Five Towns Jewish Home 11.27.25

Dear Readers,

As I get older, I am more grateful for certain things. I am certainly more cognizant of what I have and what I am thankfully not lacking.

It used to be that when people wished me good health, I nodded and thanked them but didn’t fully register the enormity of that blessing. Now, as I look around and see what people are going through, I know how vital that bracha truly is. It’s not just in the area of health that I have an added appreciation of its importance. It’s really in every area in life. When we’re young, we don’t recognize the miracle of having a family, a job, and a place we can call home. But time and life has its way of showing us others who are lacking in those areas – and then, and sometimes only then, do we realize that what we have is a miracle.

Training ourselves to be grateful requires that we do just that – training. It’s so easy to find the negative in every situation. Our lethargic natures find it easier to notice the bad, and we can become dour, ungrateful, bitter people. There is so much good, and yet many times we fall back into our complaining modes.

There are three parts to the training we may need to become more grateful, appreciative people. The first requires us to pause, to still the noises around us. We need to quiet the brain for just a few moments and allow ourselves the opportunity to take in our surroundings.

Once we give ourselves that pause, we need to offer ourselves the chance to view our lives with fresh eyes. Do you know the joy a child has when they see their first snow? Or when they greet you after being away the whole day? That

excitement, that delight, is their way of reacting to the beauty and the novelty of the world around them. If we can bottle up that sensation and use it to look around at our lives, we can begin to see our world from a fresh angle. What may have seemed mundane moments before becomes alive and thrilling. And with that freshness, we can begin to appreciate all the good that we have.

And what’s the third step? Well, changing our natures doesn’t happen in a day. It requires deliberate effort. And so, if we want to become grateful people, we need to practice gratitude constantly.

I know that some schools don’t teach their students about Thanksgiving because it’s not an official Jewish holiday. But the lesson of being appreciative and grateful is so intrinsic to Yiddishkeit. After all, don’t we wake up in the morning and start our day being modeh, acknowledging and appreciating, that Hashem has returned our souls to us? Don’t we stop myriad times a day to appreciate and thank our Creator as we eat our cereal, sip our coffee, finish our sandwich, wash our hands, and leave the bathroom? If we really stepped back and thought about what we were saying, we would realize that we are the most appreciative people out there!

If we can pause, reflect, and refresh our perspectives, our whole lives would be immersed in gratitude for all the good that surrounds us.

Wishing you a wonderful week, Shoshana

Yitzy Halpern, PUBLISHER publisher@fivetownsjewishhome.com

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Nechama,

You don’t have to worry about the “Air Tag Tracker” that your mother put inside your “Learners” coat, since most probably it was accidentally switched coats with someone else in shul! It happens all the time. Rabbi Berel Wein, zt”l, would call it G-d’s sense of humor!

You can relax and breathe now that your “learner” is the real masmid, B”H!

Rabbi Moshe Shochet

To the Editor,

Amidst all the doom and gloom in the news this past week, a ray of hope was emitted for New York Jews with the announcement that the State Senate agreed to pause the All-Electric Building Act pending the outcome of a lawsuit brought by unions and trade groups. The Act would have required all new building construction to run on electricity and not “fossil fuels.” Specifically, gas appliances would have been banned in newly built buildings. This would have proven disastrous for our community as many of our members rely on gas ovens and stoves for Shabbos and Yom Tov; the bill also would have made new housing costs soar. (The law would not apply to existing buildings.) Do you think the government cares about our seudos or costs? Of course not! Yet, when community advocates cried foul about the strain on the building of affordable housing, the electric grid and rising construction costs, Governor Kathy Hochul backed down. The Governor claims the Act is being delayed pending an appeal of the Court’s ruling. This victory, even if only temporary, demonstrates the need to form alliances with groups who may be on our side of an

issue for any number of reasons to fight for our rights and against unjust laws. Each person or organization might have disparate political views, but we want the same outcome. Here, the official reason building trade groups and unions gave for bringing the suit was that the fossil fuel ban was preempted by federal law. As Assemblyman Ari Brown stated: practicality has to come before ideology.

We seem to have won this time, but the nanny state won’t give up. And now with Mamdani coming into office, government overreach will only get worse. We need to ally with the Democrats’ darlings and emphasize their talking points: affordable housing, lack of work for union laborers, and lack of feedback from the public should all be reasons why a bill needs to be reconsidered. In turn, our religious practices will be upheld. We have to find commonality. We have to advocate firmly and zealously. And of course, we must daven.

Chaim Yehuda Meyer

Dear Editor,

In the world, there are always individuals who grab for the absolute power and eliminate everybody/everything that stands in their way. For instance, presidents like Putin of Russia, Erdogan of Turkey, and Maduro of Venezuela, to mention a few. But, to have governmental agencies like FBI and CIA and individuals like attorney generals, judges, lawyers etc. collaborating with one political party to defeat their political opponent, is unique and abominable.

Here are some probes fabricated by the Democrats within the last 10 years: Hillary Clinton, email controversy, Russiagate, Continued on page 20

Continued from page 16

Steele Dossier, Mueller Report, Crossfire Hurricane, January 6 committee, impeachments, FBI Mar-a-Lago raid, Arctic Frost Probe run by special counsel Jack Smith…

Documents from the archive declassified and released within the last few months reveal a multitude of conspirators, how they maliciously worked together to pin down their adversaries. One could even argue that the FBI and the Justice Department entered into an effort to have a judicial coup!

The present government has no choice but to investigate these cases and, if there is reason for accusation, to prosecute these culprits to the fullest extent of the law.

This is an overwhelming task. You don’t know where to start first. To search for judges who are willing to take up the challenge and play by the book is almost like finding a needle in a haystack.

We do have to make an all-out effort to untangle the mess and seek justice wherever is due. Likewise, the House has to set guidelines that entanglements of such nature will have no place in our future government.

Heinz Mayer

Dear Editor,

I recently sent my father a list of thank-yous. He was overjoyed. It then occurred to me that I hadn’t done the same for G-d.

It’s true that the list wouldn’t include such items as tennis racquets, golf clubs, an Amazon Fire, or a coffeemaker, but there were other things, such as being blessed with great parents, wonderful siblings, and a loving family.

With Thanksgiving upon us, it’s interesting to note that Rav Soloveitchik saw no issue in its celebration, as it doesn’t infringe upon “U’vichukoseihem lo sele-

ichu—In their ways you shall not walk” (Vayikra 18:3).

In applying this sentiment to our current political ecosystem, we have much to be thankful for. We are living with what is likely the most pro-Israel president in our history, and we have the land of Israel to support.

In the diaspora, we are staying true to Yirmiyahu’s chutz la’Aretz formula that he delivered to the exiled Jews in Babylonia: “Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. And seek the peace of the city to which I have exiled you, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its peace you shall have peace” (Yirmiyahu 29:5,7).

And just as they were guaranteed to return after seventy years in exile, we too were given assurances, as the verse says: “Then, the L-rd, your G-d, will bring back your exiles, and He will have mercy upon you. He will once again gather you from all the nations, where the L-rd, your G-d, had dispersed you” (Devarim 30:3).

The future is bright. We look forward to a world in which G-d’s eminence will be revealed and the Torah will take on a new dimension, as the verse teaches: “For [a new] Torah will emerge from Me” (Yeshayahu 51:4).

It is in the final Yehi Ratzon of Shemoneh Esrei that we express our yearning for this post-Mikdash Torah that will reveal all the secrets contained within: “Yehi ratzon sheyibaneh Beis HaMikdash bim’heira v’yameinu, v’sein chelkeinu b’Torasecha—May it be Your will, G-d our Lord and G-d of our fathers, that the Beis HaMikdash be built speedily in our days, and that You grant us our portion in Your Torah.”

Steven Genack

Volcano Erupts in Ethiopia

This week, a volcano thought to be dormant for centuries erupted in Ethiopia. The eruption of Hayli Gubbi began on Sunday morning, sending plumes of ash thousands of feet into the air.

A resident said he heard a loud sound and what he described as a shock wave. “It felt like a sudden bomb had been thrown with smoke and ash.”

The volcanic ash swept across the Red Sea through Oman and Yemen and even reached the Indian capital Delhi.

A local official, Mohammed Seid, said there were no casualties, but the eruption could have economic implications for the local community of livestock herders.

“While no human lives and livestock have been lost so far, many villages have been covered in ash and as a result their animals have little to eat,” he said.

Several international and domestic flights have been cancelled, delayed or rerouted in India because of the ash, with the country’s aviation regulator asking airlines to “strictly avoid” affected areas. The level of ash contamination is unclear, experts said, but it is unlikely to affect Delhi’s air quality, which was “very poor” as per official readings on Tuesday.

Volcanic ash is a cloud of tiny, abrasive particles released into the atmosphere during an eruption. It can damage aircraft engines, contaminate airfields and reduce visibility, making it hazardous to flight operations.

Volcanic ash clouds are rare. But when Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted in 2010, it caused global travel chaos. UK and European airspace was shut or partially shut, leading to the worst air travel disruption since World War II.

The volcano, which rises about 500 meters in altitude, sits within the Rift

Valley, a zone of intense geological activity where two tectonic plates meet. The Afar region in Ethiopia is prone to earthquakes.

More Arrests in Louvre Heist

The October 19 brazen heist in the Louvre, when thieves broke into the Apollo Gallery and stole multiple jewels, shocked the world. This week, French authorities said they detained four more people suspected of involvement in the robbery.

Two men, aged 38 and 39, and two women, aged 31 and 40, all from the Paris region, were detained by police as part of the investigation into the heist, according to a statement from Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau.

The new suspects join four other suspects detained in late October who will be questioned by investigators, said the prosecutor who has not yet released further details about possible charges.

One of the suspects is the alleged fourth member of the gang that carried out the heist. Three of the suspects detained in October have been charged with organized robbery, with the fourth, a woman, charged with complicity in organized robbery.

In broad daylight, the four thieves raided the Apollo Gallery on the Louvre’s upper floor, which houses the French crown jewels. They used a truck-mounted ladder to gain access to the gallery, one of the most ornate rooms in the museum, through a window. In just seven minutes, they broke into two high-security display cases and made off with nine items, including a diamond and sapphire jewelry set worn by Queen Marie-Amélie and Queen Hortense. The pieces were worth an estimated $102 million.

The thieves dropped a diamond- and emerald-studded crown that once belonged to Empress Eugénie, the wife of Napoleon III, as they escaped on scooters. But they made off with eight other items of jewelry. The loot has still not been found.

300 Students Abducted in Nigeria

On Friday, gunmen stormed into a Catholic school in Niger State, Nigeria, and kidnapped more than 300 students and teachers.

The terrorists sprayed bullets into the air before rousting students from their dormitories and forcing them into the forest at gunpoint, police said.

There were 629 primary and secondary students at the school. School officials say that 303 students and 12 teachers were abducted by the men.

Bishop Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, Niger State chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, said, “Some parents whose children we had thought had es-

caped came asking for their children. More students were captured after they tried to escape.”

The mass abduction is even larger than the infamous incident a decade ago in which Islamist insurgents belonging to Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from the Chibok Government Secondary School. Many of those students were Christians forced by their captors to convert to Islam.

In a social-media post early this month, Trump accused the Nigerian government of allowing the killing of Christians. He said he had instructed the Defense Department to draw up military plans aimed at destroying Islamist militants in Nigeria.

“All these incidents point to the fact that the [Nigerian] federal government is not doing enough to fight insecurity,” Joseph Hayab, regional chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, told The Wall Street Journal on Saturday. “So I don’t mind if President Trump can come help us fight the insecurity.”

Last week, gunmen kidnapped 25 students from a school in Kebbi State. The next day, attackers raided the Christ Apostolic Church in central Nigeria, killing two and kidnapping 38, police said. Last Wednesday, gunmen killed two people during a church service in western Nige-

ria. They kidnapped dozens of other worshipers, according to religious groups.

Nigeria is home to more than 240 million people, about half Muslims, concentrated in the north, and half Christians, generally in the south. Extremist groups such as Boko Haram—its name translates as “Western education is forbidden”—are conducting a religiously motivated insurgency that reaches into neighboring Chad, Cameroon and Niger, while bandits are carrying out a parallel kidnap-for-ransom campaign. The result is widespread killings and abductions of both Christian and Muslim civilians.

The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, a Nigerian nonprofit, estimated that Boko Haram and other groups were responsible for the deaths of 43,000 Christians between 2009 and 2021, with 17,500 attacks on churches recorded. The society estimated 29,000 Muslims were killed during the same period.

Trump and his conservative allies in politics and the media focus on incidents involving Christians and blame the Nigerian government, led by President Bola Tinubu, for failing to prevent them.

“It would be a gross understatement and a blatant denial to refer to serious and sustained attacks against religious

communities in Nigeria of this magnitude as anything but acts of religious persecution,” U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R., N.J.), chairman of the House Africa subcommittee, said on Friday, when authorities still believed that fewer than 60 St. Mary’s students had been kidnapped.

Houthis Sentence 17 “Spies”

On Saturday, a Yemeni Houthi rebel court sentenced 17 people to death for allegedly spying for Israel, the United States and Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis’ Saba news agency said the court in the capital Sanaa had sentenced the 17 individuals in cases relating to “espionage cells within a spy network affiliated with the American, Israeli and Saudi intelligence.”

The group was sentenced to be executed by firing squad.

Lawyer Abdulbasit Ghazi, representing some of the defendants, said that they can appeal the sentence.

The charges included “colluding with foreign nations in a state of enmity with Yemen during the 2024-2025 period, namely Saudi Arabia, Britain and America, and spying for their interests through officers from those countries and from the Israeli Mossad” intelligence service.

The defendants were also accused of “incitement and aiding with the recruitment of a number of citizens…which led to the targeting of several military, security and civilian sites resulting in the death of dozens and widespread destruction of infrastructure.”

A man and a woman were sentenced to 10 years in prison each, and another person was acquitted in the same case.

Filipino Mayor Sentenced to Prison

Alice Guo, a former Philippines mayor, was accused of spying for China. Last week, she was found guilty of human

trafficking for her role in running a scam center.

On Thursday, she and three others were sentenced to life in prison and a fine of 2 million pesos.

The case of Guo has gripped the Philippines for years, after authorities uncovered one of the country’s biggest scam centers in her small town of Bamban.

More than 800 Filipinos and foreigners were later rescued from the scam hub after a raid, with many of them saying they were forced to run “pig butchering” scams.

The 35-year-old, who was arrested last year after being on the run for weeks, has denied all allegations against her.

There are still five ongoing cases against Guo, including one where she has been charged with money laundering.

In 2022, Guo was elected as the mayor of Bamban, north of the capital Manila. But in 2024, the small town was thrust

into the national spotlight after authorities uncovered a sprawling scam center there that was hiding under online casinos, known locally as Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (Pogo).

Pogos cater to clients in the Chinese mainland, where gambling is illegal.

Guo initially denied all knowledge of the compound, but a senate investigation that followed questioned her inability to detect the eight hectare center that was located near her office.

It later emerged that the compound –which contained 36 buildings – was built on land which Guo previously owned.

They also found discrepancies in her life story – she was not, as she had claimed, born in the Philippines, but had migrated from China with her family as a teenager. MPs later found that her fingerprints matched those of a Chinese national named Guo Hua Ping.

Guo was soon removed from office. She disappeared in July 2024, prompting an international operation across four countries to bring her back. A few months later, she was arrested in Indonesia and extradited to the Philippines. Her Philippine passport was cancelled.

A Burqa in Parliament

Senator Pauline Hanson made headlines this week when she wore a burqa to Australian parliament. The 71-year-old conservative lawmaker is pushing to ban face coverings in Australia in public settings.

Hanson is the founder of the farright wing political party One Nation and represents the northeastern state of Queensland. She appeared in Australian Parliament House chambers on Monday wearing a black burqa covering her body and face. She wore the garment after senators refused to pass a law banning the burqa in public places.

“Clearly what is happening today is not a demonstration of faith; in fact, it is the middle finger to people of faith,” Sen. Larissa Waters, who represents the Green party, said during the parliament meeting. “It is extremely racist.”

Mehreen

Faruqi, a Muslim senator

from the state of New South Wales, said during the session about Hanson, “A racist senator displaying blatant racism and Islamophobia.”

Fatima Payman, who represents Western Australia, called the move disrespectful and “absolutely unconstitutional.”

“This needs to be dealt with immediately,” Payman said.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong also criticized Hanson’s actions. “Whatever our own beliefs may be, the sort of disrespect that you are engaging in now is not worthy of a member of the Australian senate.”

After Hanson refused to leave the session at the senate’s request, lawmakers suspended the senate, which means no work will be done until the issue is rectified.

This is not the first time that Hanson wore a burqa in Parliament. She wore one in 2017 when she called for a ban of the covering in public spaces.

Hanson said she had “a right” to wear the burqa and called fellow lawmakers “hypocrites.”

“My concern is as a nation for national security terroristic threats and attacks that are happening also for women’s rights that they are not forced to wear the full burqa against their will... I think it goes against their culture and their way of life,” she said.

“I put the burqa on and thought, well, if you won’t ban the burqa then I’m going to wear it,” she said. “They don’t want to ban it, but they don’t want me to wear it in parliament, so what do they want? They’re a bunch of hypocrites.”

In a Facebook post, Hanson wrote she wore the burqa to protest her bill not being introduced, “so that every Australian knows what’s at stake.”

A Russia-Ukraine Deal?

Ukraine has reportedly agreed to the framework of a peace deal brokered by the U.S., which could be a significant first step toward ending the almost fouryear war. Still, Russia has to agree to the terms, with many people believing that

an unlikely conclusion.

Ukraine reportedly agreed to an amended peace agreement during talks that U.S. officials held with a Ukrainian delegation in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday. A Russian delegation was also in the UAE capital, although it’s uncertain whether joint talks were held.

Reports of an agreement emerged when an unnamed U.S. official said that “minor details” still need to be resolved but that “the Ukrainians have agreed to

the peace deal.”

“There are some minor details to be sorted out but they have agreed to a peace deal,” the U.S. official explained.

A Ukrainian official said that Ukraine supports the “essence” of a peace deal framework following talks in Geneva last weekend. The official said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President Donald Trump would discuss the “most sensitive issues” of the framework.

have no new information.”

Ukraine has come under sustained pressure in the last week to agree to a peace plan with Russia after it emerged that the U.S. and Moscow had held secret talks and devised a 28-point peace plan that largely favored Moscow’s demands.

The plan, which Ukraine had not participated in, included controversial terms, such as Ukraine making territorial concessions by handing over the eastern Donbas region that is partially occupied by Russian forces. The original deal also demanded that Ukraine reduce its army by 50%, along with other proposals that crossed Ukraine’s “red lines.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled his approval of the original plan, saying it formed the “basis of a final peace settlement.”

Breaking his silence on the proposals last Friday, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was facing one of the most difficult moments in its history and was essentially facing a choice between “losing its dignity or losing a key partner,” referring to the U.S.

