doesn’t have Torah, however, the world DOES come to an end. Hashem makes air the easiest commodity to obtain because without it we would cease to live. Without Torah, a person would cease to live. So too, Hashem infused in the creation the ability for a person who cannot learn Torah or cannot learn a sufficient amount of Torah to connect with the Torah through supporting it. Thus, everyone can have a chelek, a part of Torah.”

“We Will Only be Redeemed in the Merit of Torah!”

Rav Shmuel Auerbach’s remarks at that siyum as they started Pesachim could have been said to us today. He pointed out that “we are now during the Three Weeks of mourning over the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. Now that the Beis Hamikdash has been destroyed, what do we have left?”

He answered, “Now, we only have the Torah! Ein lanu shiur rak haTorah hazos. So, how can we display to Hashem our deep desire for the geulah? The only way we can do that is by showing Him how important the Torah that which He has left for us is to us. If we show Him how much we love Torah, He will in turn see fit to entrust us once again with the

Beis Hamikdash. Perhaps,” said the Rosh Yeshiva, “this is the depth of the meaning of our sages’ words when they said, ‘We will only be redeemed in the merit of the Torah.’”

Immersion in Pesachim Will Lead to a Transformative Pesach!

The Amud HaYomi is scheduled to begin Masechta Pesachim this coming Monday, 25 Tammuz/July 21. The program will complete the entire Masechta Pesachim, all one-hundred-and-twentyone dafim, before Pesach. Anyone who has ever had the zechus to learn a Masechta in its entirety before a Yom Tov, can attest to the fact that the entire Yom Tov is different after having been immersed in all aspects of that Yom Tov for the better part of the year preceding it. Learning the masechta before the Yom Tov truly transforms the Yom Tov into a different spiritual experience.

With the Amud HaYomi there are so many ways to learn. Lomdei Amud HaYomi can avail themselves of shiurim now being given in hundreds of different communities worldwide. There are also shiurim one can access on the phone and on various Torah platforms with some of the best, world renowned maggidei shiurim. Many, of course, find learning with a chavrusah and the give and take that it affords to be the optimum way to learn.

The main thing to understand is that if you have not started learning the Amud HaYomi until now, there is no better time to join.

To join the Amud HaYomi and gain a kinyan in Masechta Pesachim by next Pesach contact Dirshu at info@dirshunj. org or at 1-888-5Dirshu.

Around the Community

Tzipisa L’Yeshuah: Yearning for Redemption

By Rabbi Daniel Glatstein

Two sets of shofar blasts are sounded on Rosh Hashanah — tekiyos d’meyushav and tekiyos d’meumad. The Gemara teaches us that we blow the second set of shofar blasts to confuse the Satan.

Tosafos explain that when the Satan hears the first set of tekiyos, he is unsure if it is Klal Yisrael who is blowing a shofar or if the sounds he hears are actually heralding the arrival of Mashiach.

When we blow the second set, he tells himself that this is most definitely the shofar of Mashiach. He becomes flustered and worried and does not have the wherewithal to instigate accusations against Klal Yisrael.

One could ask that the Satan hears multiple blasts of the shofar yearly; does he really think every year that the second set of shofar blasts are the shofar blasts of Mashiach? Why is the Satan so gullible that he makes the same mistake year after year?

The answer is that the Satan is very astute. No one more than the Satan understands how close Mashiach is to coming. No one more than the Satan knows that just because Mashiach didn’t come last year, he can very likely come this year. The Satan knows better than anyone that the world is sinking into ever-worsening decadence and impurity, and therefore the merits of Klal Yisrael’s adherence to Torah and mitzvos become greater and more powerful. Each year we face stronger temptations than ever before, and relative to the ever-worsening world that surrounds us, we shine brighter each year.

The Satan himself understands that each ensuing year, it is easier and more likely for Mashiach to come, and therefore he becomes frightened anew.

The bracha that immediately precedes Krias Shema in Shacharis begins with the words ahavah rabbah ahavtanu Hashem Elokeinu, which is typically translated as, With unbounded love You have loved us, Hashem, our G-d (Nusach Ashkenaz). R’ Shimon Schwab advances

that this is not the accurate translation. He offers: You have loved us with an ever-increasing love, Hashem, our G-d.

Hashem loves us more and more as time goes on. Even though we experience yeridas hadoros, the decline of the generations, even though we are not on the madreigos of the generations that came before us, Hashem’s affection and love for us continues to grow steadily.

Perhaps the explanation for this phenomenon is the fact that we face increasing challenges and nisyonos that surpass anything our ancestors faced. We are exposed to levels of depravity, impurity, and decadence that has never been seen before. Yet we remain steadfast to Hashem and the Torah. We continue to raise our families according to the traditions of our ancestors. Perhaps this is why Hashem’s love for us continues to grow.

And perhaps this is why our generation, lowly as we may be in comparison to our ancestors, can hope, yearn, and expect Mashiach to come, now more than ever before.

Reprinted from Tzipisa L’Yeshuah: Yearning for Redemption by Rabbi Daniel Glatstein with permission from the copyright holder, ArtScroll Mesorah Publications.

Commemorating the First Yahrtzeit of the Honorable Rav Chaim Shimon Felder z”l

By Nosson Leib Felder

There are people who live life as if they have already arrived, and then there are those who live life as if they are always on the way.

My grandfather, the Honorable Rav Chaim Shimon Felder, z”l, somehow embodied both.

As we mark his first yahrtzeit, our family, community, and all those whose lives he touched pause to reflect on a man who never stopped growing, yet always felt whole. He was constantly striving, deepening his connection with Hashem. And yet, he lived without restlessness or frantic ambition. He often told his grandchildren not to be so eager to conquer the world, because one who always wants more will never feel satisfied.

He did not chase life as if something was missing. He moved through it with quiet certainty, with an unwavering faith that what Hashem had given him was enough.

His growth was not born from dissatisfaction but from deep, enduring gratitude. As a child growing up in a world of antisemitism and in the barracks of Bergen-Belsen, and to be separated from his father at 6 years old, no one would blame him for living a life of sadness and questioning the Ribbono Shel Olam. But he was a rose that grew from the concrete and kept moving, building, and growing.

He refined his middos with sincerity, strengthened his emunah with devotion, and lived with peace about the past, appreciation for the present, and hope for the future. He truly believed he would greet Mashiach.

That balance — striving while satisfied—was, in my eyes, his defining trait. He never stopped becoming Yet he never needed to prove himself. My grandfather would have said he did nothing special. But those who knew him knew better.

Over the last year, I had the privilege of writing a book about his life. I thought I understood his story. But in researching for this biography, I found myself discovering him anew.

What moved me most was how many of his accomplishments he never spoke about. The committees he served on. The countless quiet acts of leadership. The lives changed by a phone call, a ride, a smile. I only

learned about many of these moments while writing. That was his way. He never spoke of his own merits, though he would glow with pride when speaking of his wife, their parents, and our family.

He refused to let “Holocaust Survivor” be his only title but carried that title with an understanding of its meaning in our people’s history.

He did not shy away from attention. He filled every room he entered. And yet, beneath the warmth and charisma was a deep humility, a quiet reliance on G-d that never wavered.

My grandfather was a scientist, a chazzan, a mayor, a patriarch, a businessman, and so much more. But

That balance — striving while satisfied—was, in my eyes, his defining trait.

more than any of those, he was a man who refused to let life make him bitter in any way.

He had seen the darkness of Bergen-Belsen, had witnessed the unimaginable, and somehow emerged not just alive, but joyful. Whole.

I used to wonder whether his joy and optimism were a kind of armor — a way of keeping certain truths at bay. But the more I reflect, the more I realize that question says more about me than it does about him. The real question is not how he managed to live this way but why so few others do.

So many died in the Holocaust al kiddush Hashem

But how many walked out of those camps and lived al kiddush Hashem?

Without any judgment, that number may be smaller than we might have hoped for. But I know one for sure.

As this first year since my grandfather a”h’s petira comes to a close, his memory lives on in every person he made feel important, in every small act of kindness no one knew about, in every quiet moment of faith that defined who he was.

His story is our story, for he belonged to all of us. May his story and our story as a people continue to be told forever.

Yehi zichro baruch.

TJH Centerfold

Bug Out Trivia

1. Approximately how many species of mosquitoes exist worldwide?

a. 12

b. 300

c. 3,500

d. 50,500

b. Lemon eucalyptus

c. Pine

d. Sweat

2. What’s the scientific name for the family mosquitoes belong to?

a. Buzzettae

b. Culicidae

c. Annoyoculis

d. Biteoidus

3. Why do mosquitoes bite humans?

a. For nourishment

b. They crave salt

c. They need blood to develop eggs

d. Because they can smell fear

4. What scent do mosquitoes hate the most?

a. Lavender

5. What’s the average lifespan of a mosquito?

a. 1 week

b. 2-4 weeks

c. 3 months

d. 9 years

6. Which state is home to the most mosquito species?

a. Florida

b. Alaska

c. Texas

d. Louisiana

7. What blood type do mosquitoes prefer most?

a. Type A

b. Type B

c. Type AB

d. Type O

8. At what time of day are mosquitoes most active?

a. Dawn and dusk

b. Noon

c. Midnight

d. During your one peaceful

Riddle Me This!

moment outdoors

9. Approximately how far can some mosquito species travel in their lifetime?

a. 1,000 feet

b. 2 miles

c. 25 miles

d. 100 miles

Answers:

Wisdom key:

8-9 correct: Nice job, Chaim Culicidae!

4-7 correct: You ain’t exactly invited on the 100-mile road trip, but they will gladly have you be their lunch!

0-3 correct: They say that lemon eucalyptus is also good to build up brain cells.

Three people are lying on the beach for six hours in 90-degree heat.

Two are wearing SPF 100 sunscreen. One is wearing no sunscreen, no hat, no shirt — just a bathing suit. There are no clouds, no umbrella, and no shade.

Yet somehow, he doesn’t get sunburned. How is that possible?

Answer: It was nighttime.

Diary of a Reluctant Outdoorsman

Found next to an empty bottle of bug spray and a melted protein bar

8:04 AM – Went outside. Immediate regret. The sun hit me like it knew my secrets. My back started sweating before I even made it to the mailbox. I waved at a neighbor and accidentally flung sunscreen in my eye.

8:17 AM – Tried “hydrating.” Drank half a gallon of lukewarm lemon water. Got suspiciously lightheaded, but I think it’s because I was too hydrated. That’s a thing, right?

9:43 AM – The mosquitoes discovered me. I am apparently a five-star buffet. I am now 70% bug bite, 30% resentment.

10:05 AM – Attempted a nature walk. Walked into a spiderweb the size of a hammock. Did an interpretive dance trying to get it off. Pretty sure I invented a new martial art.

12:00 PM – Lunch outside. Salad instantly wilted. Fork became a branding iron. A squirrel tried to steal my napkin. I let him. I don’t need that kind of confrontation.

2:30 PM – Neighbor suggested a “relaxing hammock nap.” Translation: swinging panic trap. Got in. Immediately flipped. Landed on what I can only describe as “a stick with sharp ambitions.”

3:55 PM – Saw clouds forming. Finally, a break. Wrong. Just humid gloom. Like breathing through a sponge soaked in soup.

6:00 PM – They say sunsets are beautiful. I say they’re a lie the sky tells right before unleashing an army of gnats.

9:22 PM – Inside now. Air conditioning set to “Arctic tundra.” A single ice cube sits on my forehead. The ceiling fan and I are back on speaking terms.

Moral: Summer is fun for some people. For the rest of us, there’s SPF 100.

You Gotta Be Kidding Me

A businessman was in a great deal of trouble. His business was failing, he had put everything he had into the business, he owed everybody—it was so bad he was even contemplating hurting himself. As a last resort he went to a rabbi and poured out his story of tears and woe.

When he had finished, the rabbi said, “Here’s what I want you to do: Put a folding chair and your Tehillim in your car and drive down to the beach. Take the chair and the Tehillim to the water’s edge, sit down in the chair, and put the Tehillim in your lap. Open the Tehillim; the wind will riffle the pages, but finally the open Tehillim will come to rest on a page. Look down at the page and read the first thing you see. That will be your answer; that will tell you what to do.”

A year later, the businessman went back to the rabbi, bringing his wife and children with him. The man was in a new custom-tailored suit, his wife in a mink coat, the children shining. The businessman pulled an envelope stuffed with money out of his pocket and gave it to the rabbi as a donation in thanks for his advice.

The rabbi, recognizing the benefactor, was curious. “You did as I suggested?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” replied the businessman.

“You went to the beach?”

“Absolutely.”

“You sat in a chair with the Tehillim in your lap?”

“Absolutely.”

“You let the pages riffle until they stopped?”

“Absolutely.”

“And what were the first words you saw?”

“Chapter 11.”

Torah Thought

Parshas Pinchas

By Rabbi Berel Wein

The recounting of the mandatory Temple sacrifices for the holidays of the Jewish year occupies a significant amount of space in this week’s parsha. The overall meaning and matter of animal sacrifices has been discussed a number of times in these parsha articles. But I wish to now attempt to dwell on the uniqueness of the sacrifices that are meant to somehow characterize the holiday itself.

For example, the sacrifices offered on the seven days of Sukkot differ for each day of that holiday. This is not true regarding the sacrifices ordained for the last six days of Pesach which are all identical. This difference has halachic implications regarding the recitation of a Haftorah blessing on the Shabbat of Chol Hamoed. On Sukkot, because of the fact that a different sacrifice was offered each day, the blessing is a holiday blessing and not only a Shabbat blessing.

On Shabbat Chol Hamoed Pesach, the blessing is a purely Shabbat bless -

ing. Aside from the halachic implication just described, a subtle message of general insight is provided here. Pesach, representing a one-time redemption from Egyptian slavery, a great but essentially singular event, repeats its same sacrifice throughout the six latter days of the holiday.

on the Temple altar on each individual day of Sukkot.

The description of the holiday altar sacrifices for the holiday of Shavuot is also significant. The Torah describes the holiday as Yom Habikkurim – the day of the offering of the first fruits of the agricultural year. It also states that a new

Torah is as natural and necessary to us as is the seasons of the year and the bounty of the earth.

Sukkot, representing the Divine protection over Israel and all individual Jews, is a renewed daily event which captures the differing circumstances that each day of life brings with it – a new salvation each and every day. Hence, the different sacrifices offered

offering – the offering of the two loaves of bread – is to be part of the Mincha offering of that day.

Even though all of the holidays revolve around the natural and agricultural year in the Land of Israel --- Pesach is the holiday of springtime and the

offering of the grain sacrifice symbolizing the harvest of the winter wheat crop and Sukkot represents the holiday of the fall harvest season – it is the offerings of the holiday of Shavuot that are most intertwined with nature and agriculture.

We know Shavuot as the holiday of the granting of the Torah on Sinai to the Jewish people. The Torah does not mention this directly but rather concentrates upon nature, agriculture and the blessings of the bounty of the earth. The Torah, by not dwelling especially on the granting of the Torah aspect of the holiday, sublimely suggests to us that Torah is as natural and necessary to us as is the seasons of the year and the bounty of the earth.

Torah is truly our lives and the length of our days and is therefore an integral part of nature itself, the very wonders of nature that Shavuot itself celebrates. Perhaps that is the intent of the rabbis in their statement that the world itself was created in the image of G-d’s Torah. Shabbat shalom.

We learn a halacha of historical significance in this week’s parsha. Following the daughters of Tzlafchad’s request for an inheritance because their father died without sons, the pasuk (Bamidbar 27:8) says: “Speak to the children of Israel to say, ‘If a man dies, and he has no son, you shall transfer his inheritance to his daughter.’” Chazal (Yalkut Shimoni, Remez 774) teach: “The portion of inheritances should have been taught through Moshe Rebbeinu, but the daughters of Tzlafchad were meritorious and it was taught through them, for good things happen through the meritorious and bad things thorough the guilty.”

Why was the daughters’ request so meritorious? They made the following claim (Bamidbar 27:4): “Give us a portion among the brothers of our father.” As background, they informed Moshe (ibid. 3), “Our father died in the desert, and he was not among the assembly that banded together against Hashem in the assembly of Korach. Rather, for his own sin he died…” While we understand that Korach did not have a good reputation, why was it relevant to their claim to make sure Moshe knew their father was not a follower of Korach?

It must be that all of the complaints of Korach, his assembly, Dasan, Aviram, and their ilk shared one common denominator, as we see from their never-ending grumbling: “Is it not enough that you brought us up from a land flowing with milk and honey to cause us to die in the desert?! … You have not even brought us to a land flowing with milk and honey…” (ibid. 16:13-14). Their complaints all revolved around negativity toward Eretz Yisroel. “Let us turn around and return to Egypt” (ibid. 14:4).

The daughters of Tzlafchad wanted to make sure there was no room for error.

From the Fire

Parshas Pinchas Leadership

Adapted

By Rav Moshe Weinberger

for publication by Binyomin Wolf

Their claim to the land was only based on a love for Eretz Yisroel and a strong desire to cling to it. They were telling Moshe that their father was not part of Korach’s assembly. Rather, his “Zionist” credentials were impeccable. They wanted Moshe to know that their claim was based on a love for Eretz Yisroel – nothing else. Their request was not based on a desire for wealth or property. That is why the pasuk traces their lineage back to Yosef (Rashi on ibid. 27:1). Just as Yosef loved Eretz Yisroel so much that he could not bear the thought of being buried in Egypt, so, too, the daughters of Tzlafchad were motivated purely by a desire to connect to the land.

In their request, the daughters of Tzlafchad do not even use the word “inheritance” or “property.” Rather, they only ask for a “portion.” All they wanted was to connect themselves to Eretz Yisroel. That is why they wanted to ensure Moshe knew that their father was not among the people who negated the Jewish people’s essential connection to Eretz Yisroel.

When Hashem tells Moshe to grant their request, He tells him (ibid. 7), “The daughters of Tzlafchad speak justly.” They word “kein , justly” does not only mean that they were right. It means, as the brothers said to Yosef as viceroy, “Keinim anachnu, we are honest” (Bereishis 42:11). Although Moshe Rebbeinu was unimaginably great, on his level, he had somewhat of a blind spot. He had a suspicion that these young women only wanted a portion in Eretz Yisroel as a way of accumulating wealth or status. So Hashem had to tell him, “No, these women are honest. Their desire for a connection to Eretz Yisroel is based on a pure and simple love for the land.”

Moshe, on his level, failed to recognize that the daughters of Tzlafchad were not part of the old generation, with its slave mentality and inability to intellectually and emotionally separate from Egypt. They were part of the new generation who was looking forward to taking possession of the land in order to live a full Jewish life there.

The truth is that we still do not un-

derstand how Moshe could have forgotten the halacha that a daughter inherits from her father when he has no sons. Is it possible Moshe never learned this halacha from Hashem? Rashi (on Bamidbar 27:5) explains differently: “The halacha eluded him. Here, he was punished for taking the crown by saying (Devarim 1:17), ‘And the matter that is too difficult for you, bring it, takrivun, to me, and I will hear it.’” Outwardly, it seems that because Moshe showed too much confidence in himself, he forgot the halacha. The pasuk therefore says about him (Bamidbar 27:5), “Moshe brought, vayakreiv, their matter before Hashem.” Could it be that Rashi means Moshe was being punished for a modicum of arrogance? Such an explanation is highly unlikely, as Hashem Himself testifies (Bamidbar 12:3), “And the man Moshe was exceedingly humble, more than any other man on the face of the earth.”

We must also understand why Moshe was punished for saying, “And the matter that is too difficult for you, bring it to me, and I will hear it.” Moshe said this almost forty years earlier, when he listened to Yisro’s advice and, instead of hearing all halachic questions himself, appointed judges over tens, hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands. So why was Moshe punished at the end of the forty years in the desert for the statement that he made to the judges almost forty years earlier?

Perhaps we can suggest an explanation. Yisro’s advice was certainly correct. It is impossible to lead a nation by personally adjudicating every personal question and interpersonal dispute that arises in the nation. It was necessary for Moshe to delegate his authority and handle only the most difficult cases. But the natural result of this was that, as the

new generation grew up over the course of the forty years in the desert, Moshe Rebbeinu had virtually no personal contact with this new generation. He was busy managing the complaints of the Egyptian-born generation who were struggling with a fear of conquering Eretz Yisroel and a misplaced nostalgia for life in Egypt. Moshe was accustomed to leading Jews immersed in an exile mentality. For entirely legitimate reasons, Moshe lacked the opportunity for a personal connection with the younger generation who were ready, willing, and able to start a new life in the land of Israel. At the end of the forty years in the desert, they were the majority of the Jewish people.

The new generation, the generation of the daughters of Tzlafchad, grew up without a direct connection with Moshe Rebbeinu. Perhaps that is why Moshe was baffled by them. Their true intentions were not clear to him. He did not know whether their claim was driven by a desire for wealth or a sincere longing to connect to Eretz Yisroel. That is why Moshe forgot this halacha relating to inheritance as a result of saying, “And the matter that is too difficult for you, bring it to me, and I will hear it.” It was not a “punishment” per sé. It was a natural result of the fact that Moshe was not connected to the idealism and longing for Eretz Yisroel prevalent in the new generation.