U.S. Boycotts G20

The United States was conspicuously absent from the Group of 20 summit, which was hosted in South Africa this year and ended on Sunday. The Trump administration boycotted the gathering, alleging that South Africa is oppressing its Afrikaner white minority.

Putin’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said, “We understand that negotiations between the Americans and the Ukrainians are ongoing. We understand that some adjustments are being made to the text that was published; we understand that the text that we unofficially received earlier has already undergone changes, but at some point, the time will probably come when we will also establish contacts with the Americans, and we will officially receive some information. For now, we

The U.S. is expected to lead the summit next year. President Donald Trump has announced that the next summit will be held at his golf course in Doral, Florida. It is traditional for the gavel to be handed to the next host country at the end of the summit, but the U.S.’s absence made that impossible, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa banged the wooden gavel instead.

“This gavel of this G20 summit formally closes this summit and now moves on to the next president of the G20, which is the United States, where we shall see each other again next year,” said Ramaphosa, without mentioning the U.S.’s absence.

The U.S. was going to, at the last second, send an official from its South African embassy to take part in the handover, but South Africa objected, claiming

32 it would be disrespectful for Ramaphosa to have to hand over the gavel to a junior embassy official. The U.S. wound up sending no one, though the handover is supposed to happen later, according to South Africa, potentially at its foreign ministry.

On Saturday, the first day of the talks, a declaration was made. The timing of it, however, was irregular, as most G20 declarations are made as the summit is drawing to a close. The declaration called for an end to global conflicts; it mentioned Ukraine just once. The declaration also called for more financial support for poor countries. The declaration was supported by China, Russia, France, Germany, the U.K., Japan, Canada, and others.

Argentine President Javier Milei was also absent from the summit. As such, Argentina voted against the measures.

Australia: No Social Media for Kids

Several social media platforms in Australia must ban existing accounts from people under age 16 and prevent the creation of new ones, starting on December 10, when the country’s teenage social me-

dia ban comes into effect. The ban is intended to lessen the “pressures and risks” that kids face on social media, which includes “design features that encourage them to spend more time on screens, while also serving up content that can harm their health and wellbeing.”

The ban specifically includes Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube, Reddit, and Kick.

According to a study commissioned by the government months ago, 96% of kids between the ages of 10 and 15 use social media, while seven out of 10 have been exposed to harmful content and behavior, whether minor or significant, and one in seven has experienced grooming-type behavior from older users. Over 50% of users ages 10 to 15 have admitted to having been cyberbullied.

Other platforms worry about being hit with the ban next. Roblox and Discord have already implemented age checks to

avoid a ban. Meanwhile, YouTube Kids, Google Classroom, and WhatsApp will not be banned as of now.

If the companies fail to adhere to the ban, they may be fined up to AU$49.5 million (US$32million). Children and parents will not be penalized for going against the ban.

Companies will have to verify that users are old enough to use the media using a reliable method, such as requiring a government ID, face or voice identification, or age inference.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, said it would shut down teen accounts starting December 4. If an adult is mistakenly kicked off, they can rejoin by providing government ID or a video selfie.

It is unclear what methods the other social media companies will use to ban users younger than 16.

When the ban was announced a year ago, social media companies were displeased, arguing that such measures would prove ineffective. Google, YouTube’s parent company, was reportedly thinking about challenging the ban in court.

Cartel de los Soles is a Terror Group

The U.S. government on Monday designated Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization, recognizing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as its leader.

Maduro’s government condemned the move, asserting that the cartel in question isn’t real.

It “absolutely rejects the new and ridiculous fabrication” of “the nonexistent Cartel of the Suns as a terrorist organization, thus repeating an infamous and vile lie to justify an illegitimate and illegal intervention against Venezuela, under the classic U.S. format of regime change.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in an announcement before the designation, said the group was “responsible for terrorist violence … as well as for trafficking drugs into the United States and Europe.” In July, the gang was hit by sanctions.

Cartel de los Soles (literally Cartel of the Suns) is not a typical cartel. It is difficult to define, though experts believe the group includes corrupt Venezuelan police and government officials who benefit from drug trafficking and other illegal activities. Some experts say the cartel is not a single group.

Over the past few weeks, the U.S. military has launched around 21 strikes on Venezuelan boats with alleged drug traffickers. Since earlier this year, U.S. troops and hardware have been deployed into the Caribbean to combat traffickers.

It is unclear if the U.S.’s ultimate goal is to force regime change in Venezuela, though Trump’s attacks on Maduro have revitalized the Venezuelan opposition.

With the designation in effect, the U.S. may expand sanctions enforcement, target financial and logistical networks, and maintain diplomatic and intelligence pressure to disrupt the cartel’s operations.

Milk Shortages in Israel

In an effort to end Israel’s price-controlled milk shortages, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said he would waive Israel’s high milk tariffs in order to foster competition, allow imports in, and lower the cost of milk.

However, some dairy industry experts say Smotrich’s solution could have the opposite effect.

“The Treasury’s plan is a death blow to the Israeli dairy farmers’ industry and the entire dairy sector and will seriously harm food security in Israel,” cautioned Israeli Cattle Breeders’ Association (ICBA) director Dagan Yarel. “Israeli citizens should not have to rely on the import of Polish or Turkish milk. We must keep the Israeli dairy farm and the Israeli dairy industry strong, stable, and safe for the benefit of all citizens of the country.”

“Opening up the market for imports of butter has had the opposite effect and

caused a crazy jump in consumer prices. This is not the way to lead to a drop in prices,” Yarel added.

Dairy Council Israel CEO Itzhak Shnaider also criticized the plan and called on the Finance Ministry to adopt the Agriculture Ministry’s proposed food security growth plan.

“Reality has shown that it is impossible to rely on imports from European countries,” Shnaider said. “Importers will bring what is profitable for them, as they

are only motivated by profit.”

“The direct result will be harm to national food security and an increase in prices for consumers,” he warned.

In August, Smotrich waived the customs duty for six months during peak consumption and lower production periods, but it did not help to address the milk shortage.

Importing milk to Israel is problematic in many ways. Milk has a short shelf life, the transportation and distribution

and more, in order to cut costs and increase productivity, while streamlining milk production and ensuring steady allyear-round availability.

Eli Zeira Passes

Maj. Gen. (ret.) Eli Zeira, a man with a complicated legacy, passed away on Friday. He was 97.

As the chief of the Military Intelligence Directorate in 1973, Zeira assessed that, contrary to most Israeli intelligence, Egypt and Syria would not attack. Many have attributed his assessment as the reason Israel was unprepared when Arab countries launched a surprise attack, sparking the Yom Kippur War.

Zeira was born in Haifa on April 4, 1928. At 18, he joined the Palmach, and during the 1948 War of Independence, he was a platoon and company commander in the Yiftah Infantry Brigade’s 1st Battalion. Following the war, he went to the U.S. Army company commanders’ school, becoming the first Israel Defense Forces officer to do so. After coming back to Israel, he graduated from Hebrew University with a bachelor’s degree in economics and statistics.

costs money, and there are problems with kosher supervision and certification.

Estimates by dairy associations indicate that around 200 smaller dairy farms could close down, unable to compete, if the reform is passed.

The Agriculture Ministry’s NIS 1.4 billion ($428 million) five-year plan involves R&D, capital investments in advanced technologies, and smart management systems of dairy farms, as well as investments in upgraded infrastructure

By 1956, during the Sinai Campaign, Zeira had become a senior operations officer in the Operations Directorate. He was then sent another time to the U.S. for command and staff training at Fort Leavenworth. He became commander of the Paratroopers Brigade in 1960. Two and a half years later, he became the leader of the Operations Department. In 1963, he headed the IDF’s intelligence correction department in the Military Intelligence Directorate. In 1968, he became assistant to the chief of the directorate, and in January 1970, he was promoted to major general and became Israel’s military attaché to the United States and Canada. In September 1972, he returned to Israel. A month later, he was appointed head of the Military Intelligence Directorate.

One year later, Zeira dismissed mounting evidence of an impending surprise attack. As such, Israeli forces were caught off guard when Egypt and Syria attacked on October 6, 1973.

After the war, the Agranat Commission determined that he was negligent,

though it stopped short of recommending his dismissal from the army. Still, he left to study at Stanford University for a year and then ended his military service.

In 2004, Zeira was accused by former Mossad chief Zvi Zamir of revealing the identity of Ashraf Marwan — the second Egyptian president’s son and the third’s close adviser — who provided groundbreaking intelligence to Israel in the leadup to the Yom Kippur War. Zeira was never charged, as the case was closed in 2012 following years of investigation.

Trump Hosts Hostages

On Thursday, President Donald Trump hosted a delegation at the White House of nearly all the hostages freed through the Gaza ceasefire deal he brokered last month.

“You’re not a hostage anymore,” the president said. “Today, you’re heroes.”

The Israeli delegation was made up of 26 former hostages, including 17 of the 20 living captives who were released in the deal that took force in October.

Among those 17 was Matan Angrest, who Trump singled out for praise.

“Because of his service in the IDF, Matan was subjected to severe beatings, even at times losing consciousness. Alone and under special guard, he went through [gehenom],” Trump said in another short video posted by the Hostages Families Forum. “Matan never broke, and today he’s a living testimony to the toughness, heart, and faith of the Jewish people. I’m telling you, you’re a great inspiration to everybody.”

Addressing all of the hostages, Trump said, “It’s an honor to get to know all of you. I know some of you already. I know some of the previous hostages that we got out very well. We love you all, and our country loves you all… You’re amazing people.”

Trump also handed each member of the delegation a special presidential coin.

A number of the former hostages brought gifts for the U.S. president to express their gratitude. Twin brothers Gali and Ziv Berman brought a mezuzah that

had survived the fire that

rorists had set in their Kfar Aza home during the October 7, 2023, attack that started the Gaza war.

The twins recovered the mezuzah last week during their first visit back to Kfar Aza since they were freed on October 13.

Thursday’s reception marked the third time that the American president has hosted delegations of hostages whose release he helped secure in two separate deals this year, the first of which was sealed in January when he was president-elect.

Trump campaigned on securing the release of the hostages and ending the war in Gaza. The January 2025 deal fell apart after its six-week first phase, leading to another eight months of war before the October ceasefire.

The group was hosted by a bipartisan group of congressional lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

“To our great hostages who now carry a weight, a story and experience that you never asked for… We will be your friends for life. We will be your advocates for life. We will continue to wear our pins, and we will continue to tell your story,” Democratic Representative Haley Stevens said during the meeting.

“Today we were able to bring both sides of the House, Democrats and Republicans, together into one room,” said Danny Miran, the father of recently released hostage Omri Miran, who was also part of the delegation. “This is an opportunity to thank you, American Jewry, and all those who took the trouble and labored and made efforts to bring these wonderful children home. In less than a month, we will be celebrating Chanukah – the Festival of Lights – thank you very much for all these lights you have lit for us.”

IDF Kills Hezbollah Military Chief

A targeted Israeli airstrike on Sunday hit Beirut, Lebanon, killing Haytham Ali Tabatabai, the military chief of staff and second-in-command of Hezbollah.

The terror group confirmed his death, remembering the terrorist as a “great Jihadi commander” who “dedicated his life

38 to the resistance” and “was among the leaders who laid the foundation” for it. Tabatabai was killed alongside four other terrorists, according to Hezbollah: Ibrahim Ali Hussein, Rifaat Ahmed Hussein, Mustafa Asaad Barrou and Qassem Hussein Barjawi.

According to the IDF, Tabatabai was a “veteran and central operative in the terror organization,” who “effectively served as the official responsible for managing the fighting against Israel” in late 2024. After Israel and Hezbollah’s fighting ended in November 2024, Tabatabai became the terror group’s military chief of staff, leading Hezbollah’s reconstruction.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said that the assassination was in response to “Hezbollah’s repeated violations of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and the 2024 ceasefire understandings, as well as the threat he posed to Israel and to regional stability.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the strike, which was recommended by the defense minister and the IDF chief of staff. Netanyahu, in a video statement, called Tabatabai “a mass murderer” who bears responsibility for many Israeli and American deaths.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned Israel for the strike and urged

“the international community to assume its responsibility and intervene firmly and seriously to stop the attacks on Lebanon and its people.”

According to a senior American official, the United States was “pleased with the elimination of the number two in Hezbollah.”

Since 2016, the United States has had a $5 million bounty for information on Tabatabai. He was at one point the commander of his terror group’s Radwan Force, which planned on invading Israel and launching a massacre similar to October 7.

Tornado Hits Houston

On Monday, a tornado slammed through areas north of Houston, Texas, damaging more than 100 homes, tearing off roofs, lifting garages off their foundations, and smashing windows. Thankfully, no injuries were reported.

The storm uprooted trees and downed

power lines throughout the neighborhoods. More than 20,000 customers were without power at one point on Monday.

Some people hunkered down in their homes and hid in closets during the Texas storm.

“I had the door and I was trying to hold it shut so that nothing would end up in the house,” one resident said. “It was so forceful.” Her house suffered roof and tree damage.

In Klein, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Houston, officials were working to fix multiple reported gas leaks, remove trees that were blocking roads, and clean up debris around homes and businesses, according to Ja’Milla Lomas, a spokesperson for the Klein Fire Department. Damage also was reported in Cypress and Spring.

Fire at LA Port

A fire erupted on Friday evening on a cargo ship docked at the Port of Los Angeles but was “substantially contained” by Saturday after more than 180 firefighters battled the flames.

An electrical fire on a lower deck of the cargo ship One Henry Hudson started at 6:38 p.m. local time, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. An explosion shook the vessel shortly before 8 p.m., knocking out power to lights and cranes.

Thankfully, no one was injured; all 23 crew members were evacuated from the ship.

After the fire was successfully put out, the cargo ship was moved.

The Port of Los Angeles, which describes itself as North America’s busiest port, said that four of its seven container terminals suspended operations Friday night and a safety zone was established around the ship. Port operations resumed

Saturday morning.

“Many of our fire boats are out there. They are trying to cool down this vessel,” fire department Capt. Adam Van Gerpen said at a news conference.

LAFD said that “the incident presented extraordinary challenges,” with the fire burning in areas that were largely inaccessible and an explosion causing onboard lights and cranes to lose power.

Several cargo containers involved in the blaze carry hazardous materials, requiring firefighters to wear protective suits and oxygen masks, Van Gerpen said. Air quality was being monitored as crews worked overnight to suppress the blaze in the ship’s lower levels.

The Panama-flagged cargo ship, built in 2008, had recently arrived from Tokyo.

Wegovy Not for Alzheimer’s

Some had hoped that semaglutide, the active ingredient for the weight loss jab Wegovy, would work to slow Alzheimer’s. But this week, drug maker Novo Nordisk announced that it wasn’t the case.

Researchers began two large trials involving more than 3,800 people after reports that the medicine was having an impact in the real world. But the studies showed the GLP-1 drug, which is already used to manage type 2 diabetes and obesity, made no difference compared to a placebo.

Martin Holst Lange, chief scientific officer and executive vice president of research and development at Novo Nordisk, said, “Based on the significant unmet need in Alzheimer’s disease as well as a number of indicative data points, we felt we had a responsibility to explore semaglutide’s potential, despite a low likelihood of success.

“While semaglutide did not demonstrate efficacy in slowing the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, the extensive body of evidence supporting semaglutide continues to provide benefits for individuals with type 2 diabetes, obesity, and related comorbidities,” he said.

Dr. Susan Kohlhaas from Alzheimer’s Research UK said the results would come

40 as a blow for people affected by Alzheimer’s.

The patients who took part in the Evoke trials were aged between 55 and 85 and had mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease. Dementia progression was monitored and measured through tests and interviews. Treatment with semaglutide resulted in improvement of Alzheimer’s disease-related biomarkers, but this did not translate into delaying progression of the disease.

Dr. Kohlhaas noted, “These trial results are another reminder that Alzheimer’s is driven by several different biological processes. No single approach is likely to be enough. The field now needs to focus on understanding those processes in much greater detail and developing treatments that can be used together to tackle the disease from multiple angles.”

She added that the growing use of GLP-1 medicines through private prescriptions, largely for weight loss, offers an opportunity to gather better real-world data on their longer-term effects.

There are more than 130 Alzheimer’s drugs in clinical trials of which around 30 are in late-stage trials – the final step before they are considered by regulators.

MTG to Resign

On Friday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene announced that she will resign her seat in Congress on January 5, 2026.

In a lengthy statement posted to X, Greene cited her growing disillusionment with Washington politics, blasting what she called a corrupt “Political Industrial Complex” that she said uses Americans as “pawns in an endless game of division.”

“Americans are used by the Political Industrial Complex of both political parties, election cycle after election cycle, in order to elect whichever side can convince Americans to hate the other side more,” Greene wrote. “And the results are always the same — nothing ever gets better for the common American man or woman.”

She added, “I have too much self respect and dignity, love my family way too

much, and do not want my sweet district to endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the President we all fought for, only to fight and win my election while Republicans will likely lose the midterms.”

Greene, who has served in the House since 2021, came under attack from President Trump last week, when the president announced that he was removing his endorsement of Greene’s reelection campaign after she broke party rank and signed onto a discharge petition forcing a vote to order the Department of Justice to release its full Epstein files.

In a social media post, Trump called Greene “a ranting Lunatic” who has “gone Far Left.” In an ensuing online back-andforth with Greene over the weekend, he called her “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Greene” and said he would support a primary challenger.

In a video released Friday alongside her statement, Greene said, ““My heart remains filled with joy, my life is filled with happiness, and my true convictions remain unchanged because my self worth is not defined by a man, but instead by G-d Who created everything in existence.”

Trump on Saturday said that she “went BAD” after he “refused to return her never ending barrage of phone calls.”

In a Saturday morning post on Truth Social, Trump said, “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown, because of PLUMMETING Poll Numbers, and not wanting to face a Primary Challenger with a strong Trump Endorsement (where she would have no chance of winning!), has decided to call it ‘quits.’”

“Her relationship with the WORST Republican Congressman in decades, Tom Massie of Kentucky, also known as Rand Paul Jr. because he votes against the Republican Party (and really good legislation!), did not help her,” the president continued. “For some reason, primarily that I refused to return her never ending barrage of phone calls, Marjorie went BAD. Nevertheless, I will always appreciate Marjorie, and thank her for her service to our Country!”

Trump later was asked by a reporter if he was willing to forgive Greene.

“Forgive for what? No. We just – I just disagreed with her philosophy. She started backing perhaps the worst Republican congressman in our history, just, you know, a stupid person named Massie. And, I said, ‘Go your own way.’ And once I left her, she resigned because she would never have survived a primary. But I think she’s a nice person,” Trump added.

With Greene’s resignation, a special election will be triggered in Georgia’s 14th district

Dem. Rep. Indicted for Stealing Federal Funds

Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida was indicted in federal court last week for allegedly stealing millions of dollars in federal emergency funds and routing some of it to her campaign account.

The Justice Department alleges that in 2021, a year before Cherfilus-McCormick was elected to Congress, a company that she ran called Trinity Healthcare Services was overpaid $5 million on a Federal Emergency Management Agency-funded contract to assist with Florida’s coronavirus vaccination campaign.

The defendants in the case then allegedly “conspired to steal” the money by sending it through multiple bank accounts.

Some of that overpaid money was used to help fund Cherfilus-McCormick’s campaign to represent South Florida in the House, the Justice Department alleged. In particular, she was accused of funneling some of the money to friends and family members who donated it to her campaign in their own names, in what’s known as a “straw donor” scheme.

“Using disaster relief funds for self-enrichment is a particularly selfish, cynical crime,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “No one is above the law, least of all powerful people who rob taxpayers for personal gain. We will follow the facts in this case and deliver justice.”

Cherfilus-McCormick was charged with theft of government funds, money laundering, making and receiving straw donor contributions, and three conspiracy counts.

She was also charged with conspiracy to make a false and fraudulent statement on a tax return. The indictment accuses her of submitting a return to the Internal Revenue Service that reported millions in false business expenses and charitable contributions.

The congresswoman’s brother, Edwin Cherfilus — who worked with her at the health care company — was also charged with money laundering and theft of government funds. Her congressional office’s

former chief of staff, Nadege Leblanc, was charged with straw donations, and her accountant, David Spencer, was charged with tax offenses.

Cherfilus-McCormick has strongly denied the charges against her, calling them “intimidation tactics.”

Cherfilus-McCormick’s legal team said in a statement that the congresswoman “is a committed public servant, who is dedicated to her constituents. We will fight to clear her good name.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that Cherfilus-McCormick is “innocent until proven guilty.”

The Florida Department of Emergency Management said it contracted with Trinity to sign people up for COVID-19 vaccines. At one point, the company was accidentally paid more than $5 million rather than $50,000 due to a “clerical error,” and the company “knowingly” processed the invoice and refused to give the money back, the lawsuit says.

South Lawn and put his arm around the Saudi leader. The red carpet was pulled out for the crown prince, and fighter jets flew overhead. On Tuesday night, they enjoyed a dinner with pistachio-crushed rack of lamb and couverture mousse pear for dessert. Many tech CEOs were there for the dinner, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and Apple CEO Tim Cook. During dinner, Trump declared that he would be designating Saudi Arabia as a major non-NATO ally. While mostly symbolic, that move could give Saudi Arabia more defense, trade, and security cooperation benefits.

On Sunday, Trump said the U.S. would sell F-35s to Saudi Arabia; Israel is currently the only country in the Middle East with the stealth strike fighters. Israel has objected to the U.S. selling F-35s to Saudi Arabia — unless the country joins the Abraham Accords — as have some U.S. officials, who fear Saudi Arabia might share advanced U.S. technology with China, an ally. During his meeting with the prince, Trump formally announced the sale.

“As far as I’m concerned, I think they are both at a level where they should get top of the line,” Trump said of Saudi Arabia and Israel.

During the meeting, Prince Mohammad reiterated that Saudi Arabia would only join the Abraham Accords once there is a clear pathway to a Palestinian state.

“We want to be part of the Abraham Accords, but we want also to be sure that we secure a clear path of two-state solution,” the prince said. “We’re going to work on that to be sure that we come prepared for the situation as soon as possible to have that.”

Saudi Crown Prince Visits

Trump

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman had a warm meeting at the White House.

Trump greeted Prince Mohammad with a handshake at the White House’s

At one point, a reporter asked Prince Mohammad questions about Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and journalist who was killed in 2018 in Istanbul at a Saudi consulate, according to U.S. intelligence, likely after Prince Mohammad ordered his killing.

Trump became angry with the journalist and then said that Khashoggi was “extremely controversial” and added that “a lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen, but he (the crown prince) knew nothing about it and we can leave it at that.”

The crown prince said, “It’s been painful for us in Saudi Arabia… We did all the right

steps of investigation, etc., in Saudi Arabia, and we’ve improved our system to be sure that nothing happens like that again. And it’s painful, and it was a huge mistake.”

Brain Epochs

Our brains are resilient.

According to new research, our brains rewire themselves as we age.

The process happens in distinct phases, or “epochs,” as the structure of our neural networks changes and our brains reconfigure how we think and process information.

For the first time, scientists say they’ve identified four distinct turning points between those phases in an average brain: at ages 9, 32, 66 and 83. During each epoch between those years, our brains show markedly different characteristics in brain architecture, they say.

The findings, published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, suggest that human cognition does not simply increase with age until a peak, then decline. In fact, the phase from ages 9 to 32 is the only time in life when our neural networks are becoming increasingly efficient, according to the research.

During the adulthood phase, from 32 to 66, the average person’s brain architecture essentially stabilizes without major changes, at a time when researchers think people are generally plateauing in intelligence and personality.

And in the years after the last turning point — 83 and beyond — the brain becomes increasingly reliant on individual regions as connections between them begin to wither away.

“It’s not a linear progression,” Alexa Mousley, a postdoctoral researcher associate at the University of Cambridge, who is the study’s lead author, pointed out. “This is the first step of understanding the way the brain’s changing fluctuates based on age.”

The findings could help identify why mental health and neurological conditions develop during particular phases of rewiring.

For their research, Mousley and her colleagues analyzed MRI diffusion scans — which are essentially images of how water molecules move within the brain — from about 3,800 people from age 0 to age 90. The goal was to map the neural connections across the average person’s

brain at different stages in life.

In the brain, the bundles of nerve fibers that transfer signals are encapsulated in fatty tissue called myelin. Water molecules diffused in the brain tend to move in the direction of these fibers, rather than across them, meaning researchers can infer where the neural pathways are located.

Based on the MRI scans, the new study maps the neural network of an average person across a lifespan, determining where connections are strengthening or weakening. The five “epochs” it describes are based on the neural connections the researchers observed.

The first phase is from 0 to age 9, they suggest. The brain rapidly increases in gray and white matter; it prunes extra synapses and restructures itself.

From ages 9 to 32, there is an extended period of rewiring. The brain is defined by rapid communication across the entire brain and efficient connections between different regions.

From 32 to 66, the brain plateaus. It’s still rewiring itself, but less dramatically and more slowly.

Then, from 66 to age of 83, the brain tends toward “modularity,” where the neural network is divided into highly connected subnetworks with less central integration. At age 83, connectivity declines further.

Trump-Mamdani Meeting

President Donald Trump and NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who for months before the race condemned each other, had a surprisingly cordial meeting on Friday.

Trump heaped praise on Mamdani, expressing confidence that the next New York City mayor “can do a very good job.”

Trump said he hopes Mamdani would be a “really great mayor.” The president insisted that he would feel safe living in New York during a Mamdani administration.

Trump said that he doesn’t think Mamdani is a “jihadist,” when asked about comments made by Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who is running for New York governor.

He noted that the two of them have very similar goals, particularly regarding affordability. Trump added that the two

of them do not agree on how to solve the issues, but one of them will have to convince the other, or they’ll compromise.

Mamdani has previously branded Trump a despot and fascist and vowed to stand up to him once elected. Yet, the mayor-elect showed no signs of opposition during the press conference after their meeting. When asked about previous comments, Mamdani did not address the questions directly; Trump, on the other hand, said the meeting changed how he saw Mamdani. The two men acted warmly and smiled frequently.

Mamdani noted their “shared admiration and love” of New York City. Both Trump and Mamdani are from the five boroughs and have lived in Queens.

On Saturday, Mamdani told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker that he still believes the president is a fascist.

“After President Trump said that, I said, ‘Yes,’” Mamdani said.

He added, “That’s something I’ve said in the past, and I say today. And I think what I appreciated about the conversation that I had with the president was that we were not shy about the places of disagreement, about the politics that has brought us to this moment, and we also wanted to focus on what it could look like to deliver on a shared analysis of an affordability crisis for New Yorkers.”

Mamdani referred to other past negative comments about Trump, telling Welker, “Everything that I’ve said in the past, I continue to believe.”

In his victory speech after the election, Mamdani spoke forcefully against the Trump administration, promising that “New York will be the light” in political darkness and telling Trump to “turn the volume up.”

Comey’s, James’ Cases Dropped

U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie ruled to dismiss the criminal indictments brought by the Justice Department against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Currie dropped the indictments because the cases’ prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, wasn’t appointed lawfully.

“I agree with Mr. Comey that the Attor-

ney General’s attempt to install Ms. Halligan as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was invalid. And because Ms. Halligan had no lawful authority to present the indictment, I will grant Mr. Comey’s motion and dismiss the indictment,” Currie wrote in her ruling, noting that Halligan didn’t have the authority to present a case before a grand jury, since she wasn’t appointed. And since Halligan was the only prosecutor to present the cases and sign the indictments, the indictments must be voided, according to the judge.

Currie dropped James’ case in another ruling. Comey was indicted on charges of making a false statement to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation. James, on the other hand, was indicted on charges of bank fraud and making a false statement to a financial institution. Both pleaded guilty.

What this means for Halligan’s other cases is unclear at this time.

On November 13, a prosecutor claimed Halligan’s appointment was a “paperwork error,” though Currie did not believe that.

On September 20, Halligan was appointed as interim U.S. Attorney. But according to a federal statute, one may only serve in that position for 120 days without Senate confirmation. The Justice Department has argued that Halligan’s appointment was valid, nonetheless, since the office was empty after Siebert left. Halligan had no prosecutorial experience before bringing the Comey case to a grand trial.

Superman Stuns

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a $9 million comic of Superman!

A first-edition copy of Superman No. 1 from 1939 sold this week for $9.12 million at Heritage Auctions in Dallas, setting a record for the most expensive comic book ever sold.

Last year, a record $6 million was set by an Action Comics No. 1 issue that introduced Superman to the world.

Three brothers in California discovered the record-setting comic in a cardboard box while cleaning their late mother’s San Francisco attic last year. The

book was buried beneath layers of newspapers and cobwebs.

The Superman No. 1 comic, released in 1939 by Detective Comics Inc., is among a small number of copies known to be in existence and was in excellent condition. There are fewer than 500 copies of the original 500,000-print run believed to exist today.

Detective Comics Inc. released Superman No. 1 in 1939, originally selling for 10 cents. The brothers’ mother and her sibling had collected the comics around the beginning of World War II, storing them away for more than eight decades. The deceased mother had told her children about the valuable collection, but they only discovered it when preparing to sell her house.

Northern California’s cool climate helped preserve the comic in excellent condition, with CGC grading company rating it 9.0 out of 10, indicating only slight signs of wear and aging. The copy features firm spine integrity, vibrant colors and crisp corners. A small in-house advertisement helped experts identify it as originating from the first-edition print run.

Vice President of Comics at Heritage Auctions Lon Allen noted, “It was just in an attic, sitting in a box, could have easily been thrown away, could’ve easily been destroyed in a thousand different ways. A lot of people got excited because it’s just

every factor in collecting that you could possibly want all rolled into one.”

In 2022, another Superman No. 1 sold for $5.3 million. The 2024 Action Comics No. 1 sale featured a Very Fine+ (8.5)-rated copy from the Kansas City Pedigree, with Heritage Auctions describing it as “the most important comic ever published.”

Only 100 surviving copies of Action Comics No. 1 exist today from the original 200,000 printed by National Allied Publications, DC Comics’ predecessor.

One of the brothers – who remain anonymous, along with the buyer who doesn’t want to be identified – said in a statement, ”This isn’t simply a story about old paper and ink. This was never just about a collectible. This is a testament to memory, family, the unexpected ways the past finds its way back to us.”

Truth, justice, and the American way…

Tortoise Dies at 141

Gramma lived more than a century, munching on her favorite foods of romaine lettuce and cactus fruit. But that may not be the true secret to a long life. Gramma was no ordinary centenari-

an. She was born in Galapagos and then was moved to San Diego Zoo, where she was the oldest resident of the park.

Last week, the mature tortoise passed away. It is estimated that she lived 141 years.

It’s not clear exactly when the reptile arrived at the San Diego Zoo, but zoo officials said she came from the Bronx Zoo in either 1928 or 1931 as part of their first group of Galapagos tortoises. She lived through two World Wars and 20 U.S. presidents.

Her care specialists affectionately called her “the Queen of the Zoo.” She was suffering from bone conditions related to her old age that progressed recently before she was permanently put to sleep, the zoo said.

Galapagos tortoises can live for over 100 years in the wild and close to double that in captivity.

The oldest known Galapagos tortoise was named Harriet, who lived at the Australia Zoo until the age of 175. She was collected from the Galapagos Islands in 1835, when she was just the size of a dinner plate, according to the zoo. This means that she hatched somewhere around 1830. She died in 2006.

In April, four baby Galapagos tortoises were born at the Philadelphia Zoo to first-time parents that were roughly 100 years old, a first in the zoo’s history. In June, Zoo Miami resident and Galapagos tortoise Goliath became a first-time father at the age of 135.

Ah, to be young again.

Knocking on Death’s Door

A light knocking caught the attention of a monk in a temple in Bangkok, Thailand – especially since it was coming from inside a coffin.

A 65-year-old Thai woman was brought in by her brother for cremation after it was believed that she died.

Pairat Soodthoop, general and financial affairs manager at the Buddhist temple, said that he was discussing cremation with the woman’s brother when they heard the noise coming from inside the coffin.

“I was a bit surprised, so I asked them to open the coffin, and everyone was star-

tled,” he said. “I saw her opening her eyes slightly and knocking on the side of the coffin. She must have been knocking for quite some time.”

The woman had been bedridden for about two years before her health declined, and she appeared to stop breathing two days earlier. Believing she was dead, her brother placed her in a coffin and made the 300-mile trip to a Bangkok hospital, where she had wished to donate her organs.

The hospital, however, refused to accept the woman without an official death certificate. The brother then brought her to the temple, which offers free cremations, but was also turned away for lacking the document.

While Pairat was explaining how to obtain the certificate, they heard knocking from the coffin. Staff opened it, confirmed she was alive, and sent her to a nearby hospital.

The temple said it would cover her medical expenses.

Talk about cheating death.

Keep on Truckin’

Raymond Hager is on the road – a lot. The 95-year-old man has been driving city buses for 27 years. He has now been named the world’s oldest bus driver by Guinness World Records.

The Wichita Falls, Texas, resident was 94 years and 176 days old when his age and status as an active bus driver were verified by Guinness World Records on May 13.

“I’m the oldest bus driver in the world,” Hager cheered.

Hager started driving at the age of 14 and quickly found he enjoyed driving larger vehicles.

Hager planned on retiring at the age of 95 but now plans to continue driving for as long as he remains healthy and able.

The City of Wichita Falls honored Hager’s achievement by declaring November 18 to be Raymond Hager Day. Reflecting on all those years on the road, Hager said he feels “goodness. Pride. Proud. Thankful that I had been blessed. Little country boy to achieve something like that.”

Putting the pedal to the metal.

Around the Community

One Israel Fund Gala

On Tuesday evening, November 18, One Israel Fund hosted its annual “Rise” Gala at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan, drawing hundreds of passionate supporters, political leaders, faith-based influencers, and philanthropic partners for a night celebrating the biblical heart and future of Israel: Judea and Samaria.

This year’s gala reflected a moment of profound transformation: a full year since Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s historic visit to Judea and Samaria, an era of consistent engagement by Ambassador Mike Huckabee, and a period in which the State Department has treated visits to the region as normalized diplomacy. The event came just weeks after Arkansas passed a law recognizing the region by its biblical names, Judea and Samaria, further legitimizing what had long been marginalized in diplomatic circles.

Guests heard directly from the men and women on the front lines—volunteer medics, rapid responders, and community security units who credit One Israel

Fund with giving them the tools that save lives. In a video, one responder spoke plainly, his voice carrying the weight of daily sacrifice: “Without One Israel Fund, we wouldn’t have radios, we wouldn’t have mobile command centers, and we wouldn’t have the basic tools we need to operate our units.”

His words brought the room to a near standstill, underscoring the life-or-death impact of the equipment and vehicles One Israel Fund provides. Executive Vice President Scott M. Feltman echoed the urgency: “These trucks are not symbolic; they are lifesaving. Every mile they cover, every responder they carry, is another family protected and another community strengthened.”

Although unable to attend in person, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik sent a powerful recorded message underscoring America’s growing commitment to the communities of Judea and Samaria: “I want to thank Ambassador Yechiel Leiter and Scott M. Feltman for their extraordinary work. One Israel Fund is a pillar of security and community — and you have

a partner in me, always.”

Her message reinforced what many attendees already felt: One Israel Fund’s mission resonates deeply across the United States, far beyond the Jewish community.

Feltman also offered heartfelt appreciation to the evening’s supporters: “Tonight’s outpouring of generosity reminds our communities in Judea and Samaria that they are not alone. Our supporters — from grassroots donors to national leaders — are the backbone of everything we are able to achieve.”

He extended special gratitude to Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman for honoring the organization with an official proclamation, stating: “We are deeply grateful to Bruce Blakeman for recognizing the vital importance of Israel’s biblical heartland. His proclamation is a powerful affirmation of solidarity, and we thank every single supporter who continues to stand with us.”

The evening then shifted to a celebration of Eve Harow, One Israel Fund’s beloved tour guide and one of the most

compelling storytellers of Judea and Samaria. A resident of Efrat since 1988, Eve described how she had dreamed of living in the biblical heartland since she was eight years old. A board member captured her influence beautifully: “The Holy Land is part of her soul. People love the land more because of her — she makes it infectious.”

Political commentator Scott Jennings delivered the night’s most stirring address, connecting One Israel Fund’s mission to something far larger than geography. “This work isn’t abstract or political. It’s literal resilience — building fences, equipping medics, giving families the freedom to live proudly and freely.” Jennings emphasized that supporting Israel is not a cause reserved only for the Jewish community: “What you do for Israel strengthens all of us. Israel’s survival is not just a Jewish cause — it’s the cause of anyone who believes in human dignity and refuses to accept a world where Jews are erased.”

He framed the mission as part of the broader struggle for Western values: “Ev-

Photo credit: Jerry Meyer Studios

Noa Cochva with politicans at the gala

MC Sid Rosenberg

President Jacqui Herman

Jerry and Sora Wolasky

Eve Harow, honoree, and EVP Scott Feltman

Members of the Women’s Division Board

eryone in this room is fighting for the survival of Western civilization. We cannot quit. We are choosing whether our children grow up in darkness or in liberty.” His closing words left the room in reflective silence: “The West is not just a place on a map. It is truth, individual responsibility, and the rule of law. And that is what you are defending tonight.”

Midway through the program, news broke of a terror attack in Gush Etzion. One Israel Fund’s board immediately ad-

dressed the audience: “Tonight’s tragic news is a reminder of why our mission is urgent. Our communities remain on the front lines, and One Israel Fund will never waver in ensuring their safety, strength, and ability to flourish.” The moment underscored the stakes of the evening with heartbreaking clarity.

The gala celebrated a year of exceptional progress, including expansion of advanced security technologies; major upgrades to emergency medical response

systems; strengthening of community and youth infrastructure; deepened educational and experiential programming; and growing global engagement through One Israel Fund tours and leadership. These achievements reflect a simple truth: Israel’s heartland is stronger today because of One Israel Fund and its supporters.