There is an amazing Midrash (Yalkut Shimoni, Chukas, Remez 763) related to this point:

“And you shall speak to the rock before them, and it will give forth its waters” (Bamidbar 20:8). When a child is small, his teacher hits him, and he learns. When he grows up, [the teacher] rebukes him with words. So, too, Hashem said to Moshe: “When this rock was young, you hit it, as it says, ‘And you shall hit the rock’ (Shemos 17:6). But now, ‘And you shall speak to the rock before them, and it will give forth its waters’ (Bamidbar 20:8). Teach one chapter [of Torah] over it, and it will bring forth water from the rock.”

We see from this Midrash that the leaders of the new generation was obligated to lead them differently than the previous generation. It was difficult for Moshe to lead a generation that did not grow up in slavery, who did not grow up under the Egyptian whip, the same way he led the old generation. The old generation grew up being treated like property. They were beaten and expected to be obedient subjects. They unfortunate -

ly only understood the language of the whip. But the young generation grew up with freedom and a sense of self-respect. That is why Moshe was unable to lead the new generation into Eretz Yisroel. He had limited contact with the young generation and therefore did not know how to communicate with them. The generation of Eretz Yisroel was the generation of “Speak to the heart of Yerushalayim and call out to it” (Yeshayahu 40:2). Moshe’s difficulty in fully connecting with the new generation was the reason why, immediately after the story of the daughters of Tzlafchad, Hashem told him (Bamidbar 27:12-13), “Ascend this Mount Avarim and see the land that I have given to the children of Israel. When you see it, you, too, will be gathered to your people just as Aharon your brother was gathered.” The new generation needed a new leader, Yehoshua, who knew how to speak with the generation and who was in touch with the nature of the people who would enter Eretz Yisroel. Perhaps Mount Avarim refers to the avar, the past. Moshe stood upon the mountain separating the past from the future.

A chassid of the Rachmastrivka Rebbe in Boro Park once introduced the Rebbe to an elderly Jew, proudly explaining that this man was “ah fartzeitiker chassid, an old-fashioned chassid.” Meaning it as a great compliment, the chasid wanted the Rebbe to understand that his acquaintance was not one of those new-fangled chassidim, with a “they don’t make ‘em like they used to” connotation. Unimpressed, the Rebbe responded, “I don’t know what it says in your Haggadah, but in mine, it says, ‘At the beginning our forefathers were idol-worshipers… But now, the Holy One brought us close to His service…’ I don’t need to meet old-fashioned chassidim. I want to meet new chassidim.” May we merit to be new chassidim who live with Hashem’s will for our lives now and not merely mimic what Jews have done in the past. May Hashem cause us to merit more and more leaders who are connected to the past but understand the nature of our generation and lead us according to that understanding. With that, as it says in Shemonah Esrei, “Our eyes will see Your return to Zion with mercy.”

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.

The Curse of Flattery, the Gift of Rebuke

By Rabbi Shmuel Reichman

In describing the tragedy of flattery, the Mishnah (Sotah 41a) describes the following incident: When King Agripas got up in Yerushalayim to read from the Torah, he opened to the phrase: “You shall not appoint a foreign king (ish nochri ) over you.” As soon as he read these words, he began crying, as he knew his lineage disqualified him from being king. (There is a machlokes whether this was Agripas I, whose father wasn’t Jewish, or Agripas II, whose mother wasn’t Jewish, but regardless, his genealogy made him unfit to be king, as a king needs pristine lineage.) The Jewish people immediately comforted him, saying, “Do not fear; you are our brother, you are our brother.”

The Gemara (Sotah 41b) quotes Rabbi Nosson’s comment on this incident: “At that very moment, Klal Yisrael brought a death sentence upon their heads because they flattered Agripas.” Rabbi Shimon Ben Chalafta proceeds along this line, stating that “at the moment, the fist of flattery prevailed, [and] justice became perverted.”

Rabbi Nosson’s and Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta’s statements are puzzling, both in terms of content and wording. Why is flattery so harmful, to the extent that it would cause the Jewish people’s destruction? It seems to have been a positive response here, saving someone from shame and discomfort. And why does Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta refer to flattery as a “fist”? Flattery seems neither violent nor extreme; its connection to a fist is perplexing. A “soft glove” or a “gentle touch” seem like more apt descriptions.

Curse of the Unborn Child

The discussion of flattery continues in the Gemara (Sotah 41b), with an even more enigmatic statement. Rabbi Elazar declares that anyone who is a flatterer, the fetuses in the womb curse him. This strange phraseology about fetuses in the womb appears in another place as well. The Gemara (Sanhedrin 91b) states that whoever withholds Torah from those who wish to learn it, even the fetuses in the womb curse him.

What is the curse of the unborn child, and why is it directed at those who flatter others or withhold Torah?

In order to understand the curse of the fetus and its connection to flattery and Torah study, we must revisit a Gemara that we have discussed several times before that describes the initial stage of our formation. The Gemara (Niddah 30b) explains that while we were in the womb, a malach taught us kol haTorah kulah, and just before we were born, this malach struck us on the mouth, causing us to forget everything we learned. As the Vilna Gaon explains, this refers to the deepest realms of Torah, a transcendent Torah that lies far beyond this world, beyond the confines of space and time. (Quoted in Maalos HaTorah by Rabbeinu Avraham, brother of the Vilna Gaon. See also Even Sheleimah 8:24.) This Torah is the very root of reality, and you were granted complete understanding of its every detail. Not only were you shown this level of Torah, but you also learned your specific share of Torah — you were shown your unique purpose in the world and how your unique role fits into the larger scheme

of the human story as a whole. You were given a taste of your own perfection, of what you could, should, and hopefully will become. When the malach struck you, you didn’t lose this Torah; you only lost access to it. From this transcendent realm, you were birthed into the physical world with the mission to actualize everything you were shown in the womb, while in your primordial, perfect state.

The Purpose of Tochachah

The purpose of rebuke is simple: Rebuke helps us see where we have gone wrong, clarifying what we must change and improve in order to fulfill our purpose and actualize our true potential. Life is often difficult, mysterious, and overwhelming, and there are times when we fall, when we lose our clarity and direction, and when our moral and spiritual compass becomes secondary to impulse and instant gratification. It is precisely at these points, at these moments of internal struggle, that we need inspiration, guidance, and yes, rebuke.

But rebuke does not only come from direct confrontation; it does not even need to come from another person. Rebuke is the experience of being confronted with the truth and of clearly realizing the contradiction between that truth and our current actions and lifestyle. (The story of Yosef and the brothers is a great example of this spiritual concept. Yosef’s sudden revelation of “Ani Yosef, ha’od avi chai — I am Yosef, is my father still alive” was the epitome of rebuke. He didn’t need to say

anything else. The very revelation of the truth was the ultimate rebuke.)

When we are on the right path, growing every day, the truth is a guiding light in the storm of darkness. When one has lost their way, the truth can hurt. That hurt, though, is the ultimate rebuke. If we have the courage to embrace that hurt, to resist the temptation to shrug it off, and to use it as guidance and inspiration to grow, it can get us back on track toward fulfilling our true potential. This is the importance of tochachah. Without the realization that something has gone wrong, there is no impetus to change one’s negative trajectory and to make new decisions. Change stems from friction and discomfort; from the inability to continue living the way one has until now. Sometimes, only an unexpected and uncomfortable jolt of rebuke can stop that downwards slide and help one change direction, creating a new chapter in their life. That wake-up call becomes the ultimate gift, the ultimate act of love.

The Tragedy of Flattery

In order to understand the harm caused by flattery, it is necessary to examine the internal experience of one who is flattered. When a person finds themselves in a vulnerable position, when their hypocrisies and contradictions have been exposed, and they are seen for who they truly are, they become embarrassed and broken. There are two possible responses in such a delicate, fragile moment.

The first is to compliment and appease the person, attempting to prevent a com-

plete breakdown. This is the aim behind flattery: to falsely praise and honor someone when they are at their lowest. The second option is to give honest feedback and rebuke, completing the breakdown process. On the surface, flattery appears to be the kinder and more sensitive approach. However, at the deeper root and core of this circumstance, flattery is the ultimate evil and rebuke is the ultimate kindness. Let us briefly explain the meaning of this. Growth takes place at breaking points where decisions are made and will is asserted. It is precisely when one is vulnerable and when they are deeply aware of their internal lies and hypocrisy that genuine and lasting change is possible. Flattering someone at this critical point in time removes the impetus to change and stifles any chance of growth. “It’s OK,” “don’t worry about it,” or “it happens to the best of us” cripples the impact and power of the truth.

Flattery convinces a person who is on the wrong path that they are actually on the right path. Instead of seeing the error in their ways, flattery convinces them that they are actually correct. Now, not only are they unaware that they acted inappropriately, but their chance of doing teshuvah and changing their ways are all but lost. The flatterer grants the person moral immunity, alleviating the pain and impact of truth. In doing so, they have effectively ensured that the mistake will persist. This, in truth, is the ultimate act of evil.

The Role of a Teacher

A teacher’s role is to help their students grow and fulfill their potential. Therefore, a teacher must help students see the areas in which they struggle, as these are the exact areas in which they must grow. It is impossible to build and progress unless one first realizes where there is room for improvement. (Of course, this can only be done successfully if the student wholeheartedly wants to grow and is willing to hear about their deficiencies. Someone like this will proactively ask their teachers to provide every possible way to improve.)

When someone is in the position to inspire change and growth, to help another person take the next step in their spiritual journey, and instead flatters them, they discard a vital opportunity, transforming an opportunity for growth into one of complacency and stagnation.

The same is true of a Chacham (Torah sage) who does not teach Torah. He could have helped people grow and develop but chose instead to withhold his wisdom. He now becomes responsible for all the people he could have helped, inspired,

and enlightened. He is to blame for all the spiritual growth that could have been but didn’t happen. He could have guided them on their path toward eternity, but he failed to show them the way.

Unborn Potential

We can now understand the curse of the unborn fetus. The fetus is shown the path of truth, given everything as a gift, and is then delivered a strike of love, charged with the mission to enter this world and fully actualize its potential. A fetus fully grasps the purpose of this life, the meaning of challenge and growth.

When a person in this world is given the chance to grow, to transcend his limitations, and to take the next step in his spiritual journey but fails to do so due to someone else’s actions, that person is cursed by the unborn fetuses. This is because a fetus represents the ultimate expression of unborn potential — someone who sees so clearly what life could and should be but has not yet expressed any of that potential into reality. The unborn fetus looks at this wasted potential, this unborn spiritual growth, and is pained by its lack of fruition.

In truth, the person who fails to take that next step in his spiritual growth was also once a fetus. His own fetus curses the person who prevents him from actualizing his potential. So, whenever this occurs, the “concept” of the fetus and this person’s actual fetus both curse the individual responsible for squandering this spiritual potential.

This explains both examples in the Gemara (Sanhedrin 91b). When someone withholds Torah from others, he withholds their spiritual growth. Similarly, when one flatters someone at a time of potential spiritual growth, he robs them of that opportunity, destroying the inspiration and potential for change. In both of these cases, the unborn fetus curses them, pained by this theft of potential.

Understanding the Fist of Flattery

This explanation sheds light on the peculiar expression used by Rabbi Shimon Ben Chalafta, who says that “the fist of flattery prevailed.” While flattery may appear to be a soft, gentle expression of kindness, flattery is actually a harsh, cruel blow. Flattery stunts a person’s spiritual growth, eliminating the possibility for change. It is no coincidence that the word for “fist” (egrof ) shares the same shoresh with “Agripas.” By flattering him, they delivered a sharp blow straight to his spiritual core.

We now come full circle. There is another blow, which we recently mentioned, but this blow is of an entirely different nature. This is the blow that the angel gives every fetus right before they are born. The distinction between these two blows is profound.

The blow of flattery appears to be kindhearted and sympathetic but is actually a cruel act of spiritual theft. The blow of the angel appears to be a cold act of violence, but it is actually a loving act of bestowing spiritual purpose. The angel gives the fetus a blow on the mouth as a challenge and a mission: to enter this world and fulfill its potential, to earn, choose, and create its own greatness. Just as the Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 10:6) states that every blade of grass has its own angel who gives it a blow, commanding it to grow, every fetus is given that same blow of love, challenging it to grow and fulfill its potential.

The Practical Difficulty of Rebuke

While rebuke is easy to give, it is extremely difficult to receive. Most people prefer being told how great they are, not how great they could be. This is why implementing rebuke is so challenging and why tochachah is such a complicated halachic topic. It is forbidden to rebuke one who will not listen, because such rebuke will only be destructive: it might cause the person hurt and emotional pain, causing them to turn away from growth instead of pursuing it.

How, then, can we learn from rebuke? Rebuke is effective only if we are deeply committed to growth. When we are endlessly looking for ways to improve, evolve, and adapt, rebuke becomes a welcome tool for growth. When we can negate our egos and embrace our purpose in this world, we welcome opportunities and advice for improvement. Neviim were known to perceive rebuke no differently from praise. Everything was a question of how to most effectively devote their lives to Hashem, to the truth, and to their spiritual growth.

The Rambam therefore states that one who hates tochachah can never do teshuvah (Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Teshuvah 4:2). If someone believes that they are perfect, refusing to acknowledge any possible wrongdoing or room for improvement, they cannot possibly perform teshuvah or grow. Teshuvah is the process of acknowledging that we have strayed from the path, and recommitting to return to our true self, to our fetal state of perfection. One who hates rebuke rejects his fetal perfection, and as a result, causes the unborn fetus to curse him.

The True Purpose of Tochachah

There is no question that rebuke is difficult to accept. Even acknowledging our faults privately — within ourselves, without anyone else seeing who we really are — is extremely painful. Our struggles and failures make us feel weak and inadequate, undeserving of love, and incapable of greatness. But the true purpose of tochachah is not to show us how low we are but how great we can be. Knowing where we have failed gives us direction for how to improve. It also reminds us of something crucial: we are charged with the mission of becoming great, and we can achieve this. We may never achieve complete perfection, but we can become a little better every single day.

The ultimate tochachah is coming face-to-face with who we could be, with our fetal selves, and realizing that we did not actualize this potential. This is the objective of self-awareness: to recognize the truth of who we are capable of becoming, and then coming back into the world of space, time, and choice, and choosing to become that person, to fully manifest our fetal potential, and fulfill the ultimate expression of becoming our true selves. This is the story of life.

May we be inspired to confront our deficiencies — not with the shield of flattery, but with rebuke, using it to propel us toward our true destination: our higher self, our collective self, and ultimately, to Hashem.

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.

Torah Thought Empathy In Action

By Prof. Adina Broder

During the three weeks before Tisha B’Av, it is important to look at the messages of the kinnos that we say on that day to help get ourselves into the Tisha B’Av mindset.

Kinnah #26 is based on a famous midrash from Eicha Rabba, recounting that at the time Bnei Yisrael were exiled after the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed, the forefathers and Moshe Rabbeinu pleaded to Hashem on behalf of Bnei Yisrael. Their cries did not arouse His mercy. According to the midrash, it was only when Rochel Imeinu intervened that Hashem promised to eventually redeem Bnei Yisrael. Hashem consented to Rochel’s appeals with the words “yeish sachar l’peulasaych,” this is a reward for your actions. The midrash explains that Rochel had performed a selfless act prior to her marriage to Yaakov. They knew that Lavan might try some sort of trickery at their wedding, so Rochel and Yaakov prepared signs between each other to confirm Rochel’s identity. When Rochel subsequently found out that Lavan planned to substitute Leah for Rochel at the wedding, Rochel gave those secret signs to Leah in order to prevent her sister’s public humiliation. Because she had sacrificed having Yaakov to herself so that her sister wouldn’t be embarrassed, Hashem listened to her pleas on behalf of Bnei Yisrael.

Rabbi David Fohrman explains that Hashem used the phrase “yeish sachar l’peulasaych” when He assented to Rochel’s plea to hint to another righteous action of Rochel Imeinu’s. This helps further illuminate why her plea to Hashem was successful. After eight of the Shevatim were born, the Torah relates a story in which young Reuven brought flowers to his mother, Leah. Rochel witnessed this gift and asked Leah for some of the flowers. Leah was outraged by this request and said, “It wasn’t enough that you took my husband? Now you want to take my flowers?”

It is hard to understand what Leah meant by those remarks. Wasn’t it Leah who took Rochel’s husband when she switched places with Rochel as the bride? When confronted by Leah’s harsh words,

Rochel certainly could have argued back, showing how she, not Leah, was the victim in this situation. She now had to share her husband, when she could have had him all to herself.

Instead, Rochel did something incredible. She paused and thought about everything that had transpired from Leah’s point-of-view. She realized that

he loved Rochel. Her only source of love from Yaakov was through the children she bore for him.

With this new perspective, Rochel not only didn’t defend herself to Leah’s accusation, she also offered to forgo her night with Yaakov and allow Leah to be with him instead. It was on this night when Yissachar was conceived. The words

He was hinting to Rochel’s willingness to see things from another viewpoint, to reflect on another person’s feelings, and to behave in a selfless way for someone else’s benefit.

like Yaakov and herself, Leah had been a pawn in Lavan’s deception. Through no fault of her own, Leah had been forced to marry Yaakov. At that point, he was her husband and she the only wife. But then, seven days later, Yaakov married Rochel. Even though Yaakov had always intended to marry Rochel, technically speaking, Rochel did take Leah’s husband. To make matters worse, Yaakov didn’t love Leah as

“yeish sachar” form the name Yissachar. Perhaps when Hashem listened to Rochel’s plea with the words “yeish sachar l’peulasaych,” He was hinting to Rochel’s willingness to see things from another viewpoint, to reflect on another person’s feelings, and to behave in a selfless way for someone else’s benefit.

This same middah can be seen in a remarkable story about the Vizhnitzer Reb -

be. One of his chassidim was a widowed man who was marrying off his youngest child. At the wedding, the Rebbe asked the widower to please call him after the affair was over, no matter how late it was. There was something the Rebbe wanted to discuss with him. The chassid did as he was asked, even though it was quite a late hour. When the chassid called, the Rebbe asked him about every aspect of the wedding: the hall, the food, the dancing and the guests. The chassid kept expecting the Rebbe to turn the conversation to what the Rebbe really wanted to discuss, but after an hour, the chassid finally asked why the Rebbe had him call in the middle of the night. The Rebbe explained: “Usually when a father marries off a child, he comes home after the wedding and talks about the affair with his wife. But you are a widower. And since this was your youngest child who got married, you went home to an empty house. I wanted you to call me so you would have someone to talk to about the wedding.”

What an incredible sensitivity this Rebbe displayed – not only to consider what another person might be feeling, but to do something to try to make things easier for him. This is a lesson that we can all take to heart and try to incorporate into our lives. First, to take a step back and look at things from another’s perspective. And second, to channel our empathy into taking action to ease someone’s pain. If we do this, we can help combat the sinas chinam that led to the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash which will bring us closer to the ultimate geula, bimheira viyameinu.

For more inspiration during the Nine Days, please listen to my audio series, Mourning with Meaning, from the OU Women’s Initiative.

Professor Adina Broder, MS, JD, is the author of Meaningful Kinnos, Meaningful Viduy and Viduy Booklet for Kids. She teaches at Touro Graduate School of Education and is a frequent presenter for the OU Women’s Initiative.

Delving into the Daf

Keeping the Faith

By Rabbi Avrohom Sebrow

As Houthi rebels continue targeting commercial vessels in the Red Sea and surrounding waters, some ships have resorted to an unusual tactic: claiming to be Muslim to avoid being attacked.

The Houthis, who control parts of Yemen, have declared that their strikes focus on ships linked to Israel, the United States, and Western allies in retaliation for the war in Gaza. In response, certain vessels have begun broadcasting Islamic phrases over radio frequencies or displaying flags of Muslim-majority countries, hoping to signal religious or political alignment that would spare them from attack.

Maritime intelligence sources report that some crews have gone so far as to paint Islamic declarations or place Qur’anic verses on visible parts of their ships. The idea is that Houthis, who see themselves as defenders of Islam against Western aggression, may refrain from harming fellow Muslims or those showing Islamic symbols.

Beyond its strategic implications, this phenomenon raises a serious halachic question: may a Jew claim to be Muslim—or intentionally mislead others into thinking he is Muslim—to save his life? Throughout Jewish history, people have given up their lives rather than accept another religion. Idolatry is one of the three cardinal sins for which one must sacrifice his life rather than transgress (according to accepted halacha, but see Avoda Zara 26b and Tosfos there). Would declaring oneself to be a member of another religion, even falsely, be considered forsaking one’s faith?

This dilemma is not new. It echoes questions asked by many throughout the ages.

The Gemara (Avoda Zara 18b) recounts how Rebbe Meir rescued his sister from captivity. Afterwards, the government issued an ancient form of a wanted poster, displaying a carving of Rebbe Meir’s face in public places. Once, someone recognized him and pursued him into a non-Jewish establishment. Observers saw him eating non-kosher food and assumed he could not be the renowned rabbi. In reality, he

cleverly dipped one finger into the food and sucked a different finger, giving the impression he was eating without actually transgressing. By creating this misperception of being a non-Jew, he was able to escape.

Yet the Gemara in Sanhedrin rules unequivocally that one may not accept a foreign deity even outwardly, regardless of his internal belief. He may not falsely declare that he accepts another religion. The Shulchan Aruch (YD 157:2) reconciles this

Meir’s story, where he concealed his identity to achieve his goal without uttering words of denial.

Furthermore, the Rema adds that one may even hide his identity by wearing a non-Jew’s garment that contains shatnez if necessary to save his life. The logic is that once it is permitted to allow others to mistakenly believe he is not Jewish to avoid danger, then violating an ordinary lav such as wearing shatnez is certainly

Would declaring oneself to be a member of another religion, even falsely, be considered forsaking one’s faith?

ruling with Rebbe Meir’s story by distinguishing between an explicit verbal denial of Judaism and merely creating an impression. Declaring outright, “I am a gentile” or overtly accepting another faith to save one’s life is prohibited. However, acting in a manner that leads others to mistakenly assume he is not Jewish, without direct verbal denial, is permitted, as demonstrated by Rebbe Meir’s conduct. Indeed, the Vilna Gaon, in his commentary on Shulchan Aruch, writes that this leniency is derived from Rebbe

permitted in life-threatening circumstances, as the preservation of life overrides standard prohibitions.

Interestingly, however, the Bach appears to disagree. He rules that if there is a route known to be dangerous for Jews, a Jew may not don garments containing shatnez in order to traverse it safely. Nonetheless, he permits dressing in the style of a gentile to avoid danger. The Shach explains that the Bach is not actually disputing the principle that pikuach nefesh overrides

such prohibitions. Rather, the Bach maintains that one should not willingly place himself in a situation where he would later be forced to wear shatnez to save his life. However, if he already finds himself in such danger, he may certainly wear shatnez to protect himself. The Shach, though, limits Bach’s leniency regarding dressing like a gentile to circumstances where the journey is necessary for one’s livelihood or an unavoidable obligation. To disguise oneself as a gentile merely for leisure or unnecessary travel, such as taking a pleasure cruise, would not be permitted under this ruling.

Rabbi Ephraim Oshry discusses the question of a soldier wearing identification that falsely identifies him as not Jewish. His letter is found in “She’eilos U’Teshuvos Mima’amakim” ( Vol 1 Siman 44). This monumental work contains halachic responsa he wrote while in the Kovno Ghetto, addressing pressing life-and-death questions of that era.

In that responsum, a Jewish soldier asked whether he could wear a tag indicating he was of another religion or nationality to avoid being executed if caught. Rav Oshry ruled that although it is forbidden to deny one’s Judaism explicitly, in a case where there is mortal danger, if the tag merely identifies him with a different nationality or religion without him verbally renouncing Judaism, it would be permitted. He compares it to cases in the Gemara and poskim where one may create a mistaken impression to save his life, provided he does not actually deny his faith or verbally accept another religion.

Therefore, it would seem that if Jewish travelers on these boats are undertaking a necessary journey, they would be permitted to give the false impression that they are Muslim in order to avoid an attack by the Houthis.

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

Headlines Halacha

When Students Break School Property: A Halachic Analysis

By Rabbi Yair Hoffman

It’s a scene that unfolds with painful regularity in schools across the world.

A student, in a moment of carelessness or simple misfortune, breaks something valuable. The sound of shattering glass echoes through the hallway, followed by that sinking feeling in the pit of one’s stomach.

One particular ninth grade yeshiva student was a good boy, who learned well. For some reason, however, he kicked the door in the school building – to keep it open, in all probability. Unfortunately, the door broke.

It was a glass door, and it spontaneously shattered – completely. The young man felt badly and informed the Rosh Yeshiva immediately. He took full responsibility.

The Rosh Yeshiva’s response was unwavering: “I am very sorry, but this is mammon hekdesh, money of a holy cause. I do not have the authority to let it go. You must pay for its replacement, and it is several hundred dollars.”

What followed was a quiet act of determination that would go unnoticed for two years. The boy took responsibility, and for the next two years, every penny that he made he brought to the yeshiva to pay it back. He did not tell his parents, so as not to put additional financial pressure on them. His father is a talmid chochom who learns all day, and his mother is in education. His parents found out about it two years later, by accident.

Of course, if this question comes up, one must ask his own rav or posek and not rely on this article. But what is the halacha? Is the yeshiva in its full rights in demanding full payment from the student? Does the Rosh Yeshiva not have the right to forego the damage?

The Foundation: General Halacha on Damages

The general halacha found in Shulchan Aruch (Choshen Mishpat 421:3 and Siman

278) establishes a principle that might surprise many: if someone damages another, even if it is not done on purpose (shogaig) and even if it was not his fault at all (an oneis), he is obligated to pay.

The Temple Exception: A Talmudic Twist

The Gemara in Gittin (49a), however, darshens, “Shor ray’ay’hu, velo shor shel hekdesh.” The Torah specifically states that damage must be paid when damage is done to the ox of his peer – and not when it is done to an ox that was donated to the Temple. This Gemara actually states that the one who does such damage is technically exempt. However, the Baalei Tosfos on that Gemara write that m’derabbanan, by Rabbinic decree, there is an obligation to pay. There are other Rishonim that have different approaches, but it seems that this is the essential view, l’halacha.

Does the Rosh Yeshiva Not Have a Right To Be Mochel?

Before the second World War, Rav Elchonon Wasserman,Hy”d, was visiting America and had made the acquaintance of R’ Shraga Feivel Mendelevitch, z”l. R’ Shraga Feivel had posed to Rav Elchonon

a question regarding long hair, bluris, that the bochurim at the time sported. The Mishna Brurah (27:15) seems to be very stringent about the matter. Rav Elchonon Wasserman responded that a yeshiva must be careful not to turn off the bochurim and advised R’ Shraga Feivel not to make an issue of it.

Although this incident is illustrative, it seems that just as a Rosh Yeshiva has certain leeway to give gifts from a yeshiva to donors even though it is mammon hekdesh, by the same token, he should be able to have that leeway in whether to force someone to pay for something that happened inadvertently. It would seem that this is the rationale of the Steipler in the following incident.

A Devastating Fire: The Yeshiva Be’er Yaakov Incident

The stakes couldn’t have been higher in this next case. Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro (1917-2006) zt”l was the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Be’er Yaakov and a talmid of Rav Elchonon Wasserman. A bochur had lit candles on a wooden table, and the table caught fire. Subsequently, four rooms in the yeshiva completely burned down. When the bochur told Rav Shapiro about it, Rav Shapiro told the bochur

that, in the future, when the bochur has money,he must pay back the Yeshiva. The bochur approached the Steipler Gaon who responded that the Rosh HaYeshiva must be mochel. When Rav Shapiro heard the Steipler’s ruling, he responded, “While I don’t necessarily agree, but since the Steipler said to, he must listen to what he says.” (See Brischa Yintzoru p. 81).

Different Perspectives Emerge

In a footnote contained within a Sefer entitled, “Toras HaYeshiva,” chapter 21 (p. 282), the author Rav Meir Pinchasi is unsure as to whether or not a Rosh Yeshiva has a right to forego the damage payments that a talmid may be obligated to pay.

However, the Sefer entitled, “Teshuva HaGrach” Vol. II p. 889, written by Rabbi Aharon Ben Yaakov HaLevi Grenedish, the author cites Rav Chaim Kanievsky, zt”l, as ruling that a Rosh Yeshiva is permitted to forego an obligation to pay when yeshiva students broke a bookcase in the Yeshiva. It seems clearly that a glass door would be no different. (It is interesting to note that his father, the Steipler, ruled in the previous case that the Rosh Yeshiva must forego the payment, whereas in the latter case, it seems it is optional.)

This author believes that Rav Chaim’s position and that of his father, the Steipler, can be backed up by the Rambam’s ruling in Hilchos Tefillah 11:20 that a shul’s gabbais can sell it or even give it as a matana. The point is that the Rambam seems to be giving more leeway to the gabbaim which would include the hanhalah of the Yeshiva.

On the other hand, it could very well be that the Rosh Yeshiva is trying to impart a lesson to the student to be more careful.

It’s been quite a year!

Days become weeks (especially when Sunday is Monday), weeks become months, and suddenly it’s been a year since we made aliyah.

From the vantage point of being a senior, it is remarkably hard to believe that so much of your life has gone by in a flash and the window for your future is shifting and growing smaller and smaller. While not wanting to lean toward the morose, these last few weeks of war, waiting for real peace and hostage release, have caused me to pause to evaluate and reflect.

I don’t remember a time in my adult married life – if getting married at 19 makes you an adult – when I did not believe that we would wind up living in Israel. Though it took more years than we had planned, we are now settled here and happy.

Are we the same people who came despite the negatively shifting social climate both surrounding Israel and about the Jewish people, our people, who landed here a year ago?

A resounding no to that!

When talking with other Anglos, new and seasoned Olim, and expressing my perspective on life in Israel now that I am

School of Thought

One Year

By Barbara Deutsch

no longer “wet behind the ears,” they get this knowing look flashing across their faces; been there, felt that.

When I hear friends and family sharing their concerns about the war and sirens, “We stayed up all night glued to the television””, I think to myself, “Go to sleep.” I acknowledge that I did too and felt exactly the same way. Hard Israeli news made me anxious and filled with worry; I could not bear the thought that anyone in my extended family was at risk.

Living with the huge cloud of anticipated alerts, sirens and random acts of terror from anywhere at any time, even in the supermarket, forces you to accept Israel’s reality and go about your business despite the threats; you live your life between the quiet cracks.

Being retired gifts you time! Time to do things that you want to but don’t necessarily have to do. It’s a very good thing!

I read recently that retirees (if able) who don’t fill their days with stimulating activities and opportunities are more likely to die sooner. Major yuck. This knowledge is maudlin, true, but fixable for most. Since our Aliyah, there has not been a single day that is not fulfilling in some way. In Jerusalem, there is always somewhere to go and something to do

that is both interesting and fun.

If all else fails, you can always find a new place to eat or go to a funeral or shiva.

Unfortunately, in the year we have been here, we have attended funerals or unveilings at three different cemeteries. It seems that when someone’s final resting place is in Israel, calls requesting minyanim and mourners ring out for attendees.

In Israel, it is considered an honor to be invited, even when you have no clue as to who the meit was.

In recognition of our “aliah-versary,” I thought I would do a roundup of lessons learned. I did have some help from Olim, old and new friends.

In no particular order:

• Savlanut (patience)

• Savlanut (you really need a lot)

• Everything, everything, has to be done at a minimum, twice or three times.

For example: my Nespresso of one year has a major blip. They were coming to pick it up and give me a replacement. Stay home between 10 and 12. Never happened. The clerk never filed for an appointment. I think she did not understand our address. They are scheduled for next week.

• Get a bus card, seniors over 67 (ar-

bitrary age) ride free.

As soon as you get on the bus, immediately find the first available seat or something to hold onto or risk certain injury.

When taking the bus, check the ID number on the stop or you will find yourself going in the wrong direction.

• Own and drive a car at your own risk; we don’t and won’t despite all of our successful efforts to get our licenses.

• No light rail, construction everywhere in Jerusalem, additional buses, changing routes – get the picture?

• Learn your teudat zehut number, identification number. Without it, you don’t exist.

You will never get a package, a doctor’s appointment, speak to a bank, get insurance, buy a concert or theater ticket, etc., without one.

And yes, that picture of you is awful and you may look like that now but not all of the time.

• The doctors we have worked with are well trained and excellent.

We have found the care to be topnotch. Before any appointment, be prepared to have countless blood tests with more follow-up tests for any hitch or anomaly found in the results. Nurses do

most of the heavy lifting. Many appointments are to the minute, i.e., 11:49 a.m., and last 7 to 10 minutes. The support staff are kind except for when they are not. Often, unless it is absolutely necessary, as in no choice, you will never be examined by the doctor.

• Making an appointment through your medical group, everyone has to sign up for one.

Savlanut, savlanut and zorem. Set aside an afternoon to book appointments. Don’t worry if you have to wait months (there are cancellations that become available for the persistent), and don’t worry if you don’t speak Arabic.

• When dealing with government offices, you will get five different sets of instructions from five different people; the right hand and the left hand often are not working in tandem.

• Splurge for the Rolls Royce 4-wheel drive “bubby” cart; it’s a necessary accessory.

• Just because a store or business has hours of operation on Google, it doesn’t mean that information is always real or true.

• Showers have to be planned in advance if your system works with a dude shemesh.

• Odd and even numbers on streets do not necessarily go in chronological order; we learned this the hard way one erev Shabbat.

• Not all restaurants have ice!!

• Navigating the white section of the supermarket (cheese, yogurt, sour cream, cottage cheese) can bring the most experienced shopper to their knees.

• Be open to new friendships. No one can ever replace the shared history of lifelong friends. We have found that most Olim are in Israel for the same reasons that we came. Those shared goals and dreams form lasting relationships. We have been blessed with a magnificent circle of old and new friendships fostered by our willingness to open our hearts.

No matter how prepared I thought I was, it has been a complicated process to adjust to life in a new culture, a new country and a retired lifestyle.

• Shop for what you can get, not for what your list says.

• Fruit in season is bountiful and delicious. Fruit not in season is unavailable, or do not buy.

• Don’t plan on doing a “load” of towels or linens. The machines are small and sort of work.

Having even one family (living down the block) is a joy.

• Zorem (the ability to navigate whatever hits you – you will be hit a lot)

No matter how prepared I thought I was, it has been a complicated process to adjust to life in a new culture, a new country and a retired lifestyle. And

though our family does make every effort to Facetime – wow, remember those olden days without? – call and text, we miss them, especially our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Despite learning a new language, navigating the medical system, trying to decipher ingredients, making new friends, living with war, the threat of terror and uncertainty…our decision to live here is the best choice we ever made.

When all else fails, cry and say that you are a new Oleh; doing that can usually soften any sabra! Only did that once.

We will figure it out; our Hebrew is improved (more to do there as gym words are not enough to decipher medical terms). We are learning savlanut and figuring out how to zorem

We invite you to come when you can. For us, it was worth the wait.

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.

Israel Today Faith, Unity, and Resilience A Transformative Shabbos with Kesher Yehudi Before IDF Enlistment

By Rachel Moore

As Israel continues to grapple with the trauma and aftermath of October 7, rays of hope and healing shine through the darkness. One such light emerged in Jerusalem, where hundreds of graduates from pre-military academies (mechinot) gathered for a deeply moving Shabbat experience. The initiative, led by Rabbanit Tzili Schneider, CEO of Kesher Yehudi, brought together young Israelis on the brink of their army service for a weekend of spiritual strength and unity with their study partners with whom they have been meeting all year.

Agam Berger, who was kidnapped from her IDF base and held hostage in Gaza, attended the Shabbat with her mother, Meirav. The pair moved attendees with their words of faith and resilience. Agam recounted how she observed mitzvot even in captivity and described experiencing unmistakable signs of divine protection.

“This Shabbat was incredibly emotional,” said Shira Cohen, a survivor of the Nova music festival massacre who participated in the event. “So many Shabbatot had been dedicated to praying for Agam while she was in captivity. This one was different—it was a Shabbat of thanksgiving, together with her.”

The Shabbat, hosted by Kesher Yehudi, was part of the organization’s long-standing program that connects pre-army students with charedi mentors for joint Torah learning and personal relationships.

“We began with chavruta learning—just one-on-one,” explained Rabbanit Schneider. “Not just for content, but for connection. These bonds empower students with strength and shared values as they enter the IDF.”

Over the past year, Kesher Yehudi has worked with 1,500 mechina students all year, fostering unity between secular and religious Israelis.

“Am Yisrael is not two peoples—it’s one,” Rabbanit Schneider emphasized. “And we see it every time these young people and Torah scholars come together in honest, open dialogue.”

That unity reached new heights on Friday night, when hundreds of participants visited the Toldot Aharon Hasidic court in Mea Shearim. In a profoundly moving moment, Agam’s father, Shlomi Berger, was called to the Rebbe’s table. The Rebbe praised Agam’s spiritual heroism and sanctification of G-d’s name.

Agam watched tearfully, surrounded by women who embraced her with heartfelt admiration. “She didn’t think

anyone there even knew who she was,” Shira Cohen said. “But even in Mea Shearim, they had prayed for her.”

For Shira, the Shabbat was life-changing.

“Thanks to Kesher Yehudi, I’ve been keeping Shabbat for eight months now,” she said. “They make you feel accepted just as you are. It’s not about pressure—it’s about love, joy, and strength.”

Kesher Yehudi has been active for over 20 years, building bridges between religious and secular Israelis through shared study, respect, and conversation. But after October 7, its mission expanded rapidly. The organization began receiving calls from hospitals and youth centers about teens devastated by loss—some without parents or homes. In response, Kesher Yehudi created long-term mentorship programs and retreats focused on emotional resilience, belonging, and identity.

“We don’t ask what happened,” said Rabbanit Schneider. “We show up—with presence, with a hug, and with support. Our goal is to help these teens live, grow, and thrive—not just survive.”

For many, the highlight of the Shabbat came during Havdalah. As 150 people closed their eyes and sang “Acheinu Kol Beit Yisrael” in prayer for the hostages and soldiers, Rabbanit Schneider called out each hostage’s name and their mother’s name aloud, asking the community to pray for them.

“It was an anchor in the storm,” said Shira.

Emma has been studying in mechina all year and drafts soon.

“I believe that this Shabbat lit a huge flame and a powerful Jewish spark. Throughout Shabbat, we all experienced a moment of unity and, most importantly, really seeing each other. That was the phrase that stayed with us all Shabbat. To get to know [those so different from us], to meet, to listen, and to create meaningful dialogue and connections that, in my opinion, will truly stay with us for life..”

For Rabbanit Schneider, the memory of that Shabbat lingers.

“I prayed that the angels who witnessed this will carry it to heaven,” she said. “That this unity, this holiness, this sacrifice, would bring redemption and return our captives home.”

As Israel faces uncertain days ahead, one truth is clear: in the face of profound loss and challenge, the bonds of faith and unity can still light the way forward.

Sivan Rahav Meir with Meirav and Agam Berger

OHow

Gila

Israel Today

The Impact of the War on Mental Health

Tolub is Building Israel’s National Playbook for Mental Health Recovery

By Jill Lewenstein

n the morning of October 11, 2023, just four days after the deadliest terror attack in Israel’s history, Gila Tolub stood in her kitchen with her 15-year-old son, baking challah to help the soldiers. The dough needed 45 minutes to rise. Learning that it would take so long, her son became impatient and walked off. She was exhausted and had not braided challah in 20 years. It was at that moment that she turned to her husband and said, “We are going to lose the war.”

She wasn’t talking about tanks or missiles. She was talking about mental health.

“The staffing model does not work,” she said of her braiding challah instead of using the skills she developed in her 12 years as a management consultant at the leading firm McKinsey & Company, a role she had left just three months earlier. That moment, flour still on her hands, became her turning point. She realized the war for Israel’s emotional survival required something it did not yet have: coordination, strategy and innovation. But most of all, it needed a plan.

“Israel needed to manage the trauma instead of allowing the trauma to manage us,” she said.

Almost two years later, that realization has become ICAR Collective, Israel’s Collective Action for Resilience, and Tolub is its tireless co-founder and executive director. With a vision that fuses her healthcare expertise and systems thinking with deep empathy for human suffering, Tolub spearheads what may be one of the most ambitious mental health undertakings in the country’s – and the world’s – history.

A Nation Without a Playbook

When Hamas attacked on October 7, massacring more than 1,200 people, including hundreds of young Israelis at the Nova Music Festival, the psychological damage extended far beyond the battlefield.

“Even people who were not directly impacted were deeply affected,” Tolub said. “The entire country was in a state of trauma. And we did not have a blueprint.”

For the first few months after the attacks, Tolub led The Healing Space (Merhav Marpe), a sanctuary formed overnight to support Nova survivors and their families. What was meant to

be a small gathering space quickly drew hundreds of survivors, too broken to talk, too traumatized to sit still.

“No one wanted to sit in circles and speak,” she remembered. “So we just let them be. Sit together. Move. Play. Cry. Reconnect. And above all, reclaim their power to make choices.

“You cannot force healing,” Tolub insisted. “But you can create the conditions for it.”

That philosophy now fuels ICAR Collective.

From Emergency to Strategy ICAR Collective was born not only

out of compassion but out of need. Israel’s mental health response, though passionate, incredible and quick, was deeply fragmented. Over 400 organizations mobilized, but all too often, each operated in its own vacuum, serving specific groups of survivors and others impacted by the attack and ensuing war. There was no single source for data, shared strategy or common standards.