About One Israel Fund

One Israel Fund is the premier orga-

nization dedicated to the safety, security, and vitality of the more than 500,000 Israelis living in Judea and Samaria. Through life saving equipment, emergency-response infrastructure, educational programming, and innovative community development, One Israel Fund ensures that Israel’s heartland continues to grow, thrive, and stand resilient against ongoing threats.

Chanukah excitement begins at Siach Yitzchok

Hands-On Math Learning at YOSS

This month, Mrs. Klein’s YOSS second graders rolled up their sleeves and jumped into a brandnew rotation of hands-on math learning centers, transforming the classroom into a lively space full of discovery, creativity, and problem-solving. Throughout the month, students have been working with skip counting, building arrays, exploring addition and subtraction strategies, identifying tens and ones, and discovering how repeated addition relates to multiplication.

HAFTR Lights Up the World with Mitzvos

As part of HAFTR Middle School’s renowned Chesed program, our Middle School boys recently visited the Woodmere Premiere Nursing Home, taking part in bikur cholim. In a wonderful surprise, students had an additional mitzvah opportunity - helping an elderly man lay tefillin for the first time since his bar mitzvah.

This experience highlights the values that guide life at HAFTR: chesed, Torah in action, and connection to Am Yisrael. By bringing mitzvot to life, our students strengthen their own spiritual growth and make a lasting impact on the lives of others.

Through programs like this, HAFTR

empowers students to live their values in ways that extend far beyond the classroom.

CIJE Pinball Hackathon at HALB

CIJE ran an incredible Pinball Hackathon for HALB students. In the days leading up to the event, students built the bases for their pinball machines. At the Hackathon, they dove into hands-on workshops before designing their own one-of-a-kind

games inspired by the theme of Water in Israel. They added obstacles, moving parts, lights, sounds, and all kinds of creative features. The students had a blast bringing their ideas to life and then playing each other’s amazing designs!

To start with hands-on practice, the centers included a variety of engaging tools: dice games that helped students practice addition and subtraction facts, counting cubes and hands-on arrays, counters for repeated addition and color-by-number activities that combined art with computation to reinforce accuracy and fluency. Students loved the

Visit Day at MTA

Visit Day at MTA gave prospective students an exciting and meaningful look into the vibrant blend of Torah learning, academics, and student life that defines the MTA experience. From the moment they arrived, the warmth of the yeshiva and the energy of Washington Heights set the tone for an unforgettable day.

The morning began with a delicious breakfast, followed by engaging shiurim from Rav Schenker, Rav Konigsberg, and Rav Balsam. Each shiur offered a taste of the depth, passion, and personal connection that shape the Judaic Studies program at MTA.

Students were then treated to a “Washington Heights Food Crawl,” sampling some of the delicious spots that make the Heights such a special home for our talmidim. The fun continued with basketball in the Max Stern Athletic Center and a robotics demonstration from MTA’s award-winning robotics team. These activities highlighted the many ways students can grow, explore, and excel outside the classroom.

Lunch featured a crowd favorite from Smash House and Chickies, giving prospective students time to connect and speak with Rebbeim, faculty, and current talmidim.

One of the highlights of the day took place in the Glueck Beis Medrash, where

chance to touch, build, roll, organize, and create as they learned. These centers not only supported different learning styles but also promoted independence, teamwork, and mathematical confidence.

As the year continues, Mrs. Klein’s second graders will expand their math toolbox with new strategies and handson challenges—setting a strong foundation for lifelong learning. The classroom is buzzing with excitement, and we can’t wait to see what mathematical discoveries Mrs. Klein’s second graders make next!

students heard divrei chizuk from either Rav Yaakov Neuburger or Rav Aryeh Lebowitz. The atmosphere was uplifting, and the message of inspiration resonated with everyone in the room.

The academic portion of the program continued with hands-on math and science classes taught by MTA’s talented faculty. Prospective students were able to experience the rigor, excitement, and curiosity that define the academic mission of the yeshiva.

The day concluded with a sweet treat of Rita’s as students headed out, giving them time to unwind and reflect on a day in the Heights.

Visit Day offered a glimpse into what it means to be part of the MTA family. We look forward to welcoming these future Lions back to our campus very soon.

Around the Community Thanksgiving Prep at HANC ECC

Preparing for Thanksgiving was the focus in the Early Childhood Division at the HANC Reinstein Family Campus in West Hempstead. Each class learned about the history of the holiday and what the Native Americans did for our country. They also discussed how the Pilgrims wanted to practice their religion and how lucky we are to be able to practice Judaism here in our lives. Each class shared what they are thankful for and their responses were adorable: our families, Hashem, our grandparents, our Legos and Magnatiles, just to name a few. The teachers also read many stories and books, including The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, to help enlighten the children of the facts and themes incorporated in our annual celebration of Thanksgiving.

Once the children had a fuller understanding of the holiday, the preparations began for their class feast. The children created beautiful centerpieces and napkin rings which will help decorate not only their classroom feast tables but their families’ Thanksgiving tables as well. To replicate the beaded necklaces worn at the time of the first Thanksgiving, the students used Fruit Loops or pony beads in an array of colors, and then using their fine motor and patterning skills, they strung them into their own festive necklaces to wear at the feast. Beautiful headdresses were also fashioned in the style of what the Native Americans wore in those times, utilizing their fine motor skills to create their magnificent head pieces with multi-colored feathers.

No Thanksgiving would be complete without the requisite delicious traditional foods. Each class baked or cooked a dish

or dessert that would be shared at their upcoming feast. During the course of the three days leading up to the holiday, the hallways were filled with fragrant scents. Some of the dishes included sweet potato pie, cornbread, pumpkin pie, corn salad, cranberry relish and corn muffins.

HANC Early Childhood Director, Mrs. Trudy Rubinstein, remarked, “This year, the children will use their creativity to decorate their own turkeys. The children will replicate a turkey out of cookies, fruit loops and candy corn as the feathers and candy eyes. We are so excited to see the finished turkeys–gobble, gobble!!”

At the conclusion of the day, the children will be so proud to take all of their Thanksgiving projects home, which will bring great joy to their families and will enhance their own Thanksgiving feasts this year, and for many years to come.

Gan Chamesh Hosts a Special Breakfast

Gan Chamesh invited the mothers of its young students to attend a warm and informative breakfast. The event presented an opportunity for mothers to connect as the staff of Gan Chamesh introduced ideas that highlighted the unique Gan Chamesh philosophy and its innovative, educational approach. The morahs that presented focused on learning in the kitchen and demonstrated using simple pantry items for imaginative play. The mothers noted that they are excited about implementing the ideas at home.

Abraham and Sara Silber Middle School Hosts

Annual Government Fair

The Abraham and Sara Silber Middle School at the Yeshiva of South Shore held its annual Government Fair this past week, showcasing an impressive display of knowledge, creativity, and public speaking from the seventh grade students. Each boy was assigned a government official to research, prepare a tri-board presentation, and present in front of judges and peers.

The event opened with a special video message from Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who commended the boys for their hard work and dedication to understanding their officials—highlighting in particular the efforts of seventh grader Yehuda Hellman.

The fair transformed the school into a vibrant learning forum, as students confidently explained the roles, responsibilities, and backgrounds of their chosen government figures. Their diligence and enthusiasm reflected a deep understanding of how government functions and

why civic engagement is so important.

Special thanks to Rabbi Yonatan Escovitz and Rabbi Avi Adler for creating and running a great event!

After thoughtful judging, the following students were recognized for their outstanding presentations:

7th Grade Government Fair Finalists

First Place: Dovid Selengut and Benzion Mizrachi

Second Place: Leo Krinsky, Jonah Gardyn, Yehuda Hellman

Third Place: Mordy Polatoff, Yaakov Polotski, Aryeh Levkovich, Yonatan Gluck, JJ Gobber

Honorable Mention: Shai Balsam, David Weber, Rommy Dewick, Yehuda Schaulewicz, Ezra Acobas

Mazal tov to all the participants for their remarkable effort, and a special congratulations to the winners for their exceptional achievement!

HAFTR Senior Named Bruce Pearl Award Recipient

HAFTR High School has been participating in the Athletes for Israel Auburn Experience Basketball Tournament since its inception. The concept behind the Auburn Experience is far larger than basketball. Inspired by Coach Bruce Pearl’s use of his platform to bring awareness to the hostages still held in Gaza, specifically Edan Alexander, and to the ongoing war and atrocities in Israel, the tournament aims to teach student-athletes about the power they hold beyond the classroom and the court.

At this year’s recent tournament, Olivia Weinrib, a senior at HAFTR High School, was named the first-ever recipient of the Bruce Pearl Impact Award. Olivia is the true definition of a student-athlete. A dedicated and serious student, she has been a key member of the HAFTR basketball team throughout high school while also serving as a starter on the girls’ softball, tennis, and hockey teams. In addition to her academic and athletic commitments, Olivia is a gifted musician who devotes her spare time to giving back

to the community. She volunteers weekly with Friendship Circle and even founded her own nonprofit, We Play Us, inspired by her love and commitment to sports. Through this initiative, she collects used sports and musical equipment to donate to underprivileged children.

While the tournament is about more than basketball, it is still a basketball tournament, and our HAFTR Hawks boys and girls varsity teams represented us incredibly well. Both teams made it to the finals. Although the girls fell to Mizrahi Fuchs from Ohio, the boys came out victorious for the second year in a row, defeating Kushner from New Jersey.

Village of Lawrence Announces Parking Perks

The Village of Lawrence is pleased to announce that in celebration of the holiday season, parking in Village metered fields 3 and 4 will be free on Saturdays and Sundays from November 29 through December 28. The Village encourages everyone to take advantage of this opportunity to explore and support Lawrence’s vibrant local businesses.

“This initiative makes it easier than ever to visit our shops and restaurants,”

Remembering Tony Santino

By Avi Fertig

Arecent news item that deserved more coverage in Five Towns media was the passing of former Town of Hempstead Supervisor and Senior Councilman Anthony J. Santino. Tony, as he was known to most, died on November 6, 2025, after a prolonged illness. He represented large segments of the Five Towns over his many years as an elected official, two of them as Town Supervisor, and the lessons he taught me about good government and being useful as a person continue to influence my life and career.

I worked closely with Tony as a special assistant to his council district and the Hempstead Town Board from 2011 to 2017. Working for Tony was a lesson in public service. He empowered his staff to work quickly and forcefully to resolve issues that were simple to address if one knew who to call and what to say. Working for Tony meant you knew the boss’s boss’s boss—officials who would take our phone calls and act immediately.

said Mayor Samuel Nahmias. “We invite residents and visitors alike to enjoy the holiday season in Lawrence—shopping locally, supporting small businesses, and spending time with family and friends.”

From unique boutiques offering fashion and special gifts to restaurants and cafés serving cuisines from around the world—Asian, traditional, deli, and more—the Village of Lawrence offers something for everyone this holiday season.

Village Of Lawrence Holiday Season 2025 — Free Parking Parking Field #3 – North Side of Central Avenue; Parking Field #4 – South Side of Central Avenue

Free Parking Hours: 9:00 a.m. TO 7:00 p.m.

Dates: Saturday & Sunday: November 29 & 30; December 6 & 7; December 13 & 14; December 20 & 21; and December 27 & 28

Please Note: Street metered parking remains in effect

Sometimes, issues were straightforward, such as repairing a pothole in front of a constituent’s house. These kinds of issues often sit low on the list of municipal priorities and could occasionally go unresolved for months. But that pothole is no small matter for the resident kept awake every night by the thwump-thwumping of every car driving over it. I can attest to the many times one call to Tony’s office would get the pothole filled within a day or sometimes hours. Tony didn’t consider a good night’s sleep a low priority.

I can think of virtually dozens of other examples of similarly minor, but individually huge, situations affecting shuls, yeshivas, businesses, organizations, and innumerable residents, where a call or email to Tony’s office meant a rapid resolution.

Other issues were more consequential. When an environmental issue knotted the construction of Hatzalah’s first West Broadway garage project in a tangle of red tape that threatened months or years of delay, Tony said to me—his actual words—”Not on my watch,” and directed me to resolve it. We unwound the bureaucracy, got permits issued within weeks, and that garage stands today as a testament to Tony’s commitment to the community.

Hurricane Sandy introduced an entirely new level of complications that tested Tony’s ability to intercede, and he rose to the occasion in innumerable ways. Together with Legislator Howard Kopel, Councilman Jim Darcy, and Sanitary District No. 1 Chairman Jim Vilardi, Tony led efforts to remove debris, restore power, establish two Red Cross centers in the Five Towns, and shepherd countless residents through an impossible maze of state and federal programs and around insurance roadblocks.

One notable Sandy incident: rabbonim in Oceanside needed help restoring the community eruv. One segment they needed to inspect was only accessible by boat, and a marine moratorium after the storm made this impossible. Tony directed me to a specific Coast Guard official who had the authority to arrange a special accommodation. Soon after, a Coast Guard cutter took a community rav on a tour of the coastline to ensure the Oceanside eruv was intact.

He once sent me to the office of a prominent community rav to convey his decision to provide help to resolve a sensitive communal matter. Because his official involvement would have complicated the remediation process, he wanted his role to remain without fanfare or public recognition—he was willing to get involved simply because, as he put it, “it’s the right thing to do.”

Also worth noting was Tony’s special relationship with one of our community’s founders, Rabbi Binyamin Kaminetzky, zt”l. Tony would stop everything to take a call from Rabbi Binyamin, and there was nothing he would hold back from doing if asked. It was a demonstration of kavod harav that left a lasting impression.

Tony and I lost touch after I left the Town to work for the New York State Senate, but his contributions to my professional life endure. His contributions to the Five Towns endure as well, and as he passes to his eternal reward, he deserves to be remembered and appreciated for all he has done.

Avi Fertig is a former special assistant to the Hempstead Town Board from 2011 to 2017. He lives in Woodmere.

JSL Fall: Week 8 Recap

Week 8 of JSL by FM Home Loans brought the heat across every division — with playoff upsets, clutch performances, defensive battles, and big-time scoring outbursts. As teams push toward Championship Sunday, the intensity continues to rise. Here’s everything that went down.

K/P Hockey

Smash House defeated Stand Out Care 9–6 behind a massive all-around performance from Yehuda Kabalkin, who recorded 5 assists, 1 goal, and 4 blocked shots in a true MVP outing. Yeled LI Panthers took down Marciano PD in dominant fashion, thanks to an incredible effort in goal from Yehuda Aidelson, coached up on the bench by assistant coach — and proud father — Shmuel Aidelson. SD Shades beat Demo & Cleanouts 9-3 behind Aryeh Klestchick’s 4-goal explosion. Maidenbaum earned a strong 7–3 win over Marciano PD, led by Asher Prince’s double hat trick, powering the offense all game long.

K/P Soccer

PIP Printing beat SR Whee 7-3 behind Tzvi Goldblatt, who contributed 2 goals and 2 assists in a standout performance. 5 Towns Central defeated Maidenbaum 5-1, with Zechariah Goldstein scoring 5 goals, proving once again he is one of the premier scorers in the division.

1st Grade Hockey

Posh Home & Bath completed the

perfect regular season, improving to 7–0, with an 11–1 win over 5 Towns Central. Eli Bryks recorded a hat trick to keep their undefeated run alive. Tikva Fire earned a 5–1 win over SR Whee, powered by Moshe Gruen’s 2-goal showing.

2nd/3rd

Grade Hockey – Playoffs

Styles Design Interiors advanced behind a monster performance from Gav Prince, who scored 7 goals in an 8–5 playoff victory over Growtha. Built By Nate moved on with a 6–4 win over NY Custom Closets, as Shimon Dicker completed a clutch hat trick late in the game to secure the victory. Newman Dental powered past J Works Construction, 8–5, led by Yeruchem Mushayev, who turned in a full all-around performance. Sushi Tokyo, the #1 seed, proved their worth with a 4–2 win over Town Appliance, led by Shalom Stein’s 2-goal effort.

4th/5th Grade Hockey – Playoffs

Styles Design Interiors cruised to a 12–3 win over Smash House, with Shea Davidowitz netting a hat trick. Eden Gardens pulled out a hard-fought 5–3 win over SR Whee, thanks to Usher Kamenetzky’s late go-ahead goal. Wieder Orthodontics, the #7 seed, shocked the #2 seed J Works Construction 4–3! Ezra Levine was the hero — scoring both the game-tying and game-winning goals in the 3rd period. In the upset of the year, Tal Academy stunned top-seeded Extreme Vents 6–5, powered by the outstanding defensive play of Dovid

Pearl.

6th–8th Grade Hockey – Playoffs

#6 seed Wieder Orthodontics upset #3 seed Town Appliance 7–6 in a thriller. Goalie Zac Grauman had an unbelievable night — making clutch saves and showing total composure under pressure. Sperling Productions topped Cachet 7–5, led by Elchonon Schwadel, who had 2 goals and numerous blocked shots, playing a pivotal role on both ends.

1st Grade Basketball

Marciano PD beat Seasons 12–2, sparked by Caleb Samuel, who had 4 points and pinpoint passing throughout the game. Growtha shut out Posh Home & Bath 4–0 thanks to an all-around effort from Ben Jaffa, who did everything for his team.

2nd Grade Basketball

Wieder Orthodontics earned a strong win over Elegant Lawns, with Avi Eisenreich showcasing his full skill set. Rita’s defeated Rip It, powered by Eliyahu Kesharim, who made big plays defensively and distributed the ball beautifully.

3rd Grade Basketball

Tikva Fire exploded on offense against Seasons Express, behind Danie Grabie’s electric performance. Central Pizza Co. beat Elegant Lawns 18–10, sparked by David Teitelbaum, who controlled the game on both ends.

4th/5th Grade Basketball

Newman Dental defeated Wieder Orthodontics 20–10 thanks to big-time per-

Discovering the Heart of Cheder Menachem

There’s something special happening at Cheder Menachem, run by the hanhala, Rabbi Moishe Koncepolski, Administrator, Rabbi Shneur Zalman Berkowitz, principal, and Rabbi Moshe Halperin, co-principal. It goes beyond what any picture, video, or statistic could ever fully capture. It’s in the way students greet each other in the morning, the genuine warmth of the staff, and the sense that every child truly matters.

Nestled in a beautiful setting, Cheder Menachem is a place where children are known, not just known of. Small class sizes allow teachers to adapt their approach to each child’s learning style, pace, and interests. “It’s the difference between just being another face in the crowd and being the face of the crowd,” one parent re -

cently shared. And that difference shows in everything from academic growth to the confident smiles you’ll see throughout the hallways.

Walk through the doors at Cheder Menachem, and you’ll immediately sense it: this is a community that cares.

The dedicated educators here invest in their students’ success, both inside and outside the classroom. They’re the kind of teachers who remember small details about your child’s interests, who celebrate all types of achievements, and who work tirelessly to help every student reach their potential.