As a veteran consultant who co-led McKinsey’s global vaccine practice and helped shape health equity policy with the World Health Organization, Tolub saw the problem through a public health and management lens.

“After COVID, we had the global infrastructure to get vaccines out at unprecedented speed. Why? Because we coordinated,” she said. “Mental health deserves the same urgency. It is not a soft issue. It impacts security, productivity, physical health, the economy and every sector of society.”

ICAR Collective is building that infrastructure. It is not a frontline service provider. Rather, it is what Tolub calls “the backbone organization,” coordinating across government, NGOs, academia, and tech to design a scalable model for trauma recovery. It is working together with and building upon the impact of each of its partners, each member of its scientific advisory board and each philanthropic funder, from the largest foundations to individuals, are already making in Israel’s recovery and resilience.

“Our Scientific Advisory Board has been indispensable,” Tolub said. “They ensure that everything we do is grounded in evidence-based methods, clinical integrity and or promising innovation.

Gila and her daughter lighting memorial candles at Merhav Marpe

Their expertise gives us the confidence to act boldly, knowing we’re aligned with what actually works.”

At the heart of the effort are eight strategic imperatives, including a national resilience education campaign, a trauma-first aid curriculum, and a real-time mental health data dashboard. Two of these, the education campaign and dashboard, have been prioritized by ICAR Collective, and their development is already underway.

“If we do not understand what is happening in real-time – who is suffering, where the gaps are – we cannot act effectively,” she explained.

Healing at Scale

To understand ICAR Collective’s impact, consider its recent summit in February 2025, which brought together 300 leaders from all sectors to align on trauma response. It was not just a conference but a collective act of hope.

Tolub’s approach to healing is both radically pragmatic and profoundly human. She talked about “triage models” and “capacity constraints” but also told the story of a Nova survivor who became paralyzed, not by bullets, but by terror. “She pretended to be dead for seven

hours,” Tolub said. “Her nervous system did what it had to do to survive. That is brilliance, not weakness.”

ICAR Collective’s model acknowledges that trauma is not just emotional. It manifests in autoimmune disorders, sleep disruption, job loss, school failure and even childhood shingles.

stage, this wouldn’t be possible. And we are working to align this with government partnerships going forward.”

A National Crisis, A Global Model

Tolub envisions ICAR Collective’s work as more than a national solution.

“You cannot force healing. But you can create the conditions for it.”

“My own four-year-old got shingles after hearing a red alert siren,” Tolub said quietly. “This is not abstract. It is in our homes.”

“Philanthropic partners have stepped in (in these first 20 months) with a kind of courage that matches the urgency of this crisis,” she added. “They’ve enabled the field to move quickly, to train therapists, to fund groundbreaking research and build infrastructure where the public system simply couldn’t run with this on its own. Without that private capital at this

It could become a template for global trauma recovery.

“What we are trying to do here is not just for Israel,” she said. “It is for every society dealing with war, disaster, mass violence. Everyone is going to need this kind of infrastructure someday.”

Part of that vision involves using technology to expand reach; from AI tools translated into Hebrew to neurofeedback that can deliver relief in minutes rather than hours. ICAR Collective is also pushing for non-clinical caregiver

training to address the massive shortfall in mental health professionals.

“Israel’s largest healthcare provider, Clalit Health Services’, latest estimates suggest over half a million new PTSD cases. We simply do not have enough therapists,” Tolub said. “We need to think differently: about triage, prevention and scaling healing.”

“The field itself—the therapists, educators, volunteers and caregivers—are the heart of this work,” Tolub emphasized. “They’re the ones delivering the healing touch. ICAR’s role is to make their job easier, faster and more effective by ensuring they’re not doing it alone.”

A Different Kind of War

As Israel continues to navigate its physical and psychological war zones, Tolub and ICAR Collective are fighting on a different front. One that does not make headlines. One that takes place in quiet conversations, in community circles, in therapy rooms and in schoolyards.

She does not promise miracles. But she believes in resilience.

“When they try to destroy us,” she said, “We survive, we heal, we rebuild. That is who we are. Am Yisrael chai!”

Stitching a New Identity

Aja

Calvitti Cohen Shares Her Journey to Judaism

B Y M A lk IE Sc H ul MAN

Aja Calvitti Cohen, CEO of Transcendent Active, a modest activewear clothing company, grew up with her brother in an American Italian Catholic family in West Patterson, New Jersey.

Aja (pronounced like the continent, Asia) explains the source of her interesting name.

"My mom loved the musical group, Steely Dan, specifically a song they sang called 'Aja.' When she gave birth to me, she named me after the girl in the song."

According to Aja, "My family was culturally Italian Catholic but not at all religious," although when her parents were young, they attended Catholic school and went to services with their families regularly. Aja's dad was even an altar boy in church.

So, it was interesting that when Aja left home to attend Pratt Institute for a degree in Art in Downtown Brooklyn, her father suggested she go to church.

"You need to have some structure when you're away from home," he maintained.

"I was like, sure, why not? I can do that."

So, every Sunday, Aja would attend the old, beautiful church near her college. She admits that she had good intentions, but unfortunately or fortunately, they soon fizzled out.

Aja, 42, describes her journey to observant Judaism.

From Curiosity to Connection

While I was at Pratt, I was dating someone who introduced me to a Jewish guy. We started talking, and he told me he was Israeli. I remember blurting out, “Oh, do you speak Yiddish?” He answered, “No, I speak Hebrew.”

My high school was very Jewish, so I knew lots of Jews, but clearly, I knew nothing about Israelis. Eventually, we started dating, and I was thrown into the Sephardic Israeli lifestyle. It didn’t feel that different from my Italian culture. You know, loud people, spicy food and family. One thing that I did not know about was Shabbos. Although his family wasn’t shomer Shabbat, they were traditional and always held a Friday night Shabbat dinner. My boyfriend was always rushing me on Friday afternoon to make sure we’d get to his parents on time for dinner.

At the time, none of it felt especially contradictory to me. But looking back, I realize how bizarre it was that he was dating a non-Jew while also putting on tefillin every day. At one point, however, he did sit me down and say, “I can date you, but we can never marry.”

Maybe because he had kind of thrown down the gauntlet by saying we could never marry, that for me it was a sign to show him a thing or two. I felt I needed to

find out what this Jewish thing was all about.

A few months into our relationship, I started reading up on Judaism, books like What Do You Mean, You Can’t Eat in My Home? by Azriella Jaffe. It was almost Rosh Hashanah, and I decided I wanted to attend services. That was fine with him; it’s just that he’d neglected to mention to me anything about separate seating. So, when we got to the Orthodox Sephardic shul, and I started to walk in with him, he pointed to the steps to the balcony and said, “You go up that way.” There I was all by myself sitting among these Israeli women with their all-Hebrew siddurim not knowing what was going on.

The only part I did understand was the rabbi’s speech. And though today I don’t remember what he said, I do remember that I felt he was talking to me. That was my “aha moment.” I can picture him at the bima speaking like no one had ever spoken. This is the real stuff, I thought. I remember the feeling of, “I really like this.”

After that, I joined the Jewish student union at Pratt. It was there I attended my first “Kabbalah and Sushi” lunch with c habad Rabbi Simcha Weinstein. He was an integral part of my journey. In fact, I’m still friends with Rabbi Simcha today. I also formed a connection with chabad Rabbi Aaron Raskin of Brooklyn Heights. I started doing Shabbos and the holidays. Pesach was especially fun. It felt like my Italian culture: lots of food and lots of talking, just not in that order. And the food was not nearly as good (no offense to the potato kugel).

By the way, my parents never gave me a hard time about my interest in Judaism. At first, my dad was a little concerned that we might get alienated. Thankfully, that never happened. I do have a funny story to share about Pesach and my parents, however.

My parents have good friends who are a traditional (but not religious) Jewish family. They invited my parents over for the Pesach seder one year. My parents joined them but afterwards told me, “All that reading? For what? A piece of lettuce? No thank you. Never again.” They still have a great relationship with their friends (and with me), but they’re not coming too soon to either of us for the Pesach seder!

I was progressing in my learning so the following year I decided to keep Yom k ippur k’halacha unfortunately, things did not turn out as planned. I was still with my Israeli boyfriend, and though I would’ve liked to spend Yom k ippur with chabad in Brooklyn, he wanted to be with his family in Great Neck. I agreed to go with him there.

When we returned from shul in the afternoon, the phone in his parents’ house was ringing off the hook. Although they didn’t usually answer the phone on Yom Kippur, they figured it must be for me and must be an emergency. They handed me the phone, and my mom on the other end told me that while visiting them, my

38-year-old godfather and uncle, Frank, had suffered a heart attack and died.

My boyfriend and I immediately drove to my parents’ home to be with them. After we arrived, we walked over for Neilah services at the local chabad and broke our fast there. That Yom k ippur was a turning point, however. I’d been exploring Judaism for two years already and realized that I needed to see if I really wanted to be Jewish. I didn’t feel I could do that while still in a relationship with my boyfriend, so we broke up. Once

"Looking back, I realize

how bizarre it was that he was dating a non-Jew while also putting on tefillin every day."

I was honest with myself, I knew what I needed to do. The reality was, though, I wasn’t ready to do it. I was 23 years old, working in fashion, and living my life. I knew I wanted to be Jewish, but I wasn’t prepared to be fully observant. So, even though from my time in chabad I was aware that it wouldn’t be accepted by everyone, I opted for a c onservative conversion. Interestingly, Rabbi Raskin was supportive when I told him. He said, “You’re always welcome here.” Maybe he said that because he saw this conversion as a stepping-stone to the real thing down the road. I don’t know.

I felt I needed to be authentic, and I was not prepared to make the commitment that an Orthodox conversion entailed. After my conversion, I attended c onservative synagogue every Friday night. c onservatism for me was a good segue into my future life as an Orthodox Jew, not that at the time I had any definite plans in that direction. But they had a nice k abbalat Shabbat with an oneg afterwards, kiddush and nosh. On Shabbos day, I’d volunteer in a program in Bed-Stuy teaching inner-city high school kids about fashion. It felt meaningful even if

it wasn’t exactly halachic.

Of course, I was the youngest in the shul by about 50 years, but I’d bring my friends. In fact, one of them ended up doing an Orthodox conversion like me. And the timing was good. No matter what month of the year it was, the service started at 5:30 p.m. so I could finish my day at work. The best part of it was that this was where I met Evan, my future husband. Evan was Jewish, but he was also seeking to learn more. My then-boyfriend, who had no interest in spiritual growth, introduced the two of us.

Becoming Orthodox but Staying Me

Evan and I started dating, and it was kind of obvious to both of us once we had gone out for a bit that I would end up doing an Orthodox conversion. It was just the next step. There was no drama.

I went to Ohev Zedek in Manhattan and the Rc A (Rabbinical c ouncil of America) to discuss my Orthodox conversion. I was required to study for a year with them before I would be eligible to convert. I enjoyed my classes very much. There were all types of people, all colors, all ethnicities – it was amazing meeting them. But you can sit in those classes for years. Being the Jewish (and Italian) girl that I am, I knew the squeaky wheel gets the oil, so I advocated for myself and made sure to get the conversion going.

For the most part, the process went smoothly. When I did my c onservative conversion, my friend knew I wanted to name myself after my uncle. His full name was Frank Junior, but we called him uncle June for short. My friend said, “Why don’t you call yourself Sivan, since that’s the Hebrew month for June?” Then when I did my Orthodox conversion (in the same mikveh), they suggested I take a Hebrew middle name also. Because I’m an Adar baby, which is a water sign, I chose Miriam after Miriam Haneviah who sang and danced in gratitude and joy after the Jews left Egypt and crossed the Yam Suf.

I recall, when I was attending Orthodox conversion classes, my chabad rabbi saying to me, “If you want to get this done, you have to look the part. Get rid of the nose ring and get a long black skirt.” I was like, “Seriously?” That was hard and that’s probably why I eventually opened my own line of activewear for the modest clothing wearer.

As a convert especially, it’s hard not to lose yourself when you’re taking on a whole new religion. I always want to remain authentic to

myself. So, the conforming can sometimes get hard. Honestly, in general, I don’t see Orthodox Jews as conformists. I see them as individuals who belong to a community. So maybe it was just the artistic, creative, New Jersey girl side of me that was resisting dressing like everybody else. Oddly, aside from that comment from my rabbi, nobody touched on the whole tzinius thing during the process at all. All of that kind of came on my own later.

I’m grateful that I still maintain such a close relationship with my family of origin and that my father’s fear of my alienation never materialized. If anything, we’re closer today. It was a slower progression to observance especially since I was Conservative first so that gave all of us more time to acclimate. My children love visiting their grandparents, and my parents want us in their lives. We’ve gone away on vacation, and the kids slept at their house. They know all about kosher. Sometimes, my brother Michael will try to bust me. l ike last week, he invited me to his son’s birthday party on Saturday. He said, “Come on, Aja, it’s just one time.” I laugh. I’m not offended. It’s all in good fun. The truth is, at this point, I’ve been Jewish longer than I haven’t, so we’re all used to it already.

After Evan and I got married, we lived in Park Slope in Brooklyn, and we loved it. The problem was that we couldn’t afford the neighborhood, so when we had two small children, we started looking for a community we’d feel comfortable in. We looked at eight different communities, spending Shabbos in each one until we came to Teaneck, New Jersey. I’d never even heard of Teaneck before, but we fell in love with the Modern Orthodox community there, and that’s where we live today. Our three children, ages 6-13, also love it. We don’t feel stifled. We feel very welcome here. And, no, nobody seems to have a problem with me as a convert, baruch Hashem. It’s certainly a non-issue today since I’ve been a convert for so long, although every now and again I’ll get some kind of weird comment.

Transcendent Living

Since I always want to be intentional in everything I do, wearing modest clothing has been an evolution for me. My clothing business and starting to dress myself more modestly are intertwined.

I always designed clothes for working out like leggings and tank tops. I was an activewear designer, and later on, I became a certified yoga teacher. In Brooklyn, I taught yoga at a frum school called k ineret. When we relocated to Teaneck, I got my official certification as a yoga instructor for kids and taught there as well. Most of the students in my class were Jewish.

About nine years ago, I got a job at JEC (Jewish Educational c enter), a yeshiva in Elizabeth, New Jersey. They hired me to teach yoga every Thursday for the year. At the time, I was not dressing particularly modestly, so

I found myself struggling with what I had to wear that was tzniius. The administration explained that I needed to make sure I came dressed appropriately to the school, but once in the gym with the girls, I could be in leggings and anything else I was comfortable wearing. I started playing with different outfit ideas. I would think, “I wish I had this piece or that style.” Somehow, I made it through that year with the clothes I had. Then, about 12 months later, I was let go from my fashion design job. A career coach friend of mine said, “You need to design something for the community.” I remember thinking, who is that community?

"When you cover up, the truest parts of you can really come out."

I didn’t figure it out until on a trip to Maine with my family, hiking and davening. I realized: the Jewish community is my community. I can help them with activewear. I can create modest activewear that helps me feel like myself, feel comfortable, lets me participate in all the sports and movement I love, while still looking really cute. My brand, Transcendent Active, came out of that personal need. It’s helped me on my tzniius journey. I used to wear jeans, but now I don’t. It is all part of my intentional Judaism. I realized jeans were not me and not good for me. Transcendent is about figuring out what is good for me and then learning from my customers who often feel the same way.

What does tzniius mean to me? It means connecting to your Higher Power, in my case, Hashem. It also means connecting with your true self. We live in a world where everything is in your face,but not everything needs to be out there. When you cover up, the truest parts of you can really come out. Now I know who I am. I do this because it feels like the full expression of Aja. You take me seriously, but you do not have to see all of me.

For example, I was at a networking event yesterday and saw women wearing activewear that bordered on very little clothing, and we were on a panel with investors! I thought, “ what were you thinking? You need to dress profession ally.” A lot of activewear out there today has everything exposed. We want to feel beautiful as women, but that

does not mean we need to seek attention in ways that compromise our dignity. I definitely feel more self-respect now. I feel more put together, more presentable. Altogether, I’m grateful for the work I do. Transcendent Active has helped me get in touch with my intentional Judaism. I used to work in fast fashion. The companies I worked for produced massive amounts of clothing in china, exploiting both workers and the environment. Now I make intentional clothing for people who are trying to put their best foot forward. Everything is made in America. I know all my factories. They are family-run businesses. I feel like I’m living the dream. No, I’m not making a million dollars, but what else could I ask for? This is really who I am and what I’m supposed to be doing. I am not supposed to be sitting in an office making junk.

Insights That Shaped Me

On my journey to observant Judaism, I’ve learned a few important lessons.

One, you have to start somewhere even if it’s a lower step. With religion, I started by committing to c onservative Judaism. In business, I began by creating one item at a time. So many people hold back, but you have to put yourself out there. You have to be willing to start. When you do, you meet one person, then another, and the puzzle begins to come together. Hashem puts it all together, and when it’s done, it completely blows your mind. That is how it works in both life and business. You also have to realize you have something to give. Everyone has something to give.

Also, pay attention to the signs. Some are quiet, but others smack you in the face. I kind of wanted spirituality, and then I heard the rabbi in the shul in Great Neck speak to my heart. That was smack number one. Then my uncle passed away. So, I got involved with c onservative Judaism, until I met my spiritually seeking husband-to-be and ended up Orthodox. Each of those was a sign. Live in your body. Don’t just exist. Watch for and listen to what is being shown to you.

I never want to observe Judaism by rote, and I don’t want that for my family either. So whenever I have the opportunity to have an experience that will help us internalize our Judaism, I’ll go for it. For instance, this past Shavuos, we attended a retreat in Baltimore. I felt so connected to Hashem. It was an awesome experience for my husband and children as well.

Naftali Kempeh

The King of the Kumzitz

By Eliyahu RosEnBERg

When Naftali Kempeh was young, he was incredibly shy. The thought of talking in public — or even in front of a few of his classmates — was enough to make his palms sweaty and face red. Naftali was fine playing guitar for people, but his body would shake the moment he opened his mouth — to talk or to sing. But in his early 20s, that suddenly changed.

One day, Naftali and his friend Shmuel were strumming their guitars at a kumzitz, performing in front of 300 bachurim for a sheva brachos. Shmuel sang, while Naftali kept his mouth shut. Suddenly, one of Shmuel’s guitar strings snapped. As he went to the side to fix his instrument, Shmuel grabbed

In His Words…

the microphone and turned to Naftali.

“Naftali, sing,” he ordered him. Naftali’s stomach dropped. His heart began to flutter. At that moment, he felt the eyes of 300 boys piercing through him like daggers. Saying no would be too embarrassing. So, Naftali clutched the mic, opened his mouth, and out came his voice.

“It sounds funny to say, but after three minutes, my fear of crowds disappeared completely,” Naftali recalls. “It went from 100 to zero.”

That moment changed Naftali forever. Once he came out of his shell, he never retreated back in. His performance anxiety was gone.

Today, Naftali Kempeh, a popular frum singer and musician, regularly

hashem gives you the exact nisayon that you can handle.

Don’t be scared of life. Everyone has their own burden on their back. That’s just life.

The biggest part of my songwriting job is finding good words that have a chiddush, a new idea that speaks to most people.

performs for audiences of thousands. Often, on stage, he’ll even talk about the meaning of his lyrics. And yet, no matter how large the crowd — whether it’s 10, 100, 1,000, or even 10,000 people — Naftali stays composed. He is, in his words, “the most fearless singer.” * * *

Naftali Kempeh grew up in a village that makes most yeshivish communities look relaxed. A lifelong resident of Israel, Naftali was born and raised in Tifrach, a community he considers “the most frum place on Earth.”

His childhood was blissful. But as a bachur, Naftali struggled to fit in.

“When I was 20, 21, I was a good bachur. I was sitting and learning. And I really enjoyed it. But I felt that I have to do something. Maybe it doesn’t sound right to say it — that I was looking to be a star — but I don’t mean a celebrity,” he shares. “I just felt like there was something I could be best at and do to influence people. And I loved music. Music was always a part of my life.”

In fact, Naftali’s passion for music became a sticking point between him and his parents, who preferred he focus all his attention on learning. They were also uneasy with their son’s obsession with Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, whose songs were a staple in Tifrach, where entertainment almost exclusively came in the form of the kumzitz.

Yet, Naftali’s interest in music only flourished with time. Studying at Yeshi-

va Kol Torah, Naftali was 20 years old the first time he got his hands on a guitar. Three months later, after learning a handful of chords in his dorm room, Naftali felt comfortable playing, as he gradually mastered Reb Shlomo’s repertoire of songs. With his newly acquired skill, Naftali began frequenting Carlebach-themed kumzitzes. With time, Naftali earned a reputation for his talent. One person asked him to play at a sheva brachos. Another asked Naftali to play at a wedding. And the rest was history.

All the while, his love for music grew exponentially. For Naftali, there was something so energizing, so exciting, about sitting in a group, strumming out Carlebach classics.

Two years after he joined Kol Torah, the yeshiva felt that Naftali no longer fit in, given his new hobby. So, he learned in Mir instead.

But still, his parents feared he would get carried away and leave the Chareidi world. Yet even during Naftali’s brief long hair and funky glasses phase — even when he didn’t look Chareidi — he never abandoned his roots. Indeed, he still sees his parents’ lifestyle as ideal, though his path has slightly deviated from theirs.

“I have so much respect for my parents’ way of life. It’s the emes. They know how to live a yeshivishe life with Torah, with halacha,” Naftali says. “I’m not saying that I don’t have to be like them. It’s the opposite. I think they’re right. I think their lifestyle is the best way to live. I

want to be like them, but I can’t right now. In my place right now, it’s hard for me, but I’m not against their shitah.”

And eventually, his parents came around, too. They realized that he wasn’t using his guitar and his voice to waste time. Rather, Naftali was using his musical talents for the good — to bring joy to others. And what parents wouldn’t be proud of their son for that?

Indeed, Naftali Kempeh’s music hasn’t only impacted members of his community. His songs have touched the lives of Jews of all backgrounds.

In Naftali’s mind, his success proves that music is a universal language. He’ll write a song in Israel that Jews from Monroe, Monsey, Lakewood, and everywhere in between adore. And that power — the ability to connect to Jews regardless of where they are — means the world to Kempeh.

Naftali was 25 years old and had just gotten engaged when his mother tragically passed away after a prolonged illness. Before saying goodbye to his mother, Naftali sat on her hospital bed. Though she was unconscious, he spoke to her for a while — with no one else in

com or YouTube.com/LivingLchaim or listen

the room. And then he picked up his guitar and, at that very moment, composed one of his most touching songs: “Niggun Viduy.”

As Naftali Kempeh says, “I really feel, every day, that my success is from my mother’s tefillos.”

* * *

Navigating teenagehood is difficult. Losing a loved one is unspeakably devastating. And every person, no matter who they are, wrestles with their own challenges every day. But Naftali Kem-

peh believes that, regardless of the challenge, everything comes from Hashem. As he puts it, “Hashem gives you the exact nisayon that you can handle.”

But it’s more than that. Naftali doesn’t view nisayon as a “part” of life. He views challenge as the very essence of life. Life is all about overcoming obstacles and navigating rough waters. Challenge builds us — and our response to it defines us.

So, Naftali cautions us against fearing difficulty — because rising above life’s challenges is how we rise to new heights.

Dating Dialogue What Would You Do If…

Moderated by Jennifer Mann, LCSW of The Navidaters

Dear Navidaters,

Dear Navidaters,

I’m writing this as a 23-year-old who’s feeling lost and alone. After seminary, I thought I’d be one of the first to get married, but life had other plans. A year went by, and I wasn’t ready. Then, I received a yes from a guy who wasn’t my ideal match – it was tough to navigate.

While everyone around me seemed to be moving forward with their lives, I kept putting myself out there, but it felt like nothing was working. It’s been three years since sem, and I’ve never even been on a date. My friends are all married or paired up, and I’m left feeling isolated.

I’ve tried reaching out to shadchanim and making connections, but it’s like I’m invisible. My married friends seem to have forgotten about me, and I’m starting to feel like I’ve been left behind.

At this point, I’m not sure what else to do. I’m feeling frustrated, lonely, and like I’ve hit a dead end. I’m reaching out for guidance or support – anyone who might be able to offer some advice or a listening ear.

Sincerely,

A single girl who’s feeling lost

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

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.

The fact that you haven’t had a date since you began to be available is upsetting. However, the tone of your query gives the impression that you feel sorry for yourself.

Get a life, young lady. Do worthwhile things. Develop interests, develop a career, make new friends, and help others with chessed that suits you. Join the groups for single young women which offer classes, a social milieu, travel, and weekends of inspiration. You mention nothing but marriage and dating. I suspect you need take the initiative and go out of your comfort zone in many areas. You may also need a mentor for support and guidance.

Meet this challenge with action and prayer and remember to enjoy this phase of life. Hashem gave it to you for some reason you may not understand. Make the most of it!

The Shadchan

Michelle Mond

am so sorry for the painful experience you have been going through. Standing status quo while your friends move to the marriage stage is one of the most

painful parts of this process. I hope our readers take note and as a result take action after reading your account of how painful it can be when it seems like someone has been forgotten. There are no such excuses, “I don’t know anyone for her.” You can always ask around. Ask your husband, ask your cousins, ask your friends. Helping singles in our community is ALL of our obligations, not just official shadchanim. If everyone reading this should try redting shidduchim or think of ideas for just one hour a week, who knows how many matches could be made?

Dear Writer, I want to assure you that as long as you are doing the proper hishtadlus and are truly realistic about what you are looking for, your time will come. One of the most important things you can do now is network. Go to friends in out-of-town communities and meet shadchanim there. Go to meetthe-shadchan events in your city and in other cities. Run your shidduch resume/ bio/shidduch picture by someone who is involved in shidduchim to make sure that everything looks appropriate and ready to distribute. Make sure that your references are updated on what you are looking for and that they are a good reference. I cannot understate this point enough. You must have references who know how to speak encouragingly and positively.

I know it feels lonely now, but gam zeh yaavor, and IY”H you will be on the other end of this very soon.

P.S. Feel free to reach out with your resume. I’d love to try and help you.

The Zaidy

Dr. Jeffrey Galler

It took a lot of courage for you to write this sad letter. But know that many of our singles, especially young women, share similar frustrations and experiences.

Simply telling you to be patient because everyone’s timeline is different is not a satisfactory answer. You need some concrete advice. So, here are some actionable ideas for you, and for other young women in similar circumstances, to consider:

First, it’s possible that you need to improve your resume. Please consider getting expert help in writing a really good one. Further, in order to have an outstanding resumephoto, many girls

Meet this challenge with action and prayer and remember to enjoy this phase of life.

have a professional makeover and utilize the services of a professional photographer.

Second, make sure that the folks that you are using as references are actually going out of their way to help you. You don’t want references who will

say, “Well, I hardly know her, but she seems okay.” You want references who will shout from the rooftops about your amazing qualities. You want references who will enthusiastically tell callers that a guy would be very lucky to marry someone like you.

Third, it might be a good idea to check with your old seminary teachers. They know you really well, better than any shadchanim. Ask them for some advice and feedback. And ask them if they could recommend a shadchan who would have access to a community of suitable matches.

Similarly, consider getting in touch with your old high school teachers and camp friends, who you might have lost touch with. Get back on their radar and specifically let them know that you are looking to be introduced to guys that you could date.

Fourth, if your current approach isn’t working, maybe it’s time to try something else. I asked a good friend, who is a very successful shadchan, and she recommended:

*Try attending events like speed dating, “Meet the Shadchan” nights, or coed chessed events.

*Try to broaden your network by attending some of these events in neighborhoods other than your own or with hashkafas that might be slightly different from what you’re used to.

*Try getting together with other single friends. Girls often try setting each other up with guys that they had previously dated.

*Try online dating sites like YUConnects. Doing so can expose you to a larger pool of prospective life partners.

*Consider moving to a community where there are many other singles. Today, that doesn’t only mean the Upper West Side or Washington Heights – Queens, Passaic, Far Rockaway, and the Five Towns are becoming “Singles-Friendly” and are starting to feature nice singles’ apartments and communities.

Finally, please remember that your worth is not simply defined by your relationship status. Consider investing some of your time and energy in activities that make you feel good, confident, and fulfilled.

Keep going, stay hopeful, and be proactive. Your day will come.

The Readers’ Response

Abby and Ben Greene Shadchan Wannabees

First, I would like to validate you and say that it is an incredibly hard thing to feel lonely and lost.

I am not one to give the whole “your time will come and be patient” shpiel, instead I will say “keep climbing” and I hope you can shift into this experience being viewed as an opportunity as opposed to a burden.

I want to give a shoutout to my incredible and amazing friends who are navigating the dating world and continuing to live their lives! They are traveling, taking on hobbies and new experiences that don’t let themselves be defined as single girls. It is so important to not label yourself in a negative way and let the label of single dictate where you are at.

To your friends who are married, I’m so sorry to hear you feel forgotten! It may seem uncomfortable, but have you

Pulling It All Together

The Navidaters

Dating and Relationship Coaches and Therapists

Dear Lost and Lonely, Thanks for writing in. I can feel how alone and tired you are, not just from the waiting, but from putting yourself out there again and again and feeling like no one’s reaching back. That kind of loneliness is hard to describe and even harder to carry.

Three years of trying and not even

one date. It’s confus - ing and painful and ex- hausting. And when your friends are all pairing off and moving on, it makes everything feel even more raw. I’m really sorry it feels like people have forgotten you. That part is sometimes just as hard as the dating silence.

Your worth is not simply defined by your relationship status.

You’re not crazy for wanting to understand what’s going on. And you’re not wrong to feel like something about this doesn’t make sense. I don’t have a simple answer, but I do think it’s okay to pause and ask yourself some gentle questions. No pressure to fix anything. Just…what’s been happening? Is there anything that’s made you feel smaller? Are the people you’re reaching out to really seeing you clearly? Are there parts of you that haven’t had space to speak?

These are some questions. Sometimes naming them can help you feel a little more grounded.

And just so you know, feeling stuck doesn’t mean you’re behind. It means

tried expressing these feelings to them? They might assume you’re too busy or that you are intentionally pulling away from them.

I also would suggest that you surround yourself by likeminded people such as others searching for relationships so that you can give each other feedback and see if they have any input for you as well! You can do this by going to dating events/Shabbatons. My friends have told me that they have made great friends at these events, if not a potential match. I hope you can stay positive and productive by doing other things that give you meaning as well as bring you closer to meeting the one who is out there for you.

you’re human. And you’re in the middle of something that hasn’t resolved yet. That’s all.

Take care of yourself. Be gentle with your heart. Keep showing up when you can and rest when you need to. You matter in this world, even if the people around you aren’t reflecting that back right now.

I would advise going to a great dating coach and/or therapist for support and also some help navigating this, figuring out how to make this work a bit better for you.

Sincerely, Jennifer

Health & F tness

The Tic That Wouldn’t Stop Living With Tourette’s Disorder

By Rivka Kramer, PMHNP-BC

It started with a blink.

At first, nobody noticed. Eli, 10 years old and always a little anxious, had been blinking a lot in class—maybe it was allergies. Then came the throat sounds. Quick, sharp little grunts like a frog trying to clear its throat. His teacher asked if he was okay. He nodded. He was fine, just… couldn’t stop.

By the time a month had passed, the other kids were imitating him in the hallway.

Eli didn’t know what was happening, only that his body had declared mutiny. The more he tried to suppress it, the louder the tic came back. Like a pressure cooker with no valve. And every adult around him seemed to be asking the same thing:

“Can’t you just control it?”

No. He couldn’t.

Welcome to the World of Tics

Tics are the strange, sneaky little movements or sounds your body insists on making—without asking for permission They’re fast. Sudden. Repetitive. And they are not just “habits” you can break. They’re involuntary, often irresistible, and for some people, they’re a daily battle.

There are motor tics—eye blinking,

shoulder shrugging, jaw jerking.

And vocal tics—throat clearing, sniffing, humming, repeating syllables.

Some are simple, like a twitch. Others are complex—like spinning three times before sitting down or blurting out an entire phrase. They can look bizarre, feel embarrassing, and, in the wrong environment, draw the kind of attention no kid (or adult) ever wants.

But What About Tourette’s?

You’ve heard of Tourette’s, right? Probably from a movie or viral video where someone’s yelling curse words uncontrollably. That’s called coprolalia, and it’s real but it only affects about 10% of people with Tourette’s.

So what is Tourette’s Disorder actually?

In short: it’s a neurodevelopmental condition where a person has both motor and vocal tics for over a year, with symptoms starting before age 18. It’s not rare, but it’s often misunderstood. In the U.S., about 1 in 160 children has Tourette’s or a related tic disorder.

And here’s the thing: most people with Tourette’s don’t walk around cursing uncontrollably. They’re blinking, twitching, humming under their breath, tapping their

fingers on desks, or whispering syllables no one else hears.

What It Feels Like

(Spoiler: It’s Not “Funny”)

Imagine an itch you can’t scratch. Or a sneeze building up that you’re told to never release. That’s what a tic feels like when you try to hold it in. Most people with Tourette’s experience a premonitory urge—a rising tension or pressure in the body that’s only relieved by letting the tic out.

They can suppress it—for a while. In school. At the dinner table. On a first date. But eventually, it comes bursting out. And often, the suppression just makes the rebound worse.

This isn’t about attention-seeking or bad manners. It’s about neurochemistry. Brain circuits, especially those involving dopamine and the basal ganglia, are firing differently. The brain literally cannot filter motor impulses the way it should.

Psychiatry Steps In: More Than Just Tics

Tourette’s rarely walks alone. Psychiatrists know this well. About 80% of people with Tourette’s also have another condition—most commonly:

• ADHD (which can amplify impulsivity and restlessness)

• OCD (which adds intrusive thoughts and compulsions)

• Anxiety and depression (often from the social stress of living with tics)

Sometimes, the emotional or behavioral challenges are more debilitating than the tics themselves. A child who blurts out noises might be able to keep up in school— but a child who also has crippling obsessive thoughts and can’t sit still for ten seconds? That’s a psychiatric puzzle.

This is why early, accurate diagnosis matters. Tics on their own don’t always need treatment. But when they ride in alongside three or four other issues? Psychiatry becomes the quarterback of the team.

What Helps?

Let’s Talk Treatment

There is no “tic eraser,” but there are real tools that work.

1. CBIT (Comprehensive Behavioral Intervention for Tics)

Think of CBIT as brain training. It helps people become more aware of their tics and the urges leading up to them, then teaches them to use competing responses—actions

that block or interrupt the tic. For example: instead of jerking the neck, you stretch it gently and hold it.

CBIT is a first-line, evidence-based treatment, and in many cases, it works just as well—or better—than medication.

2. Medication

When tics are severe, disruptive, or painful, meds can help dial them down. Options include:

• Clonidine or guanfacine (especially helpful if ADHD is also in the mix)

• Antipsychotics like aripiprazole or risperidone

• Botox injections (for very localized motor tics)

Medications can also be useful for coexisting conditions like OCD or anxiety, which sometimes indirectly reduce tic severity.

3. Support. Support. Support.

You can’t medicate away cruelty or misunderstanding. That’s where education, empathy, and advocacy come in.

• Teachers need to know tics are neurological—not behavioral.

• Parents need tools, not shame. Peers need the chance to understand instead of mock.

Even a short conversation like, “Hey, I have a thing where I make sounds or move-

ments I can’t always control—it’s called Tourette’s” can flip the script for a kid in class.

What Makes It Worse?

Three things:

1. Stress – Big emotions, tight deadlines, or chaos can ramp tics up.

2. Boredom – Ironically, downtime can make tics more noticeable.

Some adults continue to tic. Others have lingering OCD or anxiety. And a few don’t get diagnosed until way later in life— because their tics were brushed off, misread, or hidden out of shame.

It’s never too late to get support. In fact, adult psychiatry is starting to pay more attention to the legacy effects of untreated Tourette’s—burnout, masking, social phobia,

They’re involuntary, often irresistible, and for some people, they’re a daily battle.

3. Suppression Pressure – The more a person feels watched, judged, or punished, the harder the rebound tic storm afterward.

This is why safe environments matter so much. Not “quiet” spaces—understanding spaces.

What About Adults With Tics?

Tics usually peak around ages 10 to 12, and for many, they decline sharply by late adolescence. About half of people with Tourette’s see dramatic improvement by adulthood. But not everyone.

and low self-esteem that linger long after the tics fade.

Breaking Stereotypes: Tourette’s in Real Life

Let’s set the record straight:

• Tourette’s is not a joke.

• It’s not all swearing.

• It’s not a bad behavior problem.

• It’s not caused by trauma or parenting.

It’s a neurodevelopmental condition that can be frustrating, funny, painful, re -

silient, annoying, empowering, and beautifully human—sometimes all in one day.

There are athletes, musicians, engineers, and artists with Tourette’s. And increasingly, there are kids on TikTok owning their tics with honesty and humor, flipping the narrative from embarrassment to empowerment.

One Last Thing: Don’t Just Stare—Ask

If you meet someone who tics, don’t assume they’re trying to be weird or disruptive. Don’t whisper. Don’t giggle.

Try this instead: “Hey, I noticed that thing—do you want to talk about it?”

That simple sentence can turn a moment of judgment into one of connection.

Because behind every tic is a person just trying to breathe, blink, speak, or sit— without having to explain themselves.

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.

Health & F tness

Hidden Hazards: Food Additives That May Harm Your Health

In today’s day and age, convenience often takes precedence over quality.

Many of the foods we consume daily – packaged snacks, take-out, canned soups, deli meats, and soft drinks – often contain ingredients we may not recognize or understand. These substances, known as food additives, serve various purposes such as enhancing flavor, improving texture, preserving shelf life, or adding color. While some additives are harmless or even necessary, others have raised health concerns over the years. Understanding what these additives are and how they affect our bodies is important and helpful for making informed dietary choices.

Food additives are substances added to food during processing or preparation to enhance flavor, texture, appearance, or shelf stability. These can be either natural (vinegar used for pickling) or synthetic (artificial sweeteners or preservatives). The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates food additives in the United States, requiring that each one be tested for safety before it can be approved for use. However, “safe” does not always mean healthy in the long term, and the accumulation of additives in our diets may pose risks that are not immediately obvious.

Food additives can be categorized into several groups: flavor enhancers, preservatives, colorings, sweeteners, emulsifiers, and thickeners, among others. While many additives serve a practical purpose, such as preventing spoilage or separating oil from water in salad dressings, some have been linked to negative health outcomes, especially when consumed in large quantities or over long periods.

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)

One of the most well-known food additives is monosodium glutamate, or

By Aliza Beer MS, RD, CDN

MSG. MSG is commonly added to processed foods, soups, and restaurant dishes in order to enhance the savory taste of food. While it is a naturally occurring compound found in tomatoes and cheese, the concentrated form used in food manufacturing has drawn criticism and concern.

Some people report symptoms such as headaches, flushing, and numbness after consuming foods containing MSG, a condition often referred to as “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome.” Although the FDA classifies MSG as “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS), studies on its long-term effects are inconclusive. Some animal studies have linked high doses of MSG to neurological and metabolic disturbances, raising concerns about potential damage to the brain or disruption of appetite regulation. While the occasional dose may not be harmful, frequent consumption through processed foods may increase the risk of chronic inflammation, obesity, and other metabolic issues.

Artificial Sweeteners: Calorie-Free, But at What Cost?

Artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, saccharin, and sucralose are used to sweeten foods and beverages without adding calories. These sugar substitutes are commonly found in diet sodas, sugar-free gum, “light” yogurts, and even some protein or breakfast bars marketed as low-sugar or keto-friendly. While they may be helpful for individuals trying to reduce sugar intake or manage diabetes, they come with their own set of concerns.

Aspartame, a common artificial sweetener, breaks down in the body into methanol and other substances. Some studies suggest these byproducts might be harmful to the brain, especially in people who are more sensitive due to their genes. There’s still debate about whether artificial sweeteners affect how the body handles insulin or impact on gut health. Some research shows they might change the balance of good bacteria in the gut, which could lead to problems like trouble processing sugar

or other health issues.

Furthermore, regular consumption of artificial sweeteners may reinforce sugar cravings and unhealthy eating habits, counteracting the intended benefits of using them. People may believe they are making a healthier choice by choosing a “diet” product, but this can lead to overconsumption or a false sense of security about other dietary choices.

Preservatives

Preservatives are added to food to inhibit the growth of bacteria, mold, and yeast, thereby extending shelf life and reducing food waste. Common preservatives include sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate, and nitrates/nitrites, especially in processed meats.

These preservatives do help stop food from going bad, but they can also have harmful effects. Sodium nitrite, which is used to keep meats like deli meats and hot dogs fresh, can turn into harmful substances in the body called nitrosamines. These have been linked to a higher risk of some cancers, especially colon cancer. Because of this, the World Health Organization says that processed meats with these additives can cause cancer in people.

Sodium benzoate is a common ingredient in acidic foods like soda and salad dressing. On its own, it’s used to help preserve food, but when it’s mixed with vitamin C (also called ascorbic acid), it can turn into benzene – a chemical that can cause cancer. Even though the amount found in food is usually small, having it often, especially in things like sugary drinks, can add up over time and may be risky, especially for kids who drink these regularly.

Food Dyes

Artificial food colorings, such as Red 40, Yellow 5, and Blue 1, are used to en-

hance the appearance of food, especially products targeted at children like cereals, candies, and snack foods. While these dyes make food more visually appealing, they offer no nutritional value and have been associated with several health concerns.

Some studies have linked artificial dyes to hyperactivity and attention issues in children. While the research is still evolving, certain European countries require warning labels on products containing synthetic dyes, and some have banned specific dyes altogether. In the United States, however, these dyes remain in widespread use, although the FDA has begun to target these dyes.