Perhaps even more remarkable is how the students themselves embody this spirit of warmth and inclusion. New families consistently comment on how

formances from Aryeh Reich and Dovid Bauman. Addictive Ads held off Rip It 34–24, led by the strong all-around play of Yonasan Lang.

6th/7th Grade Basketball

Maidenbaum beat Eden Gardens 39–23, with Matti Sokol providing relentless hustle and defensive pressure. Elegant Lawns edged Tal Academy 34–33 in a thriller, with Etai Samuels recording a clutch double-double to secure the win. Men’s Basketball – Playoffs Town Appliance, the top seed, advanced with a 66–54 win over Advantage PT, fueled by captain Shelby Rosenberg’s game-high 26 points. Kol Ve’or defeated Smash House 70–48, behind Yitz Bennett, who led all scorers with 19 points. Emporio rolled past SR Whee 86–42, sparked by another incredible performance from Yitzy Wieder, who scored 37 points and continued to dominate the league.

welcomed they feel, how quickly their children settle in, and how the school truly lives up to its promise of feeling like family.

At Cheder Menachem, academic excellence is woven together with social growth and emotional well-being to create a truly well-rounded educational experience. The staff understands that confidence, kindness, and motivation matter just as much as academic skills—and they’re intentional about fostering all of these qualities. The result? Students who don’t just learn—they thrive. Young people who feel supported, challenged, and valued for who they are.

For families searching for a school where their child will be truly known, where education happens in a supportive and nurturing environment, and where academic excellence goes hand in hand with character development, Cheder Menachem offers something worth discovering. There’s no substitute for experiencing this special environment firsthand.

Around the Community

Forty Talmidei Chachomim Available Anytime to Answer Questions on Daf HaYomi

B’Halacha Eruvin

By Chaim Gold

“All of you sitting here have the opportunity to transmit the halachos of eruvin to Klal Yisrael, both the limud, the learning of hilchos eruvin and the practical halachos of eruvin, your zechus is inestimable!”

These enthusiastic words of HaGaon HaRav Yehuda Aryeh Dunner, shlita, a prominent posek living in Bnei Brak and Rav of Beis Medrash Divrei Shir, were addressed to a unique gathering of over forty talmidei chachamim, who are experts in the halachos as well the practical application of the halachos and the construction of eruvin

First, a bit of background. The gathering, held in the moshav of Beis Chilkiyah, was an exciting new development in Dirshu’s desire to spread yedias haTorah among all segments of Klal Yisrael.

With Dirshu’s popular Daf HaYomi B’Halacha program set to embark on Chelek Daled of the Mishnah Berurah devoted to hilchos eruvin, the leadership of the organization has spearheaded an effort to make the learning of these halachos accessible to every person regardless of their level of learning.

There is Nothing to Fear!

Rav Dunner said, “There was a time when Chelek Daled of the Mishnah Berurah was primarily learned by rabbanim who were involved in constructing Eruvin or answering shailos on Eruvin. Therefore, the average person, even the person with a yeshiva background, was unnecessarily scared away from learning these halachos. In all truth, however, there is nothing to fear!”

Rav Boruch Hirschfeld, shlita, a Daf HaYomi B’Halacha maggid shiur, a prominent posek from Cleveland, and rav of Congregation Ahavas Yisrael, said, “Really, Chelek Daled is not so difficult. Everyone is capable of learning it. Anyone who can learn siman 321 in hilchos Shabbos about the laws of losh, kneading, can certainly learn hilchos eruvin. There is nothing harder about eruvin than hilchos losh!”

People sometimes get flustered or scared when they see unfamiliar material or concepts. It is for that reason that Dirshu has undertaken a bold initiative. The initiative is to set up a twenty-four-hour hotline manned by a cadre of talmidei

chachamim who are bekiim, experts in all areas of hilchos eruvin. The hotline will be open for questions around the clock in different time zones so that anyone can call and get an answer to a question. The questions do not have to be limited to halacha questions, people can even call if they have a difficulty understanding a line in the Mishnah Berurah

One Hotline, Forty Talmidei Chachamim and Countless Answers!

“Let’s say a mesivta bachur has been learning the Daf HaYomi B’Halacha, and now he wants to learn hilchos eruvin. He may encounter terms and ideas that he doesn’t understand and now, he will be able to simply pick up the phone, call Dirshu’s hotline, called ‘Kav Hameishivim,’ and the maggid shiur will explain it to him,” said Rabbi Avigdor Bernstein, a senior member of hanhalas Dirshu.

Similarly, if someone has a practical question on how to construct an eruv on his street, in his complex or town, he is empowered to reach one of the forty talmidei chachamim manning those hotlines, waiting to answer any of his questions! Not only that, but these talmidei chachamim are available to answer questions in English, Yiddish or Hebrew. Thus, learners of hilchos eruvin from across the globe will be able to access this treasure trove of knowledge at any time of day or night. The number for the Kav Hameishivim is: 605-313-1737.

An Eruv Tour and So Much More

That is what transpired in Beis Chilkiyah several weeks ago. Rav Yehuda Aryeh Dunner, who has undertaken to oversee the Kav Hameishivim, came to Beis Chilkiyah together with the group of forty experts in all things related to hilchos eruvin. During their visit, Rav Dunner accompanied by Dirshu’s Nasi, Rav Dovid Hofstedter, took them on a tour of the Beis Chilkiyah eruv pointing out the

many halachic hiddurim and questions that had arisen during its construction. It was a sight to see the venerated posek accompanied by budding poskim walking through many of the practical issues that come up when building an eruv

But it wasn’t just a tour! It was so much more! At the event, a siyum was held on Chelek Gimmel of the Mishnah Berurah during which Rav Dunner gave an overview of the program and explaining the task of those who would be manning the hotline. “Your task is to be there in every way possible for any person seeking guidance on anything related to Chelek Daled. It could be a baal habayis who is learning the program and needs help understanding some of the concepts. It could be a talmid chacham who has already learned the Shulchan Aruch, poskim and Mishnah Berurah in depth but has a question that he cannot solve. It could be an eruv checker in a community who finds an irregularity in the eruv and wants to know if the eruv has become passul, how best to fix it or what temporary halachic solution he can implement…”

Rav Dunner also promised that a month after Chelek Daled begins, the group will meet again to see if there is anything that they can fine tune to ensure that any Dirshu learner will always just be a phone call away from anything he needs pertaining to Daf HaYomi B’Halacha Chelek Daled. Practical ways of teaching these halachos were also discussed. For example, one maggid shiur related, “It is critically important to use the power of pictures and diagrams to properly elucidate the halachos enumerated in this chelek. Baruch Hashem, Dirshu has published an outstanding edition of the Mishnah Berurah with many excellent pictures. If, when it comes to us maggidei shiur, we can say, ‘A picture is worth 1,000 words,’ for the baalei batim attending our shiurim, a picture is worth 10,000 words!”

On the “Same Page” Throughout the World

Indeed, one of the most exciting developments is the abundance of worldwide shiurim in Daf HaYomi B’Halacha. There are more than 1,200 shiurim in many varied languages including of course, Yiddish, English, and Hebrew as well as French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and more.

In advance of Chelek Daled, Dirshu published over 30,000 paperback Chelek Daleds so that learners can easily transport them wherever they go or leave them in shul or the location where the shiur takes place.

When the great gaon and tzaddik, Rav Meir Shapiro proposed the concept of learning a Daf HaYomi of Gemara, he gave a transformative speech that echoes until this very day. In that famed speech, Rav Meir Shapiro explained how Klal Yisrael would benefit from individuals learning the same daf world over each day, “When Yankel the businessman from Warsaw will meet his friend Moshe from Krakow at the annual yerid, the business show in Leipzig, what will they talk about? They will talk about the same daf of Gemara that they learned that morning. They will be on the ‘same page.’”

As Dirshu is set to embark on Chelek Daled of Mishnah Berurah, Rav Meir Shapiro’s dream lives on. The names of the cities have changed. Instead of Warsaw, Krakow or Leipzig, today’s cities are more likely Lakewood, Yerushalayim, New Square, Antwerp, London or Bnei Brak, but the idea is the same. Wherever a Jew finds himself, he can always discuss the halacha that he learned that day or the day before with his fellow Dirshu Daf HaYomi B’Halacha learners. Even in hilchos eruvin!

To contact Dirshu’s Eruvin hotline, please call 605-313-1737.

Examining the eruv in Beis Chilkiyah

HaRav Yehuda Aryeh Dunner addressing the Kav Hameishivim Rabbonim

HALB Visits The Premier

HALB sixth grade students spent one morning this week visiting the residents at the Five Towns Premier Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. They paired up with different residents and enjoyed working on Chanukah projects, singing, dancing, and simply talking and spending time together. It was a very special morning for the students, the morot and the residents alike.

HAFTR Middle School students recently participated in the CIJE Pinball Hackathon, an exciting, hands-on STEM experience that challenged them to think creatively, collaborate, and engineer with purpose.

Guided by curiosity and powered by teamwork, our students dove into coding, circuitry, and problem-solving as

Mercaz

Fthey built and customized their own pinball mechanisms. The energy in the room was filled with clicks and buzzing. It’s this blend of hands-on learning, critical thinking, and authentic collaboration that makes HAFTR a leader in STEM education, empowering our students to discover what they are truly capable of achieving.

Rabbi Juravel’s seventh grade class at Siach Yitzchok visited Rabbi Meir Shmuelevitz, Rosh Kollel Beer Sheva and Eirech Roshi of Encyclopedia Talmudis, at the home of their rebbi where the Rosh Kollel was being hosted

In honor of Parshas Toldos, BYAM preschoolers were treated to some “red stuff” handed to them by Eisav in animal skins

Hey for Hatzalah at YOSS

Hatzolah member Avi Lloyd gave a Hatzalah presentation in honor of the Hebrew letter “Hey,” to his son Yitzy’s kindergarten class at Yeshiva of South Shore. The class was excited to hear all about Hatzalah’s wonderful work and had the opportunity to take a tour of the inside of the ambulance as well.

Avi was assisted by two future Hatzolah members, his sons Koby and Izzy. May Hatzalah continue its important work on behalf of the klal and may Hashem send yeshuos and refuos to all cholei Am Yisroel.

Students Engineer Success at the CIJE Pinball Hackathon

or the second year running, Mercaz sixth graders brought creativity, engineering, and problem-solving skills to the Center for Initiatives in Jewish Education (CIJE) Pinball Hackathon, this year hosted at the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach on Thursday, November 20.

Six Jewish schools participated in this year’s competition, each sending up to 16 sixth and seventh graders who worked in teams of 3-4 to explore mechanics and electronics by reimagining pinball with an engineering twist in a program designed and led by CIJE, a non-profit organization which creates supplemental technology and science programs to encourage Jewish day school students to reach their potential as innovators and leaders.

CIJE mentors led three workshops

providing the students with tools and ideas to modify their games. In Storyboarding and Game Design, the young engineers planned creative game strategies to reflect this year’s theme, Water in Israel. In Game Elements, they designed ramps, bumpers, and pits to enhance the story. And in Light, Sound and Motion, they learned how to build and incorporate circuits and switches for sensory effects.

Mercaz Academy’s four teams debated their designs and strategies and made their modifications, zooming back and forth across the room to the materials table for wires, cardboard, styrofoam, and hot glue. Students added their creative and engineering elements collaboratively, testing what worked and what didn’t, regrouping when original plans went awry, ultimately producing inven-

tive, fully working pinball machines. Following construction, the participants walked around the room, chatting with kids from other schools and testing each other’s games before voting on a winner.

One team from each school was chosen to present their pinball machine to all the attendees. The team from Mercaz explained how their design was inspired by the Dead Sea and the concept of floating. They pointed out a unique feature to their machine: a second “life,” or chance to play, is built into their game, along with a secret door that scores an extra 1,000 points.

“It was very fun. It was challenging, but everyone enjoyed it,” sixth grader Noa reported.

“The students really enjoyed themselves and worked very hard,” said Mercaz Educational Technology Director

Lynda Last, who chaperoned and advised the teams. “I’m very proud of how they represented Mercaz.”

Ezra Academy Welcomes Rosh Chodesh Kislev with Celebration, Spirit, and Purpose

Ezra Academy ushered in the month of Kislev with a joyful and uplifting Rosh Chodesh breakfast, bringing the entire school together under the theme of building a brighter future. Students were treated to delicious pancakes and warm community spirit, setting the tone for a month filled with meaning, celebration, and growth. The highlight of the morning was a beautifully delivered dvar Torah from senior Daniel Boruchov, who spoke about the light of Kislev, the importance of perseverance, and the power each student has to bring holiness and positivity into the world.

But the breakfast was just the beginning. Ezra Academy is gearing up for one of its most action-packed Kislev calendars ever, overflowing with programs that are not only exciting, but deeply purposeful.

A schoolwide pep rally is planned to celebrate and energize Ezra’s athletic teams, building unity and pride throughout the student body. Students are also eagerly anticipating a competitive and fun-filled ping pong tournament that will bring friendly rivalry and school spirit to new heights.

As Chanukah approaches, Ezra will continue its tradition of fostering connec-

tion and inspiration through meaningful programming. The school is preparing for its annual Chanukah bonding trip, designed to strengthen friendships and give students a joyful break from their rigorous academic schedules. And of course, the month will culminate in Ezra Academy’s beloved Chanukah chagigah, where music, dancing, and celebration fill the halls; ending with the entire school joining together to light the menorah as one united family.

At the Rosh Chodesh breakfast, students also participated in a lively latke-making competition, with the eleventh grade proudly taking home first place. Laughter, cheering, and teamwork filled the room, a perfect reflection of the spirit Ezra cultivates daily.

Though the activities are fun, the heart of Ezra Academy remains rooted in spiritual growth. Every celebration, competition, and event is designed with intention: to strengthen students’ connection to Torah, community, and each other, while offering healthy opportunities to recharge amid demanding studies. Kislev at Ezra is a month of light, and this year, that light is shining brighter than ever.

Rav Dovid Bender, rosh kollel of Yeshiva Darchei Torah’s Kollel Tirtza Devorah, speaking to Yeshiva Darchei Torah’s middle school talmidim about the halachos of hashkamas haboker

Tens of Thousands Gather to Celebrate Oraysa Milestone Siyum on Entire Seder

Moed, Start of Maseches Yevamos

Tens of thousands of Lomdei Oraysa and their families gathered on Sunday, November 23, to celebrate the culmination of almost six years of learning and chazarah, with a momentous siyum on the entire Seder Moed. The magnitude of the event was captured by the Nasi of Oraysa, Rav Noach Isaac Oelbaum shlita, who declared in the opening to his drasha, “Shehechiyanu

v’kiyimanu v’higyanu lazman hazeh! Zeh hayom asa Hashem nagillah v’nisemacha vo!”

The largest siyum held in the Cure Arena in Trenton, New Jersey, with massive siyumim scheduled to take place this coming Motzoei Shabbos and Sunday in Maaleh Adumim, Eretz Yisroel, and Leeds, England. At all of the siyumim, the excitement

was palpable as the scores of dedicated men who are part of the Oraysa Amud V’Chazara program gathered for this historic simchas haTorah. The incredibly spirited dancing at the siyumim vividly displayed the joy and enthusiasm the 40,000 lomdim have found in the learning program. People from all walks of life – ballebatim, kollel men, rabbanim, and marbitzei Torah – all joined hands as they shared in the joint celebration that comes with being part of such a massive Torah movement and of reaching such a remarkable milestone in their own limud haTorah.

The Oraysa program began on January 5, 2019, with the original participants starting on Brachos Daf Bais. With the start of each new masechta, more and more men joined and more and more chaburos have been founded in communities worldwide. Today, wherever a Jewish community is found, one can be certain that he will find an Oraysa chaburah

The program at the Cure Arena siyum began with an introductory shiur to Maseches Yevamos masterfully delivered by Rav Uren Reich, shlita, Rosh Yeshivas Ohr Zechariah of Lakewood.

As the event commenced, the dais filled with esteemed rabbanim, roshei yeshiva and roshei chaburah. The presence of so many distinguished personages testified to the high regard they all have for Lomdei Oraysa.

The first drasha was delivered by Rav Dovid Goldberg, shlita, Rosh Yeshivas Telshe. Rav Goldberg cited the words of Rav Yeruchim Levovitz, zt”l, as quoted by his talmid, Rav Leib Malin, zt”l. Rav Yeruchim said that the Satan will be very strong during the times of Ikvesah D’Meshicha, and it will be very hard to retain one’s emunah during this era. The

only way to overcome the Satan’s power will be by creating a shield made of “penimius haTorah.” When someone protects himself in this way, no damaging force will be able to harm him.

He then declared, “Oraysa created a new concept. They established a system that allows lomdei Torah to taste the ne’imus of Torah through learning with havanah and chazering. This is penimius haTorah. Those who learn this way can still be called ‘bnei yeshiva’ even if they are no longer learning full-time, and they will be protected from the danger of the Satan even during the present time of Ikvesah D’Meshicha.”

Rav Goldberg concluded by strongly praising the wives of Lomdei Oraysa who do all they can to make sure their husbands can sit and learn every day, citing the Gemara that says that such righteous women will receive even more reward than their husbands.

Rav Oelbaum beamed as he proclaimed, “It is a great pleasure to see such a wonderful display of kavod haTorah! Rabbanim, Roshei Yeshiva, yungaleit and baale batim, all have come together to celebrate this grand siyum!”

He proceeded to recount the very early days of the Oraysa movement, saying, “I must express gratitude to Hashem Yisborach for the siyata d’shmaya we have seen in a way that is shelo k’derech hateva. I remember the first meeting we had, when Oraysa was officially founded. We knew from the start that it was a very good idea, but we didn’t know how big it would grow and how fast. We never could have imagined the explosion of Torah that Oraysa has created. This historic siyum on Seder Moed is the culmination of a six-year journey. Every line, every amud, every daf learned by tens of

Around the Community

thousands around the world has led to this moment. And the results are nothing short of extraordinary.”

He concluded by lauding R’ Shlomo Yehuda Rechnitz, Oraysa’s Founding president and key supporter, for helping to spread its presence across the globe in order to make it easily accessible to everyone.

Rav Dovid Ozeri, shlita, leader of the Syrian community in Brooklyn, spoke passionately about the impact of Oraysa. He stated, “What is happening here tonight is an explosion of kedusha. Thousands are here tonight for one reason –for the love of Torah! We are tonight to honor the Torah with some of the sweetest words on earth: Hadran alach Seder Moed!”

He continued, “Tonight is not simply an event. This is a kiddush Hashem on a scale rarely ever seen. It’s a declaration to the world that Torah is alive and growing stronger than ever. Oraysa is not a program. Oraysa is not a schedule. Oraysa is a revolution. It is a fire burning through Klal Yisroel, igniting fathers and sons, talmidei chochomim, kollel avrechim, businessmen, retirees… anyone who

wants to taste the sweet taste of torah comes to Oraysa!”

The Hadran on Seder Moed was made by Hagaon Harav Yeruchim Olshin, shlita, Rosh Yeshivas Beth Medrash Govoha. Emotions ran so high that Rav Yeruchim broke down in tears as he made the Hadran.

Following the siyum, the huge crowd broke out into joyous spontaneous dancing, which lasted for a quite a while as everyone soaked in the excitement of the moment. The crowd excitedly swayed to the music, with hartzige singing provided by renowned singers Hershy Weinberger and Shloime Daskal.

The program then continued with a riveting speech by special guest from Eretz Yisroel, Rav Yosef Elefant, shlita, R”M in Yeshivas Mir.

Amongst his remarks, Rav Elefant described “Oraysa’dig learning” as learning Torah with havanah hasmadah, behirus, and, b’ikur, with simcha.

He went on to discuss sources in Chazal that explain how when Hashem gave Torah to Klal Yisroel, he gave us part of His “hod,” His Divine glory. Thus, through learning Torah we can connect to

Hashem on a deep level. Every time we learn, we climb another rung of the ladder to Shomayim.

“With the mehalech of Oraysa,” he explained, “one can climb this ladder, step by step, to get closer and closer to the Eibishter’s presence.”

Rav Shlomo Feivel Schustal, shlita, Rosh Yeshivas Yeshiva Gedola Tiferes Yerachmiel in Lakewood, started Yevamos with a short shiur on the first Mishnah. He ended with a bracha for the hanhallah of Oraysa, as well as for R’ Shlomo Yehuda Rechnitz, saying, “I’m always amazed by how Hashem grants R’ Shlomo Yehuda the ability to be marbitz Torah on such a great level.”

R’ Shlomo Yehuda was visibly emotional during his speech. He related how he personally contacted the founders of Oraysa and eagerly joined the movement from the very beginning. He saw the benefits right away and is overjoyed by Oraysa’s success.

He related, “When I heard that there were people who wanted to start a program of an amud a day and leave time for the very necessary part – which is chazara! – I immediately called them and told

them, ‘I’m in!’”

The evening concluded with Kabbalas Ohl Malchus Shomayim, led by Rav Oelbaum, and a final dance l’kavod haTorah v’lomdeha. Lomdei Oraysa are now set to begin Masechtas Yevamos. Excitement is high as they prepare to revisit and reconnect with the Masechtos in Seder Nashim they diligently studied during their yeshiva days. It is certain that this global Torah revolution will continue to grow and many more will be joining for Yevamos.

For anyone thinking of joining and becoming part of this massive Torah movement, the start of Masechtas Yevamos is a great time to get on board and to benefit from all Oraysa has to offer to those with a strong desire to learn, retain and know Shas! Joining now is a great opportunity to chazer the Sedarim of Nashim and Nezikin that one learned in yeshiva. For more information or to set up or join a shiur or chaburah in your neighborhood, please contact Oraysa at 914.8.ORAYSA or email info@oraysa.org.

Morah Rivkie Jaroslawicz’s kindergarten students at Yeshiva Darchei Torah used dot-to-dot painting to create a letter daled

Mrs. Nussbaum’s sixth grade students at Yeshiva Darchei Torah built their own mini foosball tables to demonstrate force and motion

Shulamith School for Girls Launches Year-Long Chesed Trip Program

Shulamith School for Girls proudly kicked off its year-long Chesed Trip Program, an initiative designed to help students build relationships, practice empathy, and bring light to the greater community throughout the school year.

The program began with an inspiring presentation from Mrs. Yardena Miller, who spoke about the importance of approaching chesed with sensitivity and respect. She was joined by her daughter, Segal, who has cerebral palsy. Together, they shared a powerful message: when we do chesed, we must take the time to learn about others, understand them, and treat every person with dignity. Their words set the perfect tone for the program’s launch.

Following the kickoff, each middle school grade embarked on a meaningful and joyful chesed trip connected to Chanukah, The sixth grade visited Zucker Academy in the Five Towns, where they paired up with students for fun and educational Chanukah activities. The girls enjoyed decorating paddle balls, play-

ing Chanukah bingo, and learning more about the holiday together. The highlight was the new friendships formed as the students connected so naturally with one another. The seventh graders traveled to Ohel Day Rehabilitation Centers, where they spent time with adults with special needs. Through conversation, crafting, and shared smiles, the students created meaningful bonds. Together they worked on a Chanukah-themed coloring project, bringing warmth and joy to everyone involved. The eighth grade visited local

HAFTR Welcomes Class of 2030

By Elizabeth Pinkhasov

Deciding on which high school to go to is a challenging task, but HAFTR makes it easier. On Sunday, November 9, HAFTR High School held its annual Open House. The event showcased HAFTR’s impressive facilities, including our newly renovated auditorium, our wonderful teachers, and our innovative curriculum.

As prospective students and their parents entered the building, they were welcomed with colorful banners, upbeat music, and many warm smiles. Almost immediately, they stepped into the warm

atmosphere created by our dedicated faculty and welcoming student body. The program began in the beautiful new auditorium with welcoming remarks from Ms. Naomi Lippman, Head of School, Dr. Joshua Wyner, Principal, Rabbi Ira Wallach, Rosh Yeshiva, and Student Council Presidents Tehilla Kaffash and Zachary Strauss, setting the tone for the day with a focus on community, growth, and academic excellence. Participants also saw a glimpse of HAFTR life through an engaging podcast video that featured students sharing their unique positive experiences at HAFTR.

After introductions, participants broke up into groups and, led by cur-

senior residences, The Premier and The Esplanade, where they met with elderly community members. The girls sang Chanukah songs, danced, played holiday games, and partnered with residents for a Chanukah craft. Their energy, kindness, and enthusiasm uplifted the room and created beautiful moments of connection.

Across all three grades, the trips were inspiring and transformative. Students stepped out of their comfort zones, opened their hearts, and formed gen-

uine relationships. One of the unique strengths of the Shulamith Chesed Program is that students will return to the same locations five times throughout the year, allowing friendships and connections to grow deeper with every visit.As the program continues, Shulamith looks forward to a year filled with kindness, learning, and shared light across the community.

rent students, began touring the building, stepping into classrooms, meeting teachers, and experiencing a bit of what a day at HAFTR feels like. They attended meaningful informational sessions and mini-lessons, getting a preview of many of HAFTR’s engaging courses, such as the Humanities, Limudei Kodesh, STEAM, and Science Departments. Parents participated in “Creating Connections,” where they had the opportunity to speak with our administration and faculty in a round-robin format. Meanwhile, students met with Mr. Elie Hirt, Student Engagement & Recruitment Coordinator, and student representatives to hear about daily student life and opportunities.

After the tour, everyone gathered in the gym for a beautiful collation, ending the program on a delicious note. Visitors saw a preview of clubs and extracurricular programs on display, learned about academic support and college counseling, and left with a clearer sense of the opportunities at HAFTR. Families also explored displays from the Technology and Innovation Center and Art Institute, with STEM and Robotics projects, as well as Digital Design work that showcased the hands-on spirit of HAFTR’s programs. Now that the Open House has concluded, we look toward the future and offer a warm welcome to our incoming freshmen, the Class of 2030!

In Torah Academy for Girls, our theme this year is “Chavivin Yisroel, how beloved we are to Hashem.” The talmidos in the Ganger Early Childhood received a mirror that says, “Turn me over and you will see who Hashem loves, it’s…me!”

Bar Mitzvah Prep at HALB

Rabbi Haber of the Schnitzel Guys visited the seventh grade boys at HALB. He gave them fun dance lessons and advice for their upcoming

HAFTR STEM with a Thanksgiving Spirit

HAFTR’s third graders brought Thanksgiving spirit and creativity to new heights with a handson STEM project inspired by Balloons Over Broadway. After reading the book and watching parts of the 2024 Macy’s Parade, students engineered their own version, designing Macy’s, Madison Square Garden, and Central Park out of Legos, building turkeys with Plus Plus blocks, and coding Dash robots to follow a parade route they created.

This joyful project blended literacy, engineering, robotics, and collaboration, showcasing how HAFTR empowers students to think creatively, solve problems, and bring ideas to life. A perfect celebration of learning, gratitude, and the excitement of Thanksgiving!

is

An Uplifting Kislev at BYAM

On Rosh Chodesh Kislev, Bais Yaakov Ateres Miriam school held an assembly focused on the theme of elevating our gashmiyus and using it as a means to enhance our ruchnius — the very opposite of what the Yevonim represented. The girls rotated through four stations, each highlighting an area we can try to elevate: the body, speech, time, and food.

The activities included light exercise to strengthen the body for avodas Hashem, time-management challenges to help the girls appreciate the value of each moment, and a creative station where they worked on elevating their speech by writing thoughtful compliments on a fun blow-up microphone and presenting them to a friend.

The program concluded with the last station, where the girls elevated their

food by making a bracha on fresh Kislev doughnuts.

Throughout the assembly, the girls enjoyed the hands-on activities and were uplifted by the meaningful middos songs playing in the background.

Hatzalah Visits Lev Chana

While learning about the letter “hey,” students got a special visit from a Hatzalah truck!

They learned all about how Hatzalah helps people in the community, and they even got to try on some of their gear.

“A”

for Apple Crisp at Shulamith ECC

Mazal tov to the HALB second grade girls on their Chumash play

The Maggid on Tefillah

By Rabbi Paysach J. Krohn

Baruch She’amar

Ihave long felt that all people should have their own siddur with them wherever they daven. This enables them to underline words or phrases that “speak” to them as they daven, and so that they can make notes to themselves to help them daven better. Throughout this book, I have suggested numerous phrases that “guide” me in my daily life; see, for example, Al Tirah (p. 114), and Bikur Cholim at Its Best (p. 197). However, perhaps the most powerful expression that can give chizuk and encouragement as we go through the vicissitudes of life is the one I learned from this powerful story. I believe you will agree with me.

The Skulener Rebbe, R’ Eliezer Zusya Portugal (1896–1982), was known throughout the world for his boundless ahavas Yisrael (love of a fellow Jew). He and his rebbetzin adopted close to four hundred children — almost all of them orphans — after World War II and took care of their physical and spiritual needs. He founded the Chessed L’Avraham organization, which continues this work to this day. The following story was heard from the Rebbe by R’ Kalman Drebin of Brooklyn.

As a young man in Romania, the Rebbe encouraged young and old alike to come closer to belief in Hashem. He urged young men not to enter the Romanian armed forces, for to do so would tear them away from the paths of Yiddishkeit Instead, he exhorted them to attend a yeshivah in which they would be involved with Torah studies, a move that would

ensure they would remain true to the traditions and heritage of their forebears.

One day, someone reported to the Romanian authorities that a certain R’ Portugal was instructing youths on how to avoid being drafted by the army. When the authorities checked into the matter, they found that the allegations were indeed true. In a fury, they arrested the Rebbe and had him imprisoned. The police put him into solitary confinement, took away his yarmulke and glasses, and left him alone in a dark, dirty cell. The Rebbe was a frail, sickly man, and now in the cold and damp dungeon — where the only place he could sit or rest was on the chilly, moist earth — he thought that his end was near. He had no idea how long he would be in the cell and had very little contact with the outside world. The authorities had threatened that they would leave him there forever.

He wanted to daven, but he had no head covering, so he pulled his jacket up over his head and began to sing aloud the prayers he knew from memory. It is known that the Rebbe’s Shacharis could at times take up to four hours, and his recitation of Shema during a weekday Maariv could take up to twenty-five minutes. He was always meticulous with every word of the prayers, and in this extraordinary situation, he was even more so.

There in prison, with nothing else to claim his attention, he recited the Shacharis service. Every word was uttered with heartfelt emotion, every phrase pronounced with piercing passion. The Rebbe came to the prayer of Baruch She’amar. This prayer begins

with a series of phrases with which we bless various aspects of Hashem. The Rebbe concentrated on each phrase as he never had before: Baruch she’amar v’hayah haolam — Blessed is He Who spoke, and the world came into being; Baruch omer v’oseh — Blessed is He Who speaks and does; Baruch gozer umkayeim — Blessed is He Who decrees and fulfills. As the Rebbe uttered this last phrase, a question occurred to him. Why was this particular phrase mentioned here? It seemed out of context with this whole prayer. For the term gozer, decrees, usually signifies an edict of a harsh nature, not desirable to man. Moreover, we say that He not only makes decrees, but He also fulfills them! The Rebbe was puzzled, because all the other phrases in this prayer seem to describe positive aspects that man would rejoice over.

Suddenly, the Rebbe became annoyed with himself. The question about the phrase belonging in this text was so obvious; why hadn’t he thought about it before? For years and years, he had been reciting this prayer daily, and not once did the thought occur to him that gozer umkayeim, decrees and fulfills, seemed out of place. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He became despondent, for he felt that perhaps until now he had not been praying with the proper focus on the words he was saying every day.

He said to himself, “I am not moving from this place until I figure out why that phrase is there.” He kept repeating the phrase, and then it came to him! He became ecstatic! He was overjoyed, because now he felt that he understood why gozer umkayeim actually did belong in this prayer. The word mkayeim, aside from meaning fulfill, also means to make one continue and endure, to prevail and persevere. And that is what is meant here, thought the Rebbe. Sometimes Hashem must decree something against man. He must make him suffer, for whatever reason Hashem deems it necessary. But at the same time, Hashem gives man the power and strength to endure and prevail, to enable him to withstand and sur-

vive this decree. And that is what is meant by the expression gozer umkayeim.

The Rebbe realized that he himself, at that moment, was the victim of a decree. But he was positive from that moment on that Hashem would also be a mkayeim, enable him to endure the decree. He was no longer depressed. He was positive that it was only a matter of time until he would be saved, and indeed, due to the intervention of people in America, the Rebbe was released from prison.

The Rebbe was so touched by this episode that every year, on the anniversary of his release from that prison, he would recount this incident and explain to his listeners the new and encouraging meaning he found in the words gozer umkayeim. He would thus encourage countless people never to be broken by events, for Hashem, even in His decrees, gives strength to His people.

Each of us in life goes through challenges and difficulties. However, by focusing on these words — Baruch gozer umkayeim — we can strengthen our emunah every day and trust that Hashem will help us overcome our challenges.

Reprinted from The Maggid on Tefillah by Rabbi Paysach J. Krohn, with permission from the copyright holder, ArtScroll Mesorah Publications.

Did you know? English tradition credits Queen Elizabeth I with making the first cherry pie.

TJH Centerfold

Black Friday Trivia

1. According to Adobe Analytics, what is the most commonly purchased item on Black Friday?

a. TVs

b. iPhones

c. Clothing & apparel

d. Video game consoles

2. According to Shopify, what percentage of Black Friday purchases are made from mobile devices?

a. 20%

b. 35%

c. 57%

d. 76%

3. According to Narvar Return Insights, what’s the most commonly returned Black Friday item?

a. Jackets

b. Electronics

c. Food

d. Sneakers

4. According to RetailNext, which retailer receives the most Black Friday foot traffic?

a. Best Buy

b. Walmart

c. Target

d. Costco

5. According to Google Shopping Trends, what is the

#1 most searched product on Black Friday?

a. AirPods

b. TVs

c. Video game consoles

d. Computers

6. According to Bankrate Consumer Spending Survey what percentage of shoppers buy at least one item they did NOT intend to buy on Black Friday?

a. 10%

b. 22%

c. 49%

d. 73%

7. According to Statista’s holiday spending survey, what is the average amount an American adult spends on Black Friday?

a. $85

b. $140

c. $450

d. $720

8. According to the American Psychological Association, what percentage of shoppers say they experience stress or anxiety while Black Friday shopping?

a. 12%

b. 32%

c. 62%

d. 91%

9. According to the National Retail Federation, how many people shop Black Friday in the U.S. each year?

a. 50 million

b. 130 million

c. 200 million

d. 300 million

Wisdom key:

8-9 correct: You are a Black Friday genius…which means “you are so dumb…you are really dumb.”

3-7 correct: You are like an average American… You give yourself chest palpitations to get to Target at 6 a.m. on Black Friday so that you can get highlighters for $4.99 instead of $5.57.

0-2 correct: You are the only smart one here!

20 Types of People at a Thanksgiving(-ish) Meal

The Overconfident Carver: Insists on carving the turkey…nearly amputates his thumb.

The “I Brought Something!” Guest: Hmm…Chicken soup flavored cookies from The Dollar Tree… Wow, you outdid yourself!

The Food Photographer: Takes pictures of every dish for the Instagram account he doesn’t even have.

The Seat Shuffler: Changes seats every time someone gets up to get more gravy… Stay in one place, bro.

The Vegetarian: You vegetarians love showing up at a meal built entirely around meat and pressuring normal people – actually, GASLIGHTING normal people – into thinking that WE are the ones that are doing something wrong.

The Relationship Dude: Loves to look into your eyes and nod his head while intensely listening to what you are saying. OK, I know that you just read Dale Carnegie, but I don’t need validation here; all I said is that I think the Knicks are a good team this year.

The Politics Police: You love to warn people not to bring up politics because you hate Trump and if you hear his name you have a nervous breakdown. Hey, guess what? Nobody was thinking of Trump other than you!

The Dessert Moderator: “You see, everything is OK in proportion.” Yep, you just ate 16 small slices chocolate mousse. Eating one was proportionally small. Total calories=2,350.

The Napper: Immediately announces upon arrival that he is taking a nap on the couch. Don’t forget the L’sheim Yichud.

You Gotta be Kidding Me

A guy walks into a bar and orders a beer. “How did Thanksgiving go at your place?” the bartender asks.

“Oh, it went fine. Had a lot of family over, and the

The “Just Helping” Helper: She somehow makes everything harder. How about this— get out of my kitchen!

The Master Chef: “The umami is really working.” It’s a salad.

The Leftover Commander: Already labeling containers before the meal even begins.

The “Is It Hot?” Person: Touches the pan with full palm. Screams. Does it again.

The Gratitude Overachiever: Has a 12-minute speech prepared about things he is thankful for. Everyone is thankful when he sits down!

The Human Vacuum: Clears dishes at superhuman speed. You blink; your plate is gone.

The Every Day is Thanksgiving Guy: You while reading this list and trying to figure out if the Centerfold Commish really has a Thanksgiving dinner… No, every day is Thanksgiving. Besides, people do Thanksgiving once a year, we have Thanksgiving every weekend, and we don’t have one meal—we have three… OK, I am now officially the worst person to have at a Thanksgiving meal.

wife prepared the meal. I helped out, though. She got a little stressed out and told me she needed some peace and quiet in the kitchen so she could finish cooking,” the guy says. “So I removed all the batteries from the smoke detectors.”

Parshas Vayeitzei

By Rabbi Berel Wein z”l

The main character in this week’s parsha, aside from our father Yaakov, is Lavan of Aram, who becomes the father-in-law of Yaakov and the grandfather of the twelve tribes of Israel. Lavan is portrayed as a devious, scheming and duplicitous person. He is narcissistic in the extreme, only interested in his own selfish wants, even sacrificing his daughters to fulfill his scheming goals.