Moreover, artificial dyes are petroleum-based chemicals that can accumulate in the body and may contain trace contaminants. Although current safety levels are deemed acceptable by regulatory agencies, there is growing concern about their cumulative effects over time, especially among children with developing brains.

Emulsifiers and Thickeners

Additives like carrageenan, polysorbates, and carboxymethylcellulose are used to improve texture and consistency in foods such as ice cream, dairy alternatives, processed dressings, and certain protein

or breakfast bars. These emulsifiers help prevent ingredients from separating and create a smooth or chewy texture. However, emerging research suggests they may disrupt the gut microbiota and contribute to inflammation.

Carrageenan, for instance, is derived from red seaweed and has been shown in some animal studies to trigger inflamma-

some researchers believe that these additives could play a hidden role in promoting poor gut health.

While food additives have made it possible to store, ship, and sell food more efficiently, it is important to note the potential risks they may have. Many additives are considered safe in small quantities,

The best way to minimize the risks associated with food additives is to prioritize whole, minimally processed foods.

tory responses in the gut. Although it is approved for use in food, some nutrition experts advise caution, especially for individuals with digestive disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Likewise, synthetic emulsifiers may erode the protective mucus lining of the gut, increasing the risk of “leaky gut syndrome” and systemic inflammation. Given the rise in chronic inflammatory diseases,

but when combined in a typical American diet—full of processed snacks, readymade meals, and sugary beverages—they may contribute to a range of chronic health conditions, from obesity and diabetes to digestive disorders and even cancer.

The best way to minimize the risks associated with food additives is to prioritize whole, minimally processed foods. For example, instead of grabbing a fruit bar with preservatives and added sugar, opt for a

fresh piece of fruit like an apple or pear, or frozen fruit for something more refreshing, or vegetables like baby carrots that offer a good crunch. Swap out artificially flavored breakfast/protein bars or sugary cereals for oatmeal with cinnamon or plain yogurt with berries. Rather than choosing pre-packaged deli meats that often contain additives, opt for grilled chicken or turkey breast cooked at home. For beverages, try swapping artificially sweetened drinks or soda for water, tea, or sparkling water with fresh lemon.

Reading labels, cooking at home, and choosing items with fewer ingredients can significantly reduce additive intake. While convenience is often tempting, long-term health is shaped by the small decisions we make each day. Understanding the potential impact of food additives allows us to take greater control over what we put into our bodies and, ultimately, how we feel and function.

Aliza Beer is a registered dietitian with a master’s degree in nutrition. She has a private practice in Cedarhurst, NY. Patients’ success has been featured on the Dr. Oz show. Aliza can be reached at alizabeer@gmail.com, and you can follow her on Instagram at @alizabeer

Home Sweet Home Top 10 Things to Consider When Renovating or Building a New Home

With a focus on functionality, flexibility, and frum living

By Neil Schwartz

Building a new home or renovating is an exciting opportunity.

For frum families, the home is more than just a place to sleep—it’s the heartbeat of family life, learning, and hosting. You’re thinking about room to grow, connect, and live in a way that aligns with your values and rhythms. Our needs go beyond “extra space” – a well-designed home can support every stage of your family’s journey.

Here are 10 things to consider when renovating or building a new home to make sure it honors daily routines and the family values that matter most:

1. Flexible, Family-Friendly Floor Plan

The layout of your space should adapt and grow with you. Open-concept kitchen, dining, and living areas promote connection and ease of supervision, but it should be mixed with separate “quiet zones” to help balance the noise and energy. Consider adjacent rooms with wide openings that can be closed off when needed, allowing flexibility of use, with privacy when needed.

2.

Adequate Bedrooms and Bathrooms

While younger kids may share bedrooms early on, having enough private rooms and bathrooms becomes essential as they grow. Ideally, plan for future

flexibility—spaces that can be adapted as needed, so the kids will still want to visit down the road (time flies).

Don’t underestimate the power of extra bathrooms either. Two sinks in a shared bath or an additional full bathroom near the bedrooms can help reduce chaos before school, at bedtime, and—most importantly—on erev Shabbos.

3. A Kitchen That Supports Large-Scale Living

Your kitchen is key, and a kosher kitchen needs to be doubly large. Design with efficiency and workflow in mind. You want Shabbos and yom tov meal prep to be smooth and allow for easy transition to everyday use. Some things to consider include: ample countertop space for prepping heating and serving, good pathways to your dining room, easy access to garbage routes, durable surfaces that are easy to clean and kasher, and Shabbos-mode appliances.

A walk-in pantry or storage room is ideal for bulk storage and a plan for Pesach prep to reduce the stress that always comes with hosting a Seder.

4. Design for Hosting

Hospitality is at the heart of our families. Design a dining room—or open living/dining space—that seats 12 to 20 people comfortably. Builtin storage nearby for dishes, serving-ware, and linens

makes setup and cleanup easier. Washing stations and a wet bar separate from the kitchen keeps guests out of the busy area (and doesn’t have kiddush interfere with the real production). It’s about making space for family, guests and community.

Consider how your home can feel welcoming without extra stress—access to bathrooms, separate entrances, space for folding tables, and smart storage for chairs and serving pieces can make spontaneous hospitality easy. If your house becomes the one where people naturally gather, you’ve created more than square footage—you’ve created connection.

5.

Efficient Mudroom and Storage Design

With a big family, the entryway can easily become a chaotic dumping ground. A well-designed mudroom with labeled cubbies, hooks, and bins helps keep the rest of your home organized. Also plan for generous storage throughout—walk-in closets, attic space, garage shelving, linen closets, and basement storage rooms help manage everything from sports gear to yom tov items.

6.

Space for Learning

A flexible room for working from home, learning, listening to a shiur, or quiet reading can serve many purposes. This could be a formal study, a library nook, or even just a designated desk space in each

bedroom. Especially for teens or parents needing quiet time, this kind of room brings balance to the high-energy flow of a large family.

7.

Laundry That Keeps Up

Laundry can feel never-ending with everyone at home. A smartly designed laundry room should have space for sorting, folding, and hanging clothes—and ideally be located on the same floor as the bedrooms.

8.

Smart Home Considerations

The evolution of smart devices and appliances promise connected homes that help with every aspect of life. While these can add a lot of value to your home and everyday life, they pose significant challenges on Shabbos and yom tov. Plan devices to take advantage of connections, such as built-in timers for lighting, and make sure you account for smart items that you wish weren’t—such as dishwashers that turn on when you open them—by selecting differently or building in manual overrides.

9. Healthy Homes with Long-Term Savings

Design your home with energy-smart systems: well-insulated walls and windows will keep your house warm or cool with less energy, A tightly sealed envelope will keep out bugs and dust. And an HRV system will keep the air in your house clean and fresh, reducing allergens. Efficient homes are a little more costly to build,

but they’re more comfortable and save in the long run.

10.

Outdoor Space with Purpose

A safe and functional backyard can be a game-changer. Include fenced-in areas for kids to run freely, paved spots, and shaded corners for relaxation. Pergolas that double as a sukkah are a great way to transition into yom tov with less stress. Outdoor kitchens can create additional areas for hosting and relaxing. Whether it’s for play, entertaining, or quiet

If your house becomes the one where people naturally gather, you’ve created more than square footage—you’ve created connection.

downtime, outdoor space should be an extension of the home. Bonus: a storage shed can keep sports equipment and outdoor items tidy and accessible.

The Hidden Key: Coordination Makes It All Work

Here’s what’s often overlooked: it’s not just about what you include—it’s how it all fits together.

That’s where a skilled architect comes in. Your architect is the conductor of the entire design, coordinating layout, systems, finishes, and all the consultants and contractors involved. The difference between a thoughtful, functional home and a stressful construction experience often comes down to smart planning and expert coordination. If you’re building a home that needs to support everything from kids’ homework to holiday hosting, choose an architect who understands not just the technical side—but the lifestyle and values that matter to your family.

Designing a home is about creating more than a beautiful space; it’s about building a foundation for life. From everyday routines to milestone celebrations, your home should support your lifestyle, reflect your values, and welcome others.

With thoughtful choices and a team that understands your vision, you can build a home that’s practical, flexible, and full of heart—for your family and your community.

Licensed in NY, NJ, and MA with over two decades of experience, Neil (Nuchem) founded TNB Architecture in 2015 to provide focused, responsive, and unique service tailored to each client. Their full-service approach covers every aspect of your project, from initial layout and material selection through final construction and move-in, ensuring that every detail is expertly executed. Their ultimate goal is to ensure your space gets designed – and built – for your needs, with minimal disruption to your busy life. Find out more at www.tnbarchitecture.com or on instagram @tnbarchitecture. Neil can be reached at neil@ tnbarchitecture.com.

Fd for Thought

Bordeaux Wine & Steakhouse

By Nati Burnside

After being around for a decade, Bordeaux Wine & Steakhouse, a staple of the Flatbush food scene, decided to expand. Luckily for them, they found the perfect spot in Lakewood, NJ, to suit their needs. Far from the tight spaces of Brooklyn, the new location in Lakewood had plenty of room for a stateof-the-art kitchen with all of the best culinary toys, an elegant dining room with a luxurious bar, and even private spaces downstairs for events when needed. It was the perfect opportunity to let the creative team turn Bordeaux into the crown jewel of a restaurant ownership group that includes plenty of other well-known properties. The group’s executive chef, Tal Aboav, helped get the new place up and running. Known in the kosher world for having created the Upper East Side’s Rothschild TLV, Aboav has an extensive culinary background that involves many types of cuisines and training with some of the best chefs in the world. But Aboav needed someone to be in charge of the new location, and he found that with Chef Ben Davidov. Having recently created Butcher Grill House in Crown Heights, Davidov was up for a new challenge and took the job. As a veteran of many kitchens in both

the United States and Israel, Davidov worked with Aboav to create a menu of which they are both very proud. There are hints of both of their styles, but the result is a unique combination of years of experience and creativity.

When I was invited to check out the new Bordeaux location in Lakewood, I sat down to some really tough decisions about what appetizers to order. The list was long and diverse, and each choice sounded better than the next. Luckily for you, I can now give you some guidance. The first thing I would recommend is the Hanger Gnocchi. Simply a genius concoction by the team at Bordeaux, this is a bowl of earthy mushroom jus that hides delicate gnocchi and sautèed spinach below a surface that is covered with perfect slices of hanger steak and dollops of a slightly sweet carrot crème. Not only is everything about this dish delicious, the splashes of color from the carrot and spinach give it a beautiful presentation that sometimes is hard to come by when the basis of your dish is the brown-onbrown combination of meat and mushrooms (as delicious as they are). A dish like this is why you come to Bordeaux.

Next up, I’ll advocate for the Smoked Short Rib Tower. One of the dishes I

heard the most about before walking in the door, this did not disappoint. A three-story build of an “onion cake,” a braised short rib, and an onion ring, I could see this fairly simple combination becoming a classic appetizer for the restaurant. The “onion cake” (as it is called on the menu) is kind of like a ground floor made of support beams, only if the support beams were the individual strands of a blooming onion. It is topped with a braised short rib that is so soft you could cut it with a spoon. The house barbeque sauce is a nice mix of tangy and sweet and provides the primary flavor for the dish. The penthouse at the top is a large onion ring. Even if it doesn’t get much simpler than meat and onions, this is still a noteworthy pairing due to the textures involved. The crunchiness of both onion elements and the softness of the meat pair perfectly, and the result is something you’ll just want to keep eating until every last shred is gone.

One of the great features of the kitchen in the new Lakewood location is the tabun oven. The stone floor of the oven is capable of making the perfect char on

the bottom of flatbreads and the wood burning inside makes the temperature hot enough to cook virtually anything in just minutes. That said, go for the Chicken Buffalo Flatbread. The spicy chicken is accompanied by roasted red peppers, jalapeños, and red onions alongside a dressing of honey and faux blue cheese. As great as all that sounds, the highlight is probably still the actual bread which is slightly fluffy with a real crisp to the bottom. That’s not to say that the chicken, vegetables, and sauce are overshadowed. There’s some real heat from the jalapeños, but the sweetness from the honey does cool it down nicely.

As we transition to main dishes, your choice essentially becomes steak or not steak. After all, this is a steakhouse. If you aren’t in the mood for steak, I have great news for you; the Duck à L’Orange is fantastic. Served as a duo of duck with a sliced boneless duck breast accompanied

by a whole duck leg, this dish also comes with risotto, a roasted vegetable medley, and purées of both celery root and butternut squash. Not only do all the elements make the plate beautiful, but you can also decide what to combine to suit your own liking. Duck à l’orange is a classic for a reason, and the duck is the star of the show. Even so, the risotto is doing its best to try and steal that same performance by being a great example of just how good a pareve risotto can be.

If, on the other hand, you did, in fact,

come to this steakhouse to get steak, you have a whole bunch of options. Feel free to pick whatever you like, but the top of the food chain here is the Tomahawk Prime Ribeye. This 35 oz. steak is aged for 45 days, and they will bring it to your table on a cart, carve it in front of you, make a sauce, etc. It’s a whole show. But unlike most shows, afterwards is the best part. Because then you get to eat it. Try some of the meat without the sauce and some with it. Either way, the steak is perfect. Sometimes, there’s just nothing like a big,

giant piece of meat. The depth of flavor from the aging really comes through nicely if you take the time to savor every bite… which you should.

While almost nothing could improve this dinner, I’m actually going to ask you to consider ordering dessert because the Summer Sunshine is just too good to skip. This pineapple cake is topped with a layer of pineapple/passionfruit/yuzu curd, followed by some cream and caramelized almonds on top and is served alongside a piece of flambéed pineapple for good

Meat - Waiter Service

~ BordeauxNJ.com (732)-813-3336

8 America Avenue, Lakewood, NJ

Tartikover Rav (Rabbi Yechiel Babad)

~ BordeauxNYC.com (718)-942-4040

1922 Coney Island Avenue, Brooklyn, NY

Chizuk Hadas RadichovRav Dovid Gornish

measure. I love pineapple. It might be my favorite fruit. This dessert was so well suited to me that I wish I could finish every dinner with it. The cake alone was great, but the curd layer was unbelievable. By the time I got to the flambéed pineapple, I was already sold.

So if you are looking for an inventive list of apps, steaks or non-steaks, and even an awesome dessert, now you know where to find it. Whether it’s the original in Brooklyn or the new iteration in Lakewood, Bordeaux is the place to geaux.

In The K tchen

Brisket

By Naomi Nachman

This is a great meal-in-one for Friday night dinner.

The vegetables and meat are all cooked at once, saving you the time to make a side. You can change up the vegetables to your liking.

Ingredients

◦ 4-pound second cut brisket

◦ 2 large beets, peeled and chunked

◦ 1 large onion, chunked

◦ 1 large loose carrot, chunked

◦ 1 large, sweet potato, chunked

◦ 2 tablespoons canola oil

◦ Kosher salt and pepper, to taste

Sauce

◦ ½ cup tomato sauce

◦ 2 tablespoons silan

◦ 2 tablespoons soy sauce

◦ 2 tablespoons raspberry jam

◦ 1 teaspoon seeded mustard

◦ 4 cloves crushed garlic

Preparation

Combine the sauce ingredients in a small pot and bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes until all components are dissolved. Set aside.

Prepare a large Dutch oven or wide pot with a lid. Add canola oil and heat on high till very hot.

Season brisket with salt and pepper and sear meat on both sides until a nice brown crust has formed. Remove meat and set aside.

In the same pan, add the vegetables and season with salt and pepper and stir the vegetables till they get a bit of color.

Place the meat back in the Dutch oven pan and nestle over the vegetables. Pour the sauce over the meat and vegetables.

Cover and bake for 3 hours on a low flame.

Alternatively, you can bake in the oven at 325°F for 3 hours or overnight at 200° (8 hours).

Notable Quotes

“Say What?!”

I have a lot of friends who are Democrats, and they’re idiots. I always say they have big hearts and little brains.

- JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon at an event in Dublin

The federal government is not leaving LA. The federal government does not work for Karen Bass. We’re going to be here until that mission is accomplished. Better get used to us now because this is gonna be normal very soon.

- Border Patrol El Centro Sector Chief Gregory Bovino after L.A. Mayor Karen Bass confronted ICE officials who were arresting illegals

Democrats just elected a theocratic communist in the NYC mayoral primary, and I’ve never seen such a wokester win an election in my lifetime. I’ve had to deal with Chuck and AOC. But, while they’ve been a thorn in my side, this new guy is just plain old off his rocker. Zohran Mamdani is as socialist and communist as it gets. He wants to turn New York City into a North Korean wasteland.

- Sen. John Kennedy

“All due respect, Mr. President, but are you [expletive] kidding me? You’ve just been shot; I was only near you!” I blurted out, then immediately regretted it. I apologized, thinking of how my parents would not be happy. He laughed. “Seriously, Salena, are you and your family okay?” he asked, clearly needing an answer.

I assured him we were fine, that I had spoken with both my daughter and Michael just an hour earlier and none of us felt rattled. All three of us were amazed that we weren’t feeling what we expected, but we agreed that someday it would hit us, just not now.

The conversation lasted 12 minutes. Trump marveled that there had been no panicked stampede. He was deeply saddened by the death of Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old firefighter attending the rally, and he worried about the other two men who had been shot. He was impressed with the treatment he received at Butler Memorial Hospital, and he recalled vividly the moment he was shot—and that several of the events that happened before the shooting were out of the ordinary for him.

- From journalist Salena Zito’s new book about her experience of being four feet from Pres. Trump during the attempted assassination attempt in Butler, PA.

If anyone deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, it’s President Trump. He brokered with me the historic Abraham Accords, in which Israel made peace with four Arab states. He brokered peace in Africa between Rwanda and the Congo. That was a bloody conflict. He ended it. He brokered peace between India and Pakistan, two nuclear powers. I think that’s kind of important. Everybody should join nominating Trump for the Nobel Prize.

-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an interview with Mark Levin

NEA pledges to defend democracy against Trump’s embrace of fascism by using the term facism in NEA materials to correctly characterize Donald Trump’s program and action…

- From a resolution by the National Education Association, misspelling the word fascism

If he wants to run, I’m gonna support him 100%.

- NBA Hall of Famer and broadcaster Charles Barkley declaring that he would support Auburn Tigers men’s basketball head coach Bruce Pearl (a vocal supporter of Israel) who is considering running for the Alabama Senate seat

Hope you enjoy your family time, @JDVance. The families you’re tearing apart certainly won’t.

- California Gov. Gavin Newsom on X, upon Vice President J.D. Vance visiting Disneyland in California

Had a great time, thanks

- VP Vance’s response

Numerous times I’d get home, I’d say, “First Lady, I had the most wonderful talk with Vladimir [Putin]. I think we’re finished.” And then I’ll turn on the television or she’ll say to me …, “Wow, that’s strange because he just bombed a nursing home.”

- Pres. Trump at press conference

It’s just “Trump [stinks]” – the underlying thought of everything the Democrats do. “Trump [stinks].” Trump says the sky is blue. “Trump sucks.” That’s not the way to win! It’s just not!

- Mark Cuban on a recent podcast

This guy lives in his mother’s basement — the only thing that surprises me, you don’t have purple hair and a nose ring.

- President Trump’s border czar Tom Homan ripping into a heckler who interrupted his address during a Turning Point USA address

This is Benjamin Netanyahu’s third visit to DC this year. War criminals should not be welcomed by any president or Congress. He should be held accountable for his crimes, not platformed. Beyond shameful.

- Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who is a part of the “Squad” in the House of Representatives

I’m sure it is difficult to see us welcome the killer of so many of your fellow Muslim terrorists. The only shame is that you serve in Congress.

- Response by Congressman Randy Fine (R-FL)

The Hamas Caucus is upset. Boo hoo.

- In response to criticism from Omar’s spokesperson

Your shield, long advertised, failed to protect.

But more than physical damage, something deeper was revealed:

We see everything. We hear everything. We are everywhere. We knew your schedules. Your sites. Your communications. Your conversations with your closest allies, most of whom are no longer with you, in Beirut, Damascus, and Tehran. Your timelines. Your fallback plans. And your blind spots.

In more ways than one, we knew more about you than you knew about yourselves.

- Former Israeli Defense Minister General Yoav Gallant, in an open letter to Khamenei

They’re liars. They know it. They know, for certain. I mean, this is — look, what they, they’ve had a pretty good thing going here. They’ve done so badly. They’ve lied so consistently about almost everything they’re doing. The best thing they can do is try to change the focus and focus on something else. And this is a — I think that’s what this is about. It’s — you know — it’s consistent with Trump’s game plan all along. I mean, if I — I don’t expect you to answer any questions — but if I told you three years ago, we’d have a president doing this, I think you’d look at me in the eye and say, “What, are you crazy?”