In the famous statement of the rabbis, the Haggadah of Pesach teaches us that Lavan was a greater and even more dangerous enemy of Jewish survival than was the Pharaoh that enslaved Is -

rael in Egyptian bondage! Lavan is portrayed as wishing to uproot all Jewish existence for all time.

Pharaoh threatened Jewish physical existence by drowning the Jewish male infants in the Nile. But even then, the Jewish people could have survived and limped along through the female line of Israel (which is often even a stronger bond than the male line.) However, Lavan intended to destroy Yaakov and his descendants spiritually. He tells Yaakov that the “sons of Yaakov are my sons and the daughters of Yaakov are my daughters and all that Yaakov possesses, physically and spiritually all belong to me.” In Lavan’s eyes, the Jewish people and their faith and vision and goals are to be non-existent. Only Lavan is entitled to life and success. Everyone else, especially a conscience-laden family such as that of Yaakov, is only entitled to become part of Lavan’s world or they are to be eliminated.

The selfishness of Lavan knows no bounds. The rule of the rabbis that one is jealous of the success of all others ex-

of those who came to eradicate Jews and Judaism from the world. Some used the devious tactics of Lavan (such as Napoleon and his sham Sanhedrin which was intended to “modernize” and assimilate the Jews of Europe and the attempt of the Marxists to create a Marxist Jew who no longer would be a Jew or a believer, among other such examples), while others used the more direct methods of Pharaoh to physical-

In attempting to destroy Yaakov and the Jewish people, Lavan in essence destroys himself.

cept that one is never jealous of one’s own children and students ironically finds its own exception in the case of Lavan, who remains jealous and inimical even of the success of his own children and grandchildren. It is interesting to note that after his role as it appears in this week’s parsha, Lavan disappears from the biblical scene. In attempting to destroy Yaakov and the Jewish people, Lavan in essence destroys himself and is not granted any positive mention of eternity in the Torah. Such is always the fate of the attempted destroyers of Israel.

History is littered with the bones

ly enslave, terrorize and eliminate the Jewish people.

All have failed in these nefarious endeavors. Lavan’s selfishness is his own undoing. Much of the hatred directed towards the Jewish people and the State of Israel is still based on jealousy and selfishness. It dooms the hater to eventual extinction and disappearance. Thus, the lesson of Lavan’s eventual fate, of his being erased from the eternal book, is part of the great morality play which is the narrative of this week’s parsha.

Shabbat shalom.

Yaakov Avinu traveled from Eretz Yisroel to Charan and passed through what was to be Yerushalayim. But once he had reached Beis El, he realized that he had not stopped to pray in Yerushalayim, so he made up his mind to return, at which time “he encountered the place” (Chulin 91b; Bereishis 28:11). Although the pasuk does not say what “the place” was, Rashi explains that it must be the only other place previously called “the place” (Bereishis 22:4), Har Hamoriah, the future location of the Beis Hamikdash. Rashi explains that the earth contracted to cause Har Hamoriah to come to Beis El where Yaakov Avinu was.

After Har Hamoriah came to meet Yaakov, he went to sleep and dreamed of the ladder reaching up to Heaven with angels climbing and descending it. When he awoke, he said, with surprise (ibid. 28:1617), “Behold! G-d is in this place, and I did not know it… How awesome is this place. It is nothing other than the house of G-d and the gate of Heaven.”

Why was Yaakov surprised that G-d’s house was there in Beis El? He knew be -

From the Fire

Parshas Vayeitzei Wherever You Go

By Rav Moshe Weinberger

Adapted for publication by Binyomin Wolf

fore he went to sleep that Har Hamoriah had moved to meet him. And second, why did Hashem specifically want to reveal the vision of the ladder to Yaakov on Har Hamoriah after moving it to some other location? Why did Hashem not cause the sun to set at the normal time to allow Yaakov to reach Har Hamoriah without the need to contract the land? He could have caused Yaakov to have the vision of the ladder there without the contraction of the land!

Rashi (on ibid. 17) teaches that when Yaakov Avinu said that Har Hamoriah (which was then in Beis El) was the “gate of Heaven,” it meant that the Beis Hamikdash above was aligned with the Beis Hamikdash below. The Rebbe Reb Yonasan Eybeschutz, zt”l, asks: Which one’s location is established in relation to the other? In other words, do we understand that the Beis Hamikdash above existed from the beginning, and Dovid and Shlomo built the Beis Hamikdash at the point on earth which corresponds with the “location” of the Beis Hamikdash above? Or do we understand that the original Beis Hamikdash is the one on earth

and that Hashem affixes the location of the Beis Hamikdash above so that it will be aligned with the one on earth?

The Rebbe Reb Yonasan offers an answer based on the pesukim here where Yaakov Avinu said, “This [place] is nothing other than the house of G-d and this [place] is the gate of Heaven… Behold Hashem is in this place, and I did not know it.” This implies that the Beis Hamikdash below is the primary one and the one in Heaven is fixed only in relation to the one on earth. How does the Rebbe know this from the pasuk? Yaakov knew that Har Hamoriah had moved to Beis El. But he assumed that if the Beis Hamikdash above was primary, then the earth and stones of Har Hamoriah would have moved to Beis El (temporarily out of alignment with the Beis Hamikdash above), but that the “gate of Heaven,” the Beis Hamikdash above, would have remained in its permanent location above Yerushalayim. Yaakov Avinu was surprised to realize that the “gate of Heaven” was above him in Beis El because this meant that the location of the Beis Hamikdash below, Har Hamoriah, was pri-

mary. Thus, when it moved to meet him, the Beis Hamikdash above moved as well, to “this place,” since its location is established only in relation to the Beis Hamikdash below.

Relatedly, the pasuk says regarding the ladder in Yaakov’s dream, “angels of G-d were ascending and descending, bo.” There is a dispute in Bereishis Rabbah (68:12) regarding the subject of the word bo, which could be read to mean “on him” or “on it.” One opinion is that the angels were ascending and descending on the ladder. But the Midrash offers another explanation that the angels were ascending and descending Yaakov Avinu himself. According to the Rebbe Reb Yonasan’s explanation, we can understand that when a Jew seeks G-d out like Yaakov Avinu did, the Beis Hamikdash, Hashem’s Presence, comes to him. And by bringing G-d’s dwelling place to wherever a person is, he brings the Beis Hamikdash above as well, such that he himself becomes a conduit to draw Hashem’s light into his life just like Yaakov Avinu himself was the ladder on which the angels ascended and descended.

Following this episode, the pasuk (Bereishis 29:1) says, “And Yaakov lifted his feet…” Rashi explains that Yaakov became light on his feet and was no longer afraid. According to our explanation, we can understand that Yaakov Avinu was no longer afraid to go into the exile because he knew that he could draw Hashem’s Presence into his life wherever he went. Yaakov was going to Lavan in Charan, which literally means “anger.” He was going into an exile in which he knew to expect persecution, deception, and danger. Yet he knew that in the end, he would be okay because he would not be alone no matter what impurity he would be subjected to in Lavan’s house.

Avraham Avinu received Hashem’s original promise that he would inherit Eretz Yisroel. Hashem forbade Yitzchak Avinu from ever leaving Eretz Yisroel. But Hashem promised Yaakov Avinu that

The same principle applies in marriage as well. Rav Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, zy”a, says that he received a tradition that just like the shuls built in exile, every Jewish home in which the husband and wife lived with holiness and purity will move to Eretz Yisroel in the time of Moshiach.

Just like we can bring Hashem’s Presence wherever we go in space, we can do the same thing in time. Shabbos is the Beis Hamikdash of time, when Hashem’s Presence is most revealed. But G-d gave us a way to bring Hashem’s Presence into the mundane life of the six days of the week. And that is through the melaveh malka meal. Our ancestors observed this minhag which comprises a full section of the Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 300), but most of us completely neglect this mitzvah. By partaking of a melaveh malka meal and singing at least one of the melaveh malka

We cannot guarantee that bad things will not happen to us, but our hearts can rest easier knowing that Hashem is with us no matter what.

wherever he went, Eretz Yisroel would go with him! He was promised an “inheritance without borders” (Shabbos 118a-b). Wherever a Jew goes, he builds shuls and yeshivos in which to learn Torah and daven. Wherever a Jew learns and davens, he draws the holiness of Eretz Yisroel into his life. He brings the Beis Hamikdash and the gate of Heaven to him. It is so easy to be afraid of antisemites or other dangers in exile. But Hashem is telling us that He will be with us wherever we go. We cannot guarantee that bad things will not happen to us, but our hearts can rest easier knowing that Hashem is with us no matter what. “And I will guard you wherever you go” (Bereishis 28:15).

The tzaddikim teach that the letters that make up Yaakov’s name also spell “he will pierce/break out, yivakah.” Yaakov’s gift is that he is not limited to connecting to G-d in only one place, in Yerushalayim or the Beis Hamikdash. Hashem taught Yaakov that he can break out and take possession of his inheritance without borders. Hashem told Yaakov (Bereishis 28:14), “And you will break forth westward, eastward, northward, and southward…” We can break out and bring Hashem’s Presence with us wherever we go.

zemiros, we draw the holiness of Shabbos, the Beis Hamikdash of time, into the six days of the week.

We will conclude with several verses from one of the melaveh malka zemiros which capture Hashem’s message to Yaakov Avinu not to be afraid in exile because He will always be with him wherever he goes:

“Hashem said to Yaakov – fear not my servant Yaakov.

“Hashem will redeem Yaakov – fear not my servant Yaakov.

“Command salvations for Yaakov – fear not my servant Yaakov…

“Hashem will have returned the glory of Yaakov – fear not my servant Yaakov.”

May Hashem help us recognize and honor His Presence in our shuls, yeshivos, marriages, and homes and thereby draw our inheritance without borders, His Presence, into our lives wherever we go. May we be worthy of Hashem’s promise to Yaakov, “I will guard you wherever you go and return you to this land.”

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.

Sparks of Light

Grateful for Someone Else’s Bracha

By Rabbi Benny Berlin

Ionce watched a friendship fall apart because of jealousy. Two people who had been close for years, who celebrated each other’s simchas and stood by each other through painful moments, suddenly could not even look each other in the eye. There were no hurtful words and no betrayal. One of them received a major promotion in the same field, and the other simply could not be happy for them.

I still remember the silence in the room the day they stopped speaking. It was shocking to see how jealousy could destroy something that once seemed so strong and genuine.

That friendship’s end taught me something profound about gratitude as Thanksgiving approaches. We hear a lot about gratitude. Be thankful for what you have. Count your blessings. Make a gratitude list. These practices are good, but they only capture part of what gratitude can be. Real gratitude is more complicated.

There is a well-known teaching in Pirkei Avos (4:1): “Ezehu asheer hasameach b’chelko, who is wealthy, one who is happy with their portion.” Most people understand that to mean being

satisfied with what one has. But there is another way to read it. A person who is happy with “b’chelko,” can mean someone else’s portion. Someone who feels joy when another person receives a bracha. One whose simcha is not threatened by someone else’s simcha.

accomplishments not as earned success but as theft. He cannot acknowledge that his son-in-law built something real. He cannot admit they belong to Yaakov. In Lavan’s world, another person’s blessing becomes a personal threat. They really are all mine. This is the opposite of what

The deepest gratitude we can practice may be the hardest: learning to say “thank you” for blessings that aren’t even ours.

In this week’s parsha, we meet Lavan, whose inability to feel joy for another’s success is astonishing. After Yaakov works faithfully for so many years, Lavan tells him, “The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine” (Bereishis 31:43). It is breathtaking in its selfishness. Lavan views Yaakov’s

it means to be “sameach b’chelko.”

The truth is that many of us struggle with this more than we care to admit. We want to be happy for others, but sometimes the success of a friend triggers a quiet ache inside. A friend gets engaged, welcomes a new baby, moves into a beautiful home, or receives public recognition, and something inside us quietly asks,

“Why not me?” That reaction does not make a person bad. It makes us human. The test is what happens afterward. Do we allow jealousy to take root and distance us from people we care about, or do we work on strengthening the part of ourselves that can genuinely celebrate someone else’s blessing?

With Thanksgiving on the horizon, maybe our focus can stretch beyond listing our own blessings. Imagine feeling true happiness when a neighbor buys a new house, with the same warmth we feel at our own simchas. Imagine smiling when a coworker gets promoted without feeling smaller because of it. To do that, we have to trust that G-d’s goodness is not limited and that someone else receiving a bracha does not take anything away from us.

The deepest gratitude we can practice may be the hardest: learning to say “thank you” for blessings that aren’t even ours.

Rabbi Benny Berlin is the rabbi of BACH Jewish Center in Long Beach, New York. For more information, visit: www.bachlongbeach.com.

Think. Feel.Grow.

Living with Emunah When the Light Fades

Part

II

By Rabbi Shmuel Reichman

We are often told of the importance of having emunah in Hashem, but what exactly is emunah? Emunah is often translated as “faith”; the dictionary defines faith as a “firm belief in something for which there is no proof.” Faith is generally viewed as a “personal opinion,” a “subjective belief,” an “emotional decision,” or a “blind leap.”

Knowledge (yediah), on the other hand, is objective, unconcerned with opinion and belief. Without knowledge, there is no basis for argument. For example, if two people argue over which flavor of ice cream is superior, chocolate or vanilla, they are simply expressing two subjective opinions; their arguing is fruitless. Neither side reflects the objective truth, because there is no objective truth in this case. These are both subjective beliefs. Knowledge deals with objective facts, that which is not subject to belief or opinion.

We therefore ended off our previous article with a profound question: we can either be commanded to have blind faith in Hashem or to know Hashem but not both.

• If we are commanded to know Hashem, what need is there for emunah (faith)?

• And if we are commanded to have faith (emunah) in Hashem — to believe in something unknowable — how can we also be commanded to know Hashem?

Emes vs. Emunah

The answer is that both knowledge ( yediah) and emunah are required, and knowledge of Hashem is, in fact, objective and attainable. However, emunah does not mean having faith in Hashem; it means being faithful to Hashem. The goal in life is to first achieve knowledge of the ultimate emes, true and objective knowledge

of Hashem. Obtaining this knowledge of Hashem requires a serious commitment to the pursuit of emotional, intellectual, and post-rational truth.

The real challenge, however, is emunah — being faithful to that knowledge. As human beings, we uniquely possess free will. We can know for a fact that something is wrong, and yet choose to do it anyway. Take, for example, the case of a man diagnosed with Buerger’s disease, which makes him extremely sensitive to the nicotine in cigarettes. If someone with this condition smokes, the blood vessels constrict, leading to the loss of fingers, hands, and even full limbs, with almost one hundred percent certainty. Because this condition is fully linked to smoking, it can be avoided by simply not smoking. This man happens to

be an intelligent engineer, fully aware of the consequences should he continue smoking. And yet, he fails to quit smoking, and over the course of a few months, he proceeds to lose both his legs and eventually his arm as well. Through all of this, even after losing his limbs, he continues smoking.

One might ask how this is even possible. The answer is simple. As human beings, we possess free will. We have the ability to choose whether to loyally live by the truth or to block out the truth — clouding our intellectual clarity for more immediate, mundane pleasures. This intelligent man was willing to endure extreme consequences, despite the shockingly clear effects of his actions, for the fleeting pleasure and instant gratification of a cigarette. This principle is the key to understand-

ing emunah. Emes is truth; emunah is being faithful to that truth. Chazal say, “Leis emunah b’lo emes,” there is no emunah without emes, and we say the paragraph of “Emes V’Emunah” every night in Maariv, right after Shema. (We mention this right after Shema, because emunah is the ultimate expression of “hearing” in the dark.) Emes is the objective truth; emunah is the attempt to align yourself with that truth and live faithfully according to it. The ideal is living with emunah to the emes, faithfulness to the objective truth. Without emes, though, emunah is empty.

The Fleeting Nature of Emes

Emes is the root, the starting point and anchor of everything, but our connection and relationship with it is often fleeting. Emes is like a flash of lightning, a spark of inspiration. A powerful speech, an inspiring moment, or a profound idea can change our whole perspective on life. Suddenly, we see everything so clearly, we realign our goals, and everything falls into place. However, the very next day, we often find ourselves right back where we were before, as if nothing ever happened. What happened to the clarity of that emes, the power of that vision?

This is the challenge of emes. It is powerful, but it is fleeting. It fades almost as quickly as it appears. The moment you stop thinking about the emes, that truth disappears from your consciousness. As we have explained before, the spark of inspiration is there to help you experience the goal, the destination. It’s a taste of what you can, and hopefully will, ultimately accomplish. But it’s not real; it’s given as a gift, and is therefore an illusion. It serves only as a guiding

force, but it cannot compare to the genuine accomplishment of building something yourself. It is therefore taken away to allow for the second and most important stage, the stage of emunah: this is the phase of building, of undergoing the work required to attain this growth in actuality, to work for the perfection that you were shown. A gift is not real; something chosen and earned is. We are in this world to choose, to assert our free will, and to create ourselves. Now that we have tasted the first stage, the emes, we know what we’re meant to choose — what we can build.

The third stage, achieved through the hard work of the second stage, is the completed rebuilding of the original perfection. While this stage may appear the same as the first, it is fundamentally different. It’s real, it’s earned, it’s yours. The first stage was a gift, a spark of emes, but an illusion. The third is the product of the effort and time you invested through the stage of emunah.

Transforming the Rational into the Experiential

The ideal is to reach the point where emes no longer fades away — where the truth of reality becomes ingrained in our consciousness to the point that it becomes our default, governing every aspect of our life. The question is, how do we achieve this?

When one knows something is harmful and eats it anyway, it’s generally not because they know this and choose to ignore it. It’s because they have the wrong type of knowledge.

There are two forms of knowledge. Intellectual, conceptual knowledge dictates that 1+1=2. If someone asks you to solve this equation, you can easily do so using your rational faculties. But rational knowledge is not intrinsic knowledge; it is a skill and tool that you are able to utilize. Many people possess rational knowledge of morality and spirituality. Intellectually, they

know what is moral and immoral, and intellectually, they know that Hashem exists. However, when a desire competes with our rational knowledge, it is all too easy to blind ourselves from the truth, pushing aside our conscience to make room for this conflicting desire.

There is another type of knowledge, however, which makes it impossible for one to ignore their moral compass. This is experiential knowledge, a type of knowledge

free choice to do so, but the scalding hot flames are more than enough to stop them.) This is the challenge of emunah, this is the journey of life. (As the Maharal explains (Nesiv Ha’Emunah, chap. 2; see Sotah 48b and Rashi there), living a life of emunah creates a vessel for emes to flow into, creating a space for Hashem to enter. The smaller the vessel, the less you connect to emes; the more space you make, the more Hashem flows in.)

The goal in life is to first achieve knowledge of the ultimate emes, true and objective knowledge of Hashem.

that is known so deeply and powerfully that it becomes part of one’s very consciousness and self. This knowledge cannot be overcome, nor can one blind themselves to it, no matter how strong the competing desire. When one is so deeply aware of spiritual truth, so inseparably attached to Hashem, it is impossible to push that emes aside. It takes a lifetime of emunah, of commitment and faithfulness to the truth, to reach this point where one existentially connects to emes in such a powerful way. When one reaches this stage of knowledge, their very identity and self becomes a reflection of objective truth, of a higher reality. This truth cannot be blocked out; one cannot but live by it. (The Nefesh Hachaim explains that this is the type of knowledge that angels have. They understand reality with such a crystal-clear lens that it is virtually impossible for them to do anything but operate in line with the truth. While they do have a very limited sense of free will, doing something wrong as an angel would be akin to walking into a fire. They may have the

Rabbi Shmuel Reichman is an international speaker, bestselling author, business coach, the CEO of SMA, and a TED Talk Speaker. His online content reaches millions of people every month, and he lectures internationally on topics of Torah thought, psychology, leadership, and business – uniquely blending many areas of Torah and wisdom together. His bestselling book, The Journey to Your Ultimate Self, serves as an inspiring gateway into deeper Torah thought. After receiving his BA from Yeshiva University and Semicha from Yeshiva University’s RIETS, Rabbi Reichman received a Masters degree in Philosophy and Religion from the University of Chicago. As part of his Masters Degree at the University of Chicago, Rabbi Reichman received an Ivy Plus Scholarship to Harvard where he spent a year studying Religious Philosophy and Literature as an Ivy Scholar. Additionally, he received a Masters degree in Educational Psychology from Azrieli Graduate School and a Masters degree in Jewish Thought from Yeshiva University’s Bernard Revel Graduate School. As a business and leadership coach, Rabbi Reichman provides a unique 1-on-1 coaching program where he helps high-achievers, coaches, and business owners achieve their financial and personal goals. To learn more or to get in contact with Rabbi Reichman, visit his website: ShmuelReichman.com

The Words Emes and Emunah

The essence of the relationship between emes and emunah is expressed in the words themselves. The word emes is comprised of the letters aleph, mem, and tav. Aleph is the first letter of the alephbeis, mem is the middle letter, and tav is the very last letter in the aleph-beis. The

word emes spans the entirety of the alephbeis, reflecting the nature of truth. (See Shabbos 55a and Rashi there.) Truth is holistic, all-encompassing, and objective. While the word emunah is very similar to emes, it has one distinct difference. Amen, the shoresh of emunah, begins with the same aleph and mem of emes, reflecting its source in ultimate truth. It concludes, however, with a nun, the letter in the aleph-beis that directly follows mem. Emunah is the process of working toward emes, the journey toward the ultimate, ideal endpoint. In the word emunah, aleph represents the initial flash of inspiration, mem represents the starting point, the place from where you must begin working toward the realization of that initial inspiration, and the nun following the mem represents the journey from mem toward tav, toward the ultimate and complete truth, toward emes. The word “amen” literally means, “let this be true.” It is an affirmation, a desire to attain and reflect emes

In our next article, we will delve deeper into this fascinating topic and try to understand the nature of emunah on an even deeper level. In the meantime, may we all be inspired to continue to embark on the journey of becoming our ultimate selves!

Delving into the Daf

What’s the Right ‘Whey’?

By Rabbi Avrohom Sebrow

Shimon and Boruch wiped their hands clean after finishing their deli sandwiches. Shimon leaned back, satisfied, and said, “OK, let’s do the daf. This perek we’re learning—Perek HaTaruvos in Zevachim—is fascinating.”

Boruch blinked. “Uh…there is no perek called HaTaruvos in Zevachim.”

Shimon waved his hand dismissively. “Yes, well, you can’t call the current perek Kol HaZevachim—that’s the name of the first perek, and we’re on the eighth. Besides, this perek is all about mixtures. I didn’t invent the name; the Rishonim already used it for this perek.”

He stretched, then suddenly yawned so deeply his eyes watered. “On second thought,” he muttered, “let me make myself a coffee before we start learning.”

He went to the kitchen, poured himself a cup, grabbed a container of non-dairy creamer from the fridge, shook it, splashed some in, and returned to the table.

Boruch looked at the cup, then at him. “You know that non-dairy creamer isn’t cholov Yisrael, right?”

Shimon laughed. “Funny. It’s pareve. It literally says non-dairy.”

“Look at the back of the container,” Boruch said.

Shimon lifted the bottle, glanced at the back—and froze. Right there, next to the allergen statement, were the words: “Contains milk.” His eyes widened. “This is criminal!”

“Actually, it’s not,” Boruch replied. “The FDA allows it. They can market it as non-dairy since it only contains a milk derivative. It has sodium caseinate, not milk per se.”

Shimon shrugged. “But it’s only a small amount. It’s probably batel b’rov. So halachically, it’s pareve.”

Boruch shook his head. “There’s a problem with your logic. Bittul is typically used in accidental situations—like

an inadvertent mix-up. But here? You purchased the product. A gentile could have bought it; no one needed to get involved in bittul. But since you bought it, we now have to analyze the ingredients and rely on bittu l. That’s a violation of ein mevatlin issur l’chatchila—you can’t purposely nullify a non-kosher ingredient. By buying this creamer, you forced the need for bittul. It wasn’t accidental.”

Shimon leaned forward. “I’m pretty sure that’s a machlokes Acharonim. Others argue that the ingredient was already nullified on the shelf before I bought it. It makes no difference that a Jewish person purchased it.”

“Well,” Boruch countered, “even according to that opinion, you’re still out of luck. The ingredient panel says it contains less than 3% sodium casein-

l’chatchila! It wasn’t batel even after you bought the bottle. It’s only batel now that you added it to the coffee.”

Shimon sighed. “Look, honestly, I don’t keep cholov Yisrael. But I am concerned because I’m fleishigs after that deli sandwich. Still, I’ll tell you something: HaRav Yisrael Belsky, zt”l, once saw me make coffee exactly like this, with this exact brand of creamer, after a fleishig meal, and he said nothing.”

Boruch smiled knowingly. “Nice story. But I personally asked Rav Yisrael Belsky, zt”l, about this exact question. I’m super makpid on cholov Yisrael. I asked if I could use this creamer, and he told me I cannot because it’s not cholov Yisrael!”

Shimon stared at him. “That’s not possible. Why wouldn’t Rabbi Belsky

“Why wouldn’t Rabbi Belsky have said anything to me when he saw me using it after a fleishig meal?”

ate. For something to be nullified, there must be sixty times more food than the problematic ingredient. The label would need to say, ‘Less than 1.6%’ to guarantee a 60:1 ratio.”

Shimon wasn’t convinced. “Hmm. But my coffee is mostly water. The milk ingredient is less than 3% of the creamer. Even if the creamer is ten percent of my coffee, there’s still over two hundred times more non-dairy than dairy ingredients. So it would be batel.”

“That,” Boruch said triumphantly, “is certainly violating ein mevatlin issur

ingredient. When that person buys the creamer, they are creating a situation where they would have to rely on bittul , so they are violating ein mevatlin issur l’chatchila.

“But the deli-sandwich eater—the one who doesn’t keep cholov Yisrael— views the creamer as completely kosher, just not pareve. For him, the rule of ein mevatlin issur l’chatchila doesn’t apply. The creamer is 100% kosher. After it’s added to coffee, the milk is batel, and even if it wouldn’t be batel, the resultant mixture would still be kosher.

“Therefore, since this is merely an issue of eating milchigs after fleishigs— not a kashrus issue—you can l’chatchila nullify the small amount of milk in your coffee and drink it after a fleishig meal. Rav Belsky, zt”l, clearly ruled this way.”

have said anything to me when he saw me using it after a fleishig meal?”

“Let’s call the OU and ask them,” Boruch suggested.

They put the phone on speaker.

The OU representative listened, then said, “This is a perfect riddle: Why would Rabbi Belsky say the non-dairy creamer is milchig to one person but act like it’s pareve to another? The answer is this:

“To someone who is very makpid on cholov Yisrael, even a tiny portion of non-cholov Yisrael milk is a forbidden

Shimon nodded slowly, lifted the cup, and took a long sip. The caffeine hit immediately. He straightened up, fully alert, opened his Gemara, and said with a grin:

“Alright. Now we can start the daf.”

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

Hatzolah Men in Pajamas in the Middle of the Night

By Rabbi Yair Hoffman

Most parents of yeshiva kids or day school kids have heard Rabbi Alter Yachnes zt”l’s song, “Pharaoh in Pajamas in the Middle of the Night,” but what about applying that idea to Hatzolah volunteers and doctors? We know that in medical emergencies, time is of the essence and every moment counts. When a call comes in, is the Hatzolah emergency volunteer obligated to respond immediately in his Petite Plume Men’s Pajama set or his Sleepy Jones Henry PJs? Or may he take the time to get dressed first?

Believe it or not, this question was posed several years ago by Rav Yitzchok Zilberstein, shlita, to his father-in-law, Rav Elyashiv, zt”l (without the specific aforementioned brands). The responsum is found in Kav V’Naki Volume I #454.

Rav Elyashiv, zt”l, responded that “one cannot obligate them to run out in the street in pajamas – because this is something that one would be unable to withstand, and it is also quite possible that he will not provide the necessary treatment to the patient on account of his embarrassment. His task is to constantly save people, and this can create a daily struggle that is difficult to manage.”

The Principle of Takanas HaMatzilim

Our sages established the concept of Takanas HaMatzilim – enactments protecting rescuers – and actually exempted them from paying damages that they otherwise would have been obligated to pay, such as if they damaged items while rushing to save people. This principle appears in tractate Sanhedrin (74a), where we learn that if someone is pursuing another person to kill him, and a third party chases after that pursuer and breaks some items – whether the items belonged to the pursuer, the victim being chased, or even a stranger – he is exempt from

paying. The reason: if rescuers were held liable, you would not find people willing to assist those being pursued.

This principle extends to other areas as well. The Tosefta in Gittin 3:13 states:

“A skilled doctor who practiced his craft with the permission of Beis Din, and he damaged the patient accidentally, is

ed doctors and changed the halacha, because otherwise people would refuse to become doctors.

We find the same principle in Rosh Hashanah 23b, where all who go out on Shabbos to save others have 2,000 cubits in every direction to walk. This enactment of Rabban Gamliel HaZakein

“His task is to constantly save people, and this can create a daily struggle that is difficult to manage.”

exempt. If he did so purposefully, he is obligated to pay.”

This is a ruling designed to benefit society. Rabbi Shmuel Avigdor Rabinowitz (1806-1866), author of the Minchas Bikkurim, explains that even though there is a principle of adam mu’ad l’olam (a person is always responsible for his actions), the sages exempt-

was instituted so that people would not refrain from saving others. Similarly, in Eiruvin 44b, we learn that those who go out to save Jews on Shabbos are permitted to return home afterward. Rabbi Yechiel Michel Tucazinsky, zt”l (18711955), author of the Gesher HaChaim (chapter four, sub-paragraph 9), extends this reasoning further, explaining that

a doctor standing next to an ill patient who passes away is not obligated to tear kriyah, because otherwise he would not wish to be a doctor.

A Contrasting View:

Rav Shlomo Kluger

It is interesting to note that Rav Elyashiv, zt”l, did not cite the ruling of Rav Shlomo Kluger, zt”l (1785-1869), in his Chochmas Shlomo on Choshen Mishpat Siman 426. There, Rav Kluger extends the principle found in Baba Metzia 30b regarding hashavas aveidah (returning lost objects) to the mitzvah of saving lives. The Gemara teaches that a distinguished person is exempt from the mitzvah of returning a lost object if doing so would be beneath his dignity. Rav Kluger extends this exemption to cases of pikuach nefesh as well.

This author believes that it is highly likely that Rav Elyashiv, zt”l, would not have agreed with Rav Kluger’s position, because those cases would not prevent people from entering a certain field altogether. It would seem also that the straightforward reading of Yoma 85b may indicate otherwise. That passage rules that Shabbos violations for life-saving purposes should be performed by the great sages first – which is somewhat indicative that there may even be some embarrassment to these great rabbis if they were to do it, but we have them do it to demonstrate that life-saving should not be minimized.

This view is also supported by Rav Meir Dan Plotzki (1866-1928) in his Kli Chemda on Parshas Ki Saytzay, who questioned Rav Shlomo Kluger’s conclusion. This article should be viewed as a halachic discussion and not practical advice. The author can be reached at yairhoffman2@gmail.com.

My Israel Home You Got Tofes Arba –Now What?

By Gedaliah Borvick

After guiding thousands of overseas buyers, we’ve found one question comes up time and again: What happens after Tofes Arba? This guide walks you through the process.

After years of anticipation, the big moment has finally arrived: the building has received Tofes Arba, the official Certificate of Occupancy. For buyers who purchased “on paper,” this milestone marks the end of construction – and the beginning of ownership. But as many quickly learn, getting the keys isn’t a single event; it’s a process involving coordination, documentation, and final payments.

Tofes Arba: Tofes Arba is issued by the municipality once a building meets all safety and infrastructure standards. It authorizes permanent electricity, water, and occupancy - the signal that the property is ready for handover. In simple terms, it’s when the apartment becomes livable, though a few steps remain before the buyer actually receives the keys.

Once Tofes Arba is granted, the developer notifies buyers that handovers will begin. Before receiving keys, buyers must make their final payment, open water, electric, and arnona (municipal tax) accounts, obtain home insurance, and sign the management agreement for the vaad bayit (condo fees).

Protocol: After these steps are complete, the buyer or their representative conducts a walk-through inspection of the apartment. This step is crucial: during the walk-through, a punch list of issues – called a “protocol” – is created, and the developer fixes

them after handover. If any defects prevent occupancy, they must be repaired before the keys are released.

Timing. Typically, the period between Tofes Arba and key delivery lasts a few weeks, depending on how quickly buyers finalize payments and paperwork. For overseas clients, delays often come from logistics such as wiring funds, signing documents, or scheduling the walk-through.

Possession: Once the keys are handed over, ownership officially transfers, and the buyer is responsible for managing the apartment – including utilities, taxes, and maintenance. The next steps usually include setting up communications (internet, cable, and phone), opening a gas account, and coordinating deliveries and installations

handle all of this – from dealing with Israeli bureaucracy to coordinating deliveries. If a designer was involved in your apartment, they usually oversee items that fall within their scope. For those renting out their apartment, your property manager will guide you on which responsibilities belong to the owner and which to the tenant.

Jerusalem project nearing completion

The building management company maintains the common areas – cleaning, elevators, landscaping, and security – but not inside the apartments. Overseas owners often hire private property managers to oversee their unit,

Typically, the period between Tofes Arba and key delivery lasts a few weeks.

such as furniture, appliances, and light fixtures. Buyers should also keep the contact list provided by the developer, which includes details for each subcontractor – for systems such as air conditioning, heating, doors, kitchens, and solar water heaters. These contacts are often needed for setup and service calls.

Property Manager: Many overseas buyers use a property manager to

prepare it for visits, and handle tenant needs if rented out.

Israeli Bank Account: For buyers with an Israeli mortgage, an Israeli bank account is required and many mortgage brokers can help clients open the account remotely. Those without a mortgage can typically pay ongoing fees such as arnona, management, insurance, and utilities using an international credit card.

Handover: For purchasers who can’t be in Israel for the handover, it’s essential to appoint a trusted representative – a lawyer, property manager, or friend - to attend the walk-through, record any issues, and collect the keys. Power of attorney can be granted if documents need to be signed. Importantly, “I’ll be in Israel in four months” isn’t a reason to delay payment; once Tofes Arba is issued, the apartment must be delivered, even if the buyer isn’t present.

Receiving the keys after years of waiting is thrilling, but it’s a process. The better prepared you are, the smoother it will go. With professionals guiding you, you’ll avoid nearly all the headaches.

Gedaliah Borvick is the founder of My Israel Home, a real estate agency focused on helping people from abroad buy and sell homes in Israel. To sign up for his monthly market updates, contact him at gborvick@ gmail.com. Please visit his blog at www. myisraelhome.com

Living in Jerusalem, it is easy to be stimulated, entertained and engaged. This week, I went to see Heroines, a show about the women who stepped up on October 7 and the ensuing war. I sort of knew where it was being presented, less than 10 minutes from my house, but when I got there, the theater was dark. Worried about being late, I called Gett. The cab picked me up and dropped me off 5 minutes later in basically the same place, and it cost me almost 30 shekel for the ride.

I had been in the general vicinity of the right theater but was unaware that there are two different theaters; the one I needed was down one of the alleys located in the same square. This entire incident is a metaphor for my life right now.

The production consisted of true events soliloquies describing the women heroes of October 7: the victims, the soldiers, the mikvah ladies, the female chevra kadisha volunteers, mothers, etc. – you get the picture. The written monologues were interspersed with musical numbers which together formed the basis of a heart-wrenching emotional evening.

There is a big difference between getting lost and being lost. Lately, it’s been a bit of both.

I have no left/right orientation; I do the thumb thing, but it does not work for me. I cannot differentiate between hot and cold faucets, and I wind up jumping around a lot in the shower. This learning disability has been the cause of me getting lost no matter how many times I have gone to that very same place. I always counted on Bob to help and direct me.

For some unknown reason, in Israel I used to be able to get lost less; not this past Shabbos. With sheets of rain drenching me through my apparently useless raincoat, I went looking for the home of very dear friends. I had been there before with Bob, and it’s near a home I often go to for workshops. Unfortunately, an ostensibly easy twen -

School of Thought

Lost

By Barbara Deutsch

ty-minute walk turned into an hour of wet wandering looking for a street that has no sign, a cul de sac, a park and numbers that make no sense to a building that is entered through a door marked “1” when the one you are looking for is “6.”

It was pouring so hard that I no longer felt grateful for the rain, and the

ly annoying but sometimes pointedly painful. When an American dies abroad, in Israel, the death certificate is issued in Hebrew. Most American bureaucrats don’t read or understand Hebrew, and an AI translation does not make the cut.

To address all of the legal hurdles of an estate, it is considered advisable to get the death certificate document

There is a big difference between getting lost and being lost. Lately, it’s been a bit of both.

Post-it upon which I wrote the directions became a soggy, blurry mess. I was lost and could not find my way, in both the streets nor in my head.

Lisa, my friend and hostess, went out to find me. Luckily – I guess it’s lucky –a young girl walking home who lives on the same floor in the building rescued me.

Lisa and I arrived separately for lunch.

Newly widowed, I have had to deal with practical changes that are most-

translated and notarized to confirm the legitimacy of the document. First, you need to obtain an officially stamped copy of the original from a Ministry –when possible, multiple copies.

A few weeks after my return from the States, I finally got the courage to tackle this painful task so I set out to find the specific Ministry office that handles death certificate documents. The first Ministry office (there are so many to choose from) I tried was the wrong one. Once I was screened by

security and allowed inside, I became frustrated and confused by the multiple support options, all written in an abovemy-Ulpan-level Hebrew that filled the computer screen.

I started crying.

The desk clerk took pity on me, told me I was in the wrong Ministry, and directed me to the right one that I couldn’t locate. I did find my favorite shoe store, Shufra, where my old clerk friend hugged