- Former Pres. Joe Biden talking to the New York Times about his auto pen, confirming that he is as incoherent as he was when he was president

Political Crossfire Watch Trump Make Good On His Ukraine Promises

By Marc A. Thiessen

One of the things I admire about President Donald Trump is his tendency to do what he says he will do. He promised he would secure the southern border and did it in a matter of weeks. He gave Iran a deadline to peacefully give up its nuclear weapons program, and, when it failed to do so, he launched Operation Midnight Hammer and obliterated the program. During his first term, he promised to “crush and destroy” the Islamic State and did exactly that – driving ISIS from its caliphate and killing its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Trump also promised he would punish Syria if it used chemical weapons on its people, and unlike Barack Obama, he followed through when Syria crossed a red line – not once but twice.

When it comes to Ukraine, Trump has been clear about what he would do if Russian President Vladimir Putin did

not agree to end the war: Trump promised to impose crippling secondary tariffs on all oil coming out of Russia and give Ukraine more weapons than they’ve ever received from the U.S. Now that Putin has rejected Trump’s peace efforts, I am confident Trump will do exactly what he said.

Already, the president has reversed a Pentagon pause in weapons shipments to Ukraine, declaring, “We’re going to send some more weapons. We have to. They have to be able to defend themselves.” But, as Putin defiantly escalates his attacks on Kyiv, and the last of the weapons authorized under President Joe Biden will soon run out, Trump needs a new way forward.

So, what should Trump’s strategy be? The goal can’t be to help Ukraine restore its pre-war borders – something every reasonable person knows is unrealistic at least in the near term. But the answer

is also not to revert to Biden’s feckless policy of slow-rolling weapons, arming Ukraine just enough to stop Russia from overrunning the country, with no endgame in sight.

Rather, the goal should be to force Putin to do what Trump has demanded from the very beginning – end the war at the negotiating table – by imposing such heavy economic and military costs on Russia that Putin has no choice but to sue for peace.

How to do that? Russia is in economic trouble as war spending has unleashed double-digit inflation, soaring interest rates and catastrophic labor shortages. The only things keeping the Russian economy afloat have been oil and gas sales, which skyrocketed under Biden. But under Trump, Russia’s oil and gas revenue has begun to collapse, falling 33.7 percent last month.

Trump should further tighten the

screws with a “maximum pressure” campaign designed to drive Russian oil and gas from the global market, much like he did with Iran in his first term.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) is sponsoring a Russia sanctions bill, which has 85 co-sponsors, that would help Trump do so by barring energy transactions with sanctioned Russian banks and imposing a 500 percent secondary tariff on any country that purchases Russian oil and natural gas. Trump should call on Congress to pass it and sign it into law.

As he crushes the Russian economy, Trump should also apply maximum pressure on the battlefield. He has announced that he will provide Ukraine with more defensive systems to protect Ukrainian civilians from Russian attacks. But to force Putin back to the peace table, he will need to provide Ukraine with increased offensive capa-

bilities as well – including weapons that Biden slow-rolled, such High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), long-range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), Stinger and Javelin missiles, as well as 155mm artillery rounds.

Those are defensive systems as well, able to destroy Russian airplanes, drones, missile stockpiles and ammo depots before their munitions are dropped on Ukrainian cities or troops on the front lines. Just as Trump took the handcuffs off of the U.S. military in the battle against ISIS during his first term, he should take the handcuffs off of the Ukrainian military today. If Ukraine begins striking blows against Russia with the help of U.S. arms, it will show Putin that he cannot achieve his objectives.

While the Pentagon faces some short-term stockpile challenges that must be managed, a robust effort to arm Ukraine is an opportunity to boost U.S. defense production – at no cost to American taxpayers. Earlier this year, retired Gen. Jack Keane and I laid out a plan to transition Ukraine from a military aid recipient to a defense con-

sumer, just like many other U.S. friends and allies across Europe, Asia and the Middle East who purchase U.S. defense materiel. Ukraine could buy U.S. weapons with Foreign Military Financing direct loans, like those we provide to allies and partners including Poland, Romania and Taiwan. These loans cost

control to pay for weapons. Why not use that money to arm Ukraine and reinvigorate our dangerously atrophied defense industrial base?

Foreign military sales are critical to American military readiness because they keep U.S. defense assembly lines hot. We are currently selling to friends

Trump should further tighten the screws with a “maximum pressure” campaign designed to drive Russian oil and gas from the global market, much like he

did with Iran in his first term.

taxpayers nothing; indeed, the United States earns a profit, because they come with interest that must be paid to the U.S. government.

Ukraine could also use the $300 billion in frozen Russian assets Washington and our European allies currently

and allies billions of dollars’ worth of weapons. There is no reason we cannot sell to Ukraine as well and prioritize their delivery to Kyiv. Indeed, we can sell older weapons from existing stocks and replace them with newer, more advanced versions – modernizing our mil-

itary at other countries’ expense.

The fact is, whether or not Putin agrees to end the war, the United States will need to sell Ukraine weapons for many years to come. Even if peace is achieved, Ukraine will need U.S. arms to deter Russia from resuming hostilities after Trump leaves office. So, we need to find a way to build a long-term, sustainable defense relationship with Ukraine, just as we have with dozens of other countries around the world.

Critics say that if Trump continues to arm Ukraine, this will eventually become “his” war. The opposite is true. What Biden allowed to start, Trump can finish on terms favorable to Ukraine. The only way it becomes Trump’s war is if Russia starts making major advances on the ground during his watch.

I don’t believe Trump will allow that to happen. Because doing so would send a message of weakness to U.S. adversaries. He has repeatedly said that if Putin rejects peace, he will choose sides – and back Ukraine. And when Trump promises to do something, he tends to deliver.

© 2025, Washington Post Writers Group

How the Coronavirus Sparked an Epidemic of Intellectual Malpractice Political Crossfire

The worst public health crisis in 100 years became arguably the worst public policy failure in U.S. history because of social pathologies that the pathogen triggered. The coronavirus pandemic is over. What it revealed lingers: intellectual malpractice and authoritarian impulses infecting governmental, scientific, academic and media institutions.

This is unsparingly documented by two Princeton social scientists, Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee, in “In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us.” The most comprehensive and aggressive mobilization of emergency powers in U.S. history, wielded with scant regard for collateral consequences, exacerbated inequalities, included “extraordinary restrictions on free speech” and constituted a “stress test” that “the central truth-seeking departments of liberal democracy: journalism, science, and universities” frequently flunked. Macedo and Lee say the “moralization of disagreements” stifled dissent, employing censorship and shaming.

Incantations to “follow the science” obscured this: Science cannot “tell us what to do” because gargantuan government interventions in society involve contestable judgments across the range of human values. And large uncertainties, requiring difficult choices demanding cost-benefit analyses that were neglected during the pandemic.

The authors, self-described as “on the progressive side,” detail how “the class biases of pandemic restrictions” –favored the “laptop class” of knowledge workers and others able to work remotely. “Essential workers,” about one-third of the workforce, largely working class and disproportionately minorities, were expected to carry on. There was no his -

By George F. Will

torical precedent for success in what was attempted: using nonpharmaceutical interventions – lockdowns, social distancing, masking, etc. – to stifle a pandemic. And there was, Macedo and Lee report, “no relationship between the stringency of state” restrictions and COVID mortality rates.

The biomedical establishment, academia and remarkably unquestioning media reacted ferociously – politically, not scientifically – against the theory that the pandemic’s origin was a leak from a Chinese lab doing “gain of function” research that engineers especially transmissible and/or virulent viruses. This origin is now widely deemed plausible, even probable. The authors note that Anthony S. Fauci, the leading U.S. infectious-disease specialist, initiated the writing of a paper, more political than scientific, asserting the virus’ natural origin, then cited the paper against the lab-leak hypothesis. He repeatedly and clearly misled Congress with emphatic denials of his involvement in funding gain-of-function research.

The three eminent epidemiologists who wrote the October 2020 Great Barrington Declaration – proposing pandemic mitigations focused on the elderly and persons with comorbidities – were disparaged by Francis Collins, then head of the National Institutes of Health, as “fringe” figures. This adjective conveys a presumption against departures from groupthink. Galileo was a fringe figure.

In September 2020, about 100 Stanford public health professors denounced a colleague – author of five books of health care policy – whose sin was arguing that policy should “minimize all harms,” not simply to stop the coronavirus “at all costs.” Two months later, Stanford’s Faculty Senate voted overwhelmingly to censure him. Censure, not refute. Those declaring the scientific consensus unquestionable included two professors of comparative literature and a professor of theater and performance studies.

Despite the fact, quickly known, that COVID largely spared the young, the heads of the major teachers unions called for prolonged school closures, during

which their members were paid. Even after the ineffectiveness of masking was revealed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said children as young as 2 should wear them all day.

In the ever-overwrought Atlantic magazine, Georgia’s decision to end lockdowns was called an “experiment in human sacrifice.” But cumulatively, the consequences of unfocused measures taken against the coronavirus – from cancer screenings missed because of lockdowns, to a generation’s learning loss and a legacy of chronic absenteeism from schools, to myopia in children from excessive screen time, to accelerated dementia among the isolated elderly – were worse than the disease, whose infections were mostly (more than 98%) mild. The costs of hysteria, partly driven by “noble lies” to panic the public into compliance with authoritarian measures, will, Macedo and Lee say, affect “the health, wellbeing, and longevity of the whole population years into the future.”

“The ‘pandemic,’” write Macedo and Lee, “was routinely said to have closed schools, businesses, theaters, travel, and so on, rather than government officials’ decisions.” The authors have produced the most dismaying dissection of U.S. policymaking since David Halberstam’s Vietnam War policy autopsy, “The Best and the Brightest.”

Their book is more dismaying, but also exhilarating. Vietnam revealed the insularity and hubris of a small coterie of foreign policy shapers. Macedo and Lee identify much broader and deeper cultural sicknesses. But their meticulous depictions and plausible explanations of the myriad institutional failures demonstrate social science at its finest.

Political Crossfire

Why are America’s Teachers’ Unions at War with Israel?

By Jonathan S. Tobin

On the list of professions that inspire the most respect among Americans, teachers rank very high. According to Gallup, only nurses scored higher than educators in its annual poll concerning opinions about the professions. Unsurprisingly, only politicians and lobbyists rank lower than journalists, but most people love teachers for good reasons. After all, they perform one of society’s most important tasks and yet are generally poorly compensated for their efforts.

That’s why it may have come as a surprise to most casual observers when they heard the news that the National Education Association—the nation’s largest teachers’ union—had cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League because of its insistence on opposing antisemitism. The same might have been true for a number of other instances in which such unions have taken stands that promote prejudiced curricula or opposed action against Jew-hatred.

Captured by the Left

No one should be surprised.

America’s teachers’ unions—the national organizations like the NEA and its rival, the American Federation of Teachers—and most local associations that represent educators have long been captured by leftist ideologues. That has put them at the forefront of partisan politics, making them among the largest donors to Democratic Party candidates, as well as liberal and leftist advocacy groups. In addition to their role as a partisan interest group, these unions have become an integral part of the culture war roiling American society as so-called progressives have sought to topple the Western canon in the U.S. education system and replace it with a new woke secular faith based on a neo-Marxist obsession with race.

The unions have become, like the mobs of pro-Hamas students, teachers and administrators on college campuses, the lynchpin of the surge in anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred that has spread across the country in recent years. Our attention has understandably been focused on those chanting for Jewish genocide (“From the river to the sea”) and terrorism against Jews everywhere

(“Globalize the intifada”). That has led to a counter-attack from the Trump administration, which has sought to defund elite universities like Harvard and Columbia that tolerate and encourage antisemitism.

But operating largely without the sort of publicity and scrutiny that has zeroed in on the targeting of Jews in academia, teachers’ unions, whose members staff the nation’s K-12 school system, have played a key role in mainstreaming blood libels against Israel, falsely labeling Zionism as a form of racism and denying Jewish peoplehood and history.

Why have teachers become the shock troops of the intersectional left?

Their unions are led by hard-left activists like Randi Weingarten of the AFT, and as a consequence, have done far more harm to the nation’s students than good. That was made abundantly apparent when the unions went allout to keep schools closed during the COVID-19 pandemic long after it was clear that young people weren’t at a high risk of catching the disease and that keeping them out of the classrooms was doing them enormous harm.

Toxic Theories

But the context is a broader conflict about how Americans should think about their country and Western civilization. Most teachers—and their unions—are squarely in the progressive camp that has embraced the left-wing critique of the West. As a consequence, they have been indoctrinating a generation of young Americans to buy into the toxic myths of critical race theory, intersectionality and settler-colonialism in which the United States is wrongly depicted as an irredeemably racist nation. These divisive doctrines label Jews and Israelis as “white” oppressors always in the wrong and Palestinians as downtrodden “people of color,” who are in the right no matter what they do.

That’s a completely false understanding of the century-old war to oppose the Jewish presence in the land of Israel, which has nothing to do with race. Yet it has led to their believing that Israelis— the victims of the horrendous terrorism of Oct. 7, 2023, and a war waged against their existence by Iran and its Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthi terrorist prox-

ies—are the villains of the Middle East conflict. And that inevitably means that the Palestinian Arabs—the perpetrators of the worst mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, led by groups bent on genocide—are the good guys.

That’s the context for the NEA’s break with the ADL.

That these two groups should be at odds with each other is not so much ironic as it is a sign of the radicalization of the unions.

Betrayed by their Allies

In recent years, under the leadership of CEO and national director Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL has, like the unions and other liberal groups, moved to the left and often acted as a Jewish auxiliary for the Democratic Party rather than sticking to its mission of defending the Jews. It played partisan politics on some issues—and then not only endorsed the antisemitic Black Lives Matter movement but also incorporated some of the far-left’s woke ideology into its popular “No Place for Hate” curricula it markets to school districts.

After the post-Oct. 7 surge of antisemitism, however, Greenblatt and the ADL seem to have at least to some extent remembered why the group was founded and is still needed. They have responded to the crisis by returning to their roots, often calling out the antisemitism on college campuses and elsewhere. Yet, much to their discredit and showing that they still value partisan loyalties over their mission to defend the Jews, they have opposed President Donald Trump’s efforts to defund educational institutions that have mainstreamed Jew-hatred .

Nevertheless, the ADL has continued to advocate for the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism that rightly cites the sort of double standards, blood libels and opposition to the existence of one Jewish state on the planet that is now routine on the left. That and the ADL’s often less than spirited defense of Israel’s conduct of the war on Hamas and opposition to the false claims of a genocide going on in Gaza puts it at odds with the NEA and others who engage in spreading and teaching these falsehoods.

It is hardly surprising that the ADL’s old allies have not merely turned on them but now refer to them with the same rage as they do Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israel Defense Forces. In much the same manner as leftists target Jews on campuses,

for them, the only good Jews are those on the far left who are willing to disavow their own people and oppose Israel’s existence and even support those, like Hamas, who seek Jewish genocide.

Since the ADL opposes those seeking to kill Jews and Israelis, the NEA believes that it’s wrong to allow the group to help it define or counter antisemitism. Indeed, as one such Hamas apologist/ NEA activist put it , the unions regard a group like ADL, which supports Israel, as being akin to fossil-fuel companies they loudly insist are destroying the planet. Unsurprisingly, the openly antisemitic Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) endorsed their vote.

This is just one more in an increasingly lengthy list of actions in which the unions have aligned themselves against

rooms are shared and strongly encouraged by the leadership of the teachers’ unions,” says Marcus. “We refer to those unions as the Hamas tunnels; they are the delivery source through which the hate-inspiring materials are burrowed, largely undetected, to be used to poison the hearts and minds of students with Jew-hatred.”

This didn’t start on Oct. 7.

In California, a long-running debate about an ethnic-studies requirement in high school hinged on the way that the school curriculum was not just excluding Jews as a minority group worthy of being highlighted in any such program. Its teachings promoted an anti-Israel narrative in which Jewish history and rights are erased, and the Jewish state is delegitimized.

issues of the day. As Marcus notes, the unions are telling teachers that they “are entitled to express their own political opinions in their classrooms. But every court in the country that has addressed that issue says that is not so.”

The Engine of Antisemitism

As a group, teachers deserve our respect and support. The unfortunate truth, though, is that as much as we rightly complain about what is being taught in elite schools today, a generation of Americans has already been influenced by woke doctrines. And they are now in place teaching not just at Harvard and Columbia but in elementary, middle and high schools across the country.

These unions have become an integral part of the culture war roiling American society as socalled progressives have sought to topple the Western canon in the U.S. education system

That is especially true among those who are union activists. The NEA, the AFT and many state and local teachers’ associations have become the engine of the normalization of antisemitism in the schools. They are doing everything they can to resist the pushback that they are finally getting from those who are doing all they can to turn back the antisemitic tide that has already swept over the education system.

So, what can we do about it?

efforts to counter Jew-hatred. Just this week, the California Teachers Association opposed an effort to create a state office to combat antisemitism. Their reason left not much doubt about their motivation. The association feared that any such state program would impair its ability to spread misinformation about Israel and indoctrinate students to treat the Jewish state as an illegitimate entity that is not only committing heinous war crimes against Palestinian Arabs but has no right to exist. In essence, they oppose any definition of antisemitism that won’t give them a pass to commit it.

“Hamas Tunnels”

To those who have been fighting against the spread of Jew-hatred in the schools, this is nothing new. Lori Lowenthal Marcus, legal director of The Deborah Project, a nonprofit legal defense organization that fights antisemitism across the United States by advising parents and teachers, in addition to taking school systems and colleges to court, says that a big part of the problem is the unions.

“What we’ve found in public K-12 schools is that the majority of the antisemitic materials used in the class -

More than that, as Marcus notes, students and families have often been targeted, shunned and harassed because of their Jewish identity while teachers and administrators look the other way. In some cases, they tacitly encourage it because they see it as merely instances of people venting their understandable hatred for anything they associate with Israel or Judaism.

“We’ve seen the malign influence of the teachers’ unions repeatedly,” says Marcus. “The unions are behind it, whether it’s launching a ‘Teach-In for Palestine’ instead of regular academic classes in Oakland in December 2023, or instructing teachers to teach about the settler colonialism and oppression of Israel and to hide what they are teaching in Los Angeles, or simple Jew-hatred, pure and simple, by the Massachusetts Teachers Union which is occurring now.”

Some of this might be ascribed to the natural tendency of any union to stand by its teachers, no matter what they do. Still, when educators are accused of using their positions to promote antisemitism and anti-Zionism, they often declare that there’s nothing wrong with stating their own personal opinions about the

For one, efforts like those of the Deborah Project and other nonprofits that are waging this struggle one district at a time need more support. A destructive partisanship has prevented major liberal Jewish groups like the ADL and the American Jewish Committee from supporting the Trump administration’s campaign to defund institutions that tolerate antisemitism. But if successful, that effort could go a long way toward forcing the schools and academia to disavow leftist doctrines, lest they too be stripped of federal aid.

What is also necessary is for families and communities to rise up and make it clear to the unions and the teachers that they won’t tolerate their extremism any longer. Those teachers who dissent from this woke plague also need to be supported as they wage a difficult fight to change the unions from within. Until they do, there should be an end to any illusions that teachers’ unions should be regarded with the same affection that their profession still holds in the minds of the public. The NEA and AFT, and other similar organizations, should be labeled for what they are: groups that are spreading hatred rather than knowledge.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate).

Jewish History

Bombing Auschwitz—In Iran

by Rafael Medoff

Amajor front-page article in The New York Times this week strongly criticized Israel’s bombing of an Iranian torture center, even going so far as to suggest that the Israeli strike may have been a war crime. One wonders how the Times would have responded if the United States had done to Auschwitz what Israel did to the barbaric Evin prison in Tehran.

While Evin was not a death camp, and the brutalization of prisoners there was not another Holocaust, the bombing and its aftermath raise some of the same questions with which we grapple in ongoing discussions about the Allies’ failure to attack Auschwitz.

Even as it disparaged the Israeli bombing raid, The New York Times acknowledged that Evin was “a singular symbol of oppression,” where Iran’s rulers “punish dissent with detention, interrogation, torture and execution.”

The lengthy Times article mentioned that the bombs hit “the infamous 209 ward controlled by intelligence forces,” but it failed to explain why that ward is infamous. For that, one must look elsewhere, such as Hengameh Haj Hassan’s gripping 2013 memoir, Face to Face with the Beast: Iranian Women in Mullah’s Prisons. Hassan and five other women were confined in a Ward 209 cell so small “that there wasn’t room enough to stretch out” to sleep. Some were political dissidents. One was a 16-year-old girl jailed for possessing a certain novel. The prisoners’ clothes were filthy “because of torture and bleeding wounds.” They shared a single decrepit toothbrush. The food consisted of one barely edible meal daily.

All the women in Hassan’s cell were beaten and tortured regularly. The officers who questioned Hassan boasted that they were “better at torturing and interrogating” than their colleagues. She endured unimaginable suffering and also witnessed numerous “scenes of … humiliation,” including officers “[assaulting] girls before they executed them.”

The centerpiece of The New York Times story was the accusation that Isra-

el’s bombing of Evin harmed some innocent bystanders. How many of them were killed or injured is impossible to know, because the Times relied partly on information from the Iranian government. The total number appears to be in the dozens, including some prisoners and relatives who were visiting them.

Kanal 13, an independent news outlet based in neighboring Azerbaijan, has broadcast video on YouTube that it said shows prisoners escaping from Evin as a result of the bombing. How many escaped may never be known.

When the Israeli government decided to strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities, it had no military reason to come to the aid of imprisoned Iranian dissidents. Attacking Evin was strictly a humanitarian gesture. Unfortunately, Israel has not yet invented bombs that only blow the locks off prison cells or kill only the guards, meaning that hitting the prison could endanger the lives of some innocent bystanders. But it also could mean freedom, and life, for many others.

The Allies faced similar dilemmas during World War II, yet that never stopped them from bombing necessary targets.

In February 1944, British fighter-bombers attacked the Amiens prison in German-occupied France, where the Nazis were holding French resistance fighters. The planes struck such narrow targets as a guardhouse and specific walls. As a result, 258 prisoners escaped. But 102 were killed.

The New York Times’ article about the Amiens raid did not contain even a hint of criticism. Nor did other media coverage of the bombing. An official of the World Jewish Congress clipped out the Times article and sent it to U.S. Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy, with a note describing the raid as “exactly the kind of assault which we have been asking for in order to free the doomed inmates of the German slaughter camps.” Roosevelt administration officials rejected such requests from dozens of officials of Jewish organizations.

Assaults such as the one on Amiens were known as “precision bombing,” but of course there was a limit to how precise they could be. As in all wars, bystanders sometimes were harmed.

In April 1944, for example, the British targeted an archive in The Hague where the Germans stored documents that were potentially harmful to the Dutch resistance.

The bombers destroyed the building and an adjacent SS barracks, but 64 archivists and passersby were killed. That August, American planes bombed a rocket factory inside the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp. They demolished the factory and killed about 100 SS officers and their family members, but an estimated 388 slave laborers in the factory were killed and more than 1,000 were wounded.

Two months later, the British bombed Gestapo headquarters in northeastern Denmark. They destroyed crucial files and killed dozens of Germans. Two prisoners from the Danish resistance escaped, but a third was killed in the bombing. Stray bombs hit an adjacent building, killing ten civilians. Five months after that, the British bombed Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen, leveling the building and enabling eighteen Danish prisoners to flee, but some bombs accidentally hit a nearby school, killing about 125 civilians. American planes repeatedly bombed the synthetic oil factories in the industrial zone of Auschwitz, even though the Allies knew that about 600 British POWs were being held there. Thirty-eight of them were killed when the U.S. bombed those factories on August 20, 1944.

The choice for Israel was to do what the international community has always done about Iranian oppression—nothing—or to take action to interrupt the mass torture, even at the risk of harming some bystanders. The Israelis made the morally right choice, even though Amnesty International says it was a “war crime.” The Israelis accomplished in minutes more than all of Amnesty’s crocodile-tears press releases about Evin ever did.

Dr. 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.

Evin prison in Iran after the bombings

Jewish History

The Hunt for a 316-Year-Old Stradivarius Stolen in the Fog of War

By Javier C. Hernandez

As Germany devolved into chaos at the end of World War II, a rare violin from the famed shop of Italian luthier Antonio Stradivari was plundered from a bank safe in Berlin.

The instrument, crafted in 1709 during the golden age of violin-making, had been deposited there years earlier by the Mendelssohn-Bohnke family as Nazi persecution put assets owned by Jews in jeopardy.

For decades after the war, the family searched to no avail for the violin, known as the Mendelssohn, placing ads in magazines and filing reports with the German authorities. The violin, valued at millions of dollars, was presumed lost or destroyed.

Now, the Mendelssohn may have resurfaced. An eagle-eyed cultural property scholar, Carla Shapreau, recently came across photos from a 2018 exhibition of Stradivarius instruments in Tokyo. She spotted a violin that bore striking similarities to the Mendelssohn, though it has a different name — Stella — and creation date — 1707 instead of 1709.

“My jaw dropped,” said Shapreau, a senior fellow with the Institute of European Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, who had been searching for the instrument for more than 15 years.

Jason Price, the founder of the auction house Tarisio that operates in New York and other cities, agreed with Shapreau’s findings. A Stradivarius violin, dated to 1707 and valued at between $1.2 million and $1.5 million, passed through his auction house in 2000 but did not sell. There were few details about its history at the time, he said. But now, after reviewing photos of that violin in Tarisio’s archive and earlier images of the Mendelssohn, he and other experts are convinced they match.

“They obviously are the same,” Price said. “When you look at the photographs

side by side, you see the peculiarities of the wear patterns, the dings, the dents, the scratches. It is the same violin.

There’s no question about that, and I don’t think anyone would have a reasonable case at saying they aren’t.”

Jean-Philippe Échard, a curator of stringed instruments at the Musée de la Musique in Paris who has reviewed the images, said the similarities were “striking and in fact, very convincing.”

Échard said it was possible that a contemporary maker could have produced a replica of the Mendelssohn violin with the exact same details. But given that both violins are said to be more than 300 years old, they were almost certainly the same instrument, he said.

“It’s quite impossible to have two old objects that have exactly the same appearance,” he said. “They cannot be the same like that. It’s only one instrument.”

History Often Difficult to Trace

The case of the Mendelssohn Stradivarius highlights the opaque trade for rare instruments, in which details about provenance, or the history of previous ownership, are often not well documented or, in some cases, intentionally obscured. Instruments are sometimes sold and resold for millions of dollars even if they lack a verifiable historical record.

Cultural institutions and instrument dealers have faced pressure in recent years to return looted objects to their original owners. But buyers can find themselves in a difficult position if, unwittingly, they paid large sums in good faith for an object they later discover was looted during the war.

Stradivari, who died in 1737, made more than 1,000 stringed instruments, sometimes in collaboration with his sons, working out of a shop in Cremona,

Italy. About 500 of the famed violins are still in circulation today. They retain a mystique in the classical music world, renowned for their lush sound and visual beauty. Some Stradivarius violins once owned by famous virtuosos like Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz and Yehudi Menuhin have sold in recent years for up to $20 million.

Using sales records, interviews and other data, Shapreau believes she has traced the Mendelssohn to a Japanese violinist who appears to have acquired it around 2005.

The violinist, Eijin Nimura, 54, is a prominent musician who serves as an artist for peace for UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization, and plays concerts to honor victims of natural disasters. He has spoken about his instrument on social media and at the 2018 exhibition in Tokyo, describing it as the Stella. But he has declined to discuss it further with Shapreau, who began reaching out to him last fall.

A lawyer for Nimura restated that position in a recent letter to Shapreau.

“We have no information regarding this, including any factual basis that any of your allegations would have any merit,” the lawyer, Yoshie Tsuruta, of the Peaceful International Law Firm in Tokyo, wrote. “Mr. Nimura is a bona fide purchaser of the instrument for valuable consideration. The instrument belongs to Mr. Nimura.”

Neither the violinist nor his lawyer responded to interview requests from The New York Times. It remains unclear how Nimura acquired his violin, and, like many buyers, he may not have had any reason to question its provenance.

The living members of the Mendelssohn-Bohnke family, spread across Europe and the United States, hope to reach a settlement with Nimura, though they say he has not acknowledged that they have any claim. They had not known of the violin that so closely

matches their missing instrument until Shapreau’s discovery last summer of the images from Japan.

David Rosenthal, a family member and the former principal percussionist of the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, said he knew that a violin, once played by his grandmother Lilli, had been stolen during the war. He said he remembered the moment when Shapreau reached out to tell the family she thought she had located it.

“My reaction was one of utter disbelief and shock,” he said. “It was hiding in plain sight.”

A Family Treasure

Franz von Mendelssohn, who died in 1935, was a partner at the Mendelssohn Bank in Berlin and also an instrument collector. After the Nazis rose to power, Jews had increasing difficulty getting expensive possessions, such as a precious violin, out of the country. The Stradivarius was in storage at the Mendelssohn Bank in 1938 when the Nazis forced the bank into liquidation. Its assets were largely acquired by Deutsche Bank.

Years later, the violin and other instruments and heirlooms from the Mendelssohn-Bohnke family were moved to a Deutsche Bank safe. But sometime in the spring or summer of 1945, that safe was plundered, according to a 1960 letter from bank officials to the Mendelssohn-Bohnke family. It was a time of chaos in Berlin. Adolf Hitler had committed suicide in April 1945, just as the Soviet army advanced into the city. The Soviets took control of the bank, but it is unclear whether the safe may have already been looted.

For decades, the Mendelssohn-Bohnke family searched for the Stradivarius, placing photographs and stolen property notices in international publications, and filing a report with Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior.

A 1958 notice in the Strad, a music magazine, described “the small Mendelssohn Stradivari,” that had been stolen at the time of the occupation and said it had been valued at 80,000 Reichsmark in 1930.

“This violin is an authentic creation of Antonio Stradivari,” the notice said. “It bears an authentic inscription of the year 1709. This violin is remarkably beautiful, in good preservation with excellent tone.”

Stella Appears on the Market

It can be difficult to trace musical instruments lost or stolen in the Nazi era

because producing detailed information on provenance is not a common part of the trade. The hunt for such instruments often requires years of sleuthing, a task that only a few researchers, like Shapreau, have taken on. Provenance was similarly not a central concern for the art market for decades after World War II. But starting in the 1990s, the market came to be increasingly focused on the scope of Nazi looting and on investigating the ownership of works that had been in Europe during the Holocaust era.

Shapreau has tracked the history of the violin that she believes to be the Mendelssohn back to 1995, when a Paris luthier, Bernard Sabatier, said he was

resembles the Mendelssohn was held by Nimura, according to business records Shapreau tracked down. Machold Rare Violins, a leading German dealer, produced a certificate of authenticity that year that listed the Japanese violinist as its owner. Machold, once one of the most successful violin sellers in the world, collapsed as a business in 2010 and its former owner could not be reached for comment.

The 2005 statement of provenance for the violin on the dealership’s letterhead referred to the instrument as the Stella and said it had long been “in the possession of a noble family which has been living in Holland since the times of the French Revolution.”

“My reaction was one of utter disbelief and shock. It was hiding in plain sight.”

approached by a Russian violinist looking to sell an instrument he had purchased in 1953 from a German dealer in Moscow. Sabatier would not reveal the violinist’s name to the Times, citing client confidentiality. Sabatier said he brought the violin to the John & Arthur Beare violin dealership in London, where it was inspected and certified to be a Stradivarius.

In 1999, a certificate of authenticity issued by Sabatier said the violin had been made in 1707, two years earlier than the missing Mendelssohn. Sabatier said he could not recall how the violin was dated. Shapreau said she views the difference in date as either a simple misreading of the violin’s aged internal label, which bears its date of creation, or evidence that it had been tampered with after the violin went missing in the 1940s.

Sabatier said the Russian violinist ultimately sold the violin through a Swiss dealer, operating out of Rome, who could not be reached for comment.

By 2000, the instrument had reached Tarisio, the auction house, where a consignor hoped to sell it. The instrument did not sell, but the photographs of it taken then became critical evidence in Shapreau’s effort to show that it was indeed the missing Mendelssohn.

By 2005, the violin that so closely

name “Stella.” A catalog of more than 800 Stradivarius instruments, including some that have gone missing, released last fall by Beares Publishing contains separate entries for the Mendelssohn and for the Stella based on the information available to researchers.

As evident in his public postings, Nimura has not hidden his ownership of the instrument, which he also refers to as the Stella. Beyond exhibiting it in 2018, he has called attention to his Strad in his official biography and on social media.

In one post, Nimura spoke of visiting Cremona, the birthplace of Antonio Stradivari, with the violin in 2017, writing that the instrument must have felt “deeply moved as she returned to her birthplace.”

“I will continue to play this instrument in the hope that this Strad will become a new legend,” he wrote on Facebook.

Rosenthal, the representative for the Mendelssohn-Bohnke family, began reaching out to Nimura last fall.

The German dealership’s document attributed the Dutch provenance to Sabatier, but he told the Times that he did not write the statement.

A Match in Japan

Shapreau oversees the Lost Music Project, which traces instruments, manuscripts, books and other cultural objects looted, confiscated and displaced in Nazi-era Germany. Created in 2007, the project has published books and articles examining looting in the Nazi era, fraud in the modern instrument trade and the use of databases in recovering stolen instruments.

Shapreau has a background in violin-making and her searches rely on clues provided in letters, photos, business, legal and government records.

“It requires a nimbleness on a lot of levels,” she said. “It’s very daunting.”

Shapreau said that last summer, when she came across images of the Stella violin from the 2018 Stradivarius exhibition at the Mori Arts Center Gallery in Tokyo, she had no doubt she was looking at the missing Mendelssohn.

“I was aghast because it had been renamed, redated and was in private ownership,” she said.

Violin experts interviewed by the Times said that, until the statement of provenance from 2005, they had not been aware of any Strad known by the

“It has now been clearly established that this violin is currently in your hands, and that a completely fictitious provenance has been invented for it,” Rosenthal wrote in an email to Nimura. “The true identity of the so-called ‘Stella’ will be impossible to keep secret.”

Nimura’s lawyer, Tsuruta, has described the ongoing inquiries by Rosenthal and Shapreau as harassment. She wrote in a March letter that Shapreau and Rosenthal should “cease and desist from any further action, conduct or behavior.”

“You are interfering with and causing tremendous distress and anguish to Mr. Nimura and his rights and well-being,” Tsuruta wrote. “You are threatening Mr. Nimura to do what he has no obligation to do.”

Price, the founder of the Tarisio auction house, estimates that the Mendelssohn violin has a value as high as $5 million. But Rosenthal said the violin was more than a material loss.

“My mother was a pianist,” he said. “My uncle was a pianist. My grandmother was a musician who loved to play this violin. My grandfather was a conductor.”

“The fact that it has been discovered after all this time really shakes us up,” he continued. “The violin is part of us. Music is part and parcel of our family. We just want a resolution.” ©

Forgotten Her es Two Jewish Aces

By Avi Heiligman

Allied armies needed pilots and air crew in large numbers as they rushed planes to fight off the Axis powers during World War II. Their heroism, skills and dedication were a huge part of the Allied victories. These men and women were sent to every theater of the war and often were deployed in areas well in advance of ground troops. Tens of thousands of Jewish pilots and other air crew flew missions, often coming back with stories of bravery and heroism.

During the war, 6,000 Jewish Canadians volunteered for service in the air force. Most were in the Royal Canadian Air Force, but some flew for the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the American Air Corps. Flight Officer William Henry Nelson was born in Montreal and flew for the RAF during the pivotal Battle of Britain in 1940. Nelson, whose family’s original name was Katznelson, joined the RAF in 1937 as a bomber pilot in No. 10 Squadron. On one of the first missions of the war, he was the pilot of a Whitley bomber and he dropped leaflets over Germany. He became the first Jewish Canadian to be decorated during the war when he received the Distinguished Flying Cross for a mission to Norway. As he was attacking the runway at an enemy airbase, he encountered a balloon barrage that could cause significant damage to incoming British aircraft. Nelson’s timely report on

the barrage’s location helped other planes to avoid the area, and he’s credited with saving these airplanes and their crews.

By mid-1940, the Germans were on an air blitz over Great Britain in an attempt to neutralize the RAF. Known as the Battle of Britain, Nelson became an ace pilot during the battle. After receiving his medal for his mission over Norway, Nelson transitioned to flying Spitfire fighter planes. In October 1940, he shot down five Nazi planes and damaged two others and became the only Canadian Spitfire ace of the battle. On November 1, 1940, he was shot down and presumably crashed into the English Channel. Nelson and his plane were never found, but his legacy lives on. Shortly before his death he wrote, “I thank G-d that I shall be able to help destroy the regime that persecutes the Jews.”

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning had a unique twin engine, twin boom design that could fly up to 400 miles an hour. It was also hailed as a long range, high altitude, versatile fighter that could also carry bombs if necessary. Used extensively in the Pacific during World War II, the P-38 also saw a lot of action over Europe and the Mediterranean, and dozens of top American pilots earned the title of ace while flying in the P-38. The top two American aces of the war, Richard Bong and Thomas McGuire, flew the P-38 while shooting down 40 Japanese planes and

38 enemy aircraft, respectively. Both pilots were awarded the Medal of Honor for their bravery in action.

Major Fredric Arnold (his family’s original name was Kohn) was a Jewish P-38 ace pilot from Chicago. Prior to the war, he was an artist in New York as a cartoonist for a newspaper group. After the Japanese attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor, Arnold enlisted in the Army Air Corps. In 1943, he was shipped overseas and was stationed with the 71st Fighter Squadron, 1 st Fighter Group in North Africa.

From their bases in Algeria and Tunisia, the flight for the P-38 Lightnings was about 500 miles. They often flew with external fuel tanks to extend the amount of time they were able to spend flying in enemy airspace. Other times, they carried large bombs to drop on enemy targets or skip bombs used against enemy ships. Arnold was one of the first P-38 pilots to fly and survive 50 missions. Arnold was promoted to major, and by his 46th mission, he was the squadron leader. His aerial record was quite impressive as he shot down seven enemy planes including six Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters. Many of the pilots in his squadron were shot down, and even Arnold was shot down twice. The first time he escaped back to friendly lines, but he was captured after the second time. Knowing that if the

Germans found out he was Jewish his chances of survival would be low, Arnold decided to escape. He successfully managed to escape the camp and made it back to Allied lines.

Arnold flew four more missions before he was sent back to the States. His decorations included the Distinguished Service Cross and the Air Medal with nine oak leaf clusters.

After his tour of duty, Arnold wrote flying safety instructional manuals for new pilots. He also was a test pilot and test-flew the America’s first operational fighter jet, the XP-80 Shooting Star. Following his military career, Arnold became an author, painter and inventor with the folding beach chair being the most well-known of his inventions.

Nelson and Arnold are two of over a dozen of Jewish pilots that achieved the status of ace. Most air battles are not drawn out, and it takes incredible skill and determination to shoot down even one plane. The heroics of these pilots are rarely told, but these Forgotten Heroes 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.

Flight Officer William Henry Nelson

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning

Fredric Arnold

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Dun-dun-dun-dun.

It’s just around the corner. Wait, that’s probably the biggest fantasy statement ever.

It’s never around the corner in the literal sense! You usually have to drive at least an hour or two or three or four to get there. It’s just not around the corner in any sense of the word.

And even when you think of a way to shorten the trip for Sunday morning, you probably had to drive a few hours to get wherever you were for the weekend. So that’s not around any corner, either.

What is around the corner, though, is visiting day!

It’s coming up soon.

That wonderful, torturous day.

The roads are too busy. The rides are too long.

Some people are blessed to have that convenient place upstate to spend the weekend or night before, just so they can reduce the stress of an endless road on Sunday!

It’s not always luxury accommodations. It’s often camp-like in its decor and experience. However, it gets you closer to your goal: of seeing your precious child racing toward you on your arrival at their summer retreat.

Life C ach

Visiting Day Vibes

By Rivki D. Rosenwald Esq., LMFT, CLC, SDS

You arrive, packages and picnic baskets, and chairs, and siblings, and more snacks , and a fan…in tow. And you shlep/run toward them with anticipation and glee on your face. Only to hear the sounds of their voice, the one you’ve missed for the past few weeks, blaring , “Why weren’t you the first one here?”

And shades of life as you recall it begin once more.

Once in a while, you get lucky and they have a single bed and you’re ready to camp out there for the day.

But, the canteen is calling!

No matter how you try to preempt it by bringing everything with you, there is always something they want from the canteen. Welcome to a line longer than the ladies’ room at a theatre show’s intermission.

Welcome to a line longer than the ladies’ room at a theatre show’s intermission.

You hug, you kiss. You begin the trek to their bunk.

They cannot wait to show you where they sleep. And how they spent the entire morning making this place look livable. You dump all you can on their bed and wish you could find a spot for yourself. However, you might either get decapitated on one or need a pole vault for the other.

After that, they drag you all over the camp. It could be to see where they do a certain activity or where they made an art project. Whatever it is, it’s never nearby!

Finally, everyone finds their spot to camp out. You shmooze, catch up, and then you or someone with you needs to go find the nearest bathroom.

That’s always a bit traumatic. Either

the toilet paper is out. There’s no soap or towels or it’s not your kids’. And the lock is always iffy.

Once you get through that ordeal, it may be time to go off campus, depending on the camp.

This usually takes you to a Walmart or to an ice cream shop. Welcome to shlepping another 1,000 things again or to standing on another line, this time twice as long as the one at the theaters.

The day begins to draw to an end. Everyone is getting a bit teary-eyed. Some because their parents are leaving. Some because their kids are staying. And some because they are dreading the long ride home!

It’s an amazing day in some ways. A really difficult one in others. But so far, no one has come up with anything better. So best of luck and enjoy your gems!

Rivki Rosenwald is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist working with both couples and individuals and is a certified relationship counselor. Rivki is a co-founder and creator of an effective Parent Management of Adolescent Years Program. She can be contacted at 917-705-2004 or at rivkirosenwald@gmail.com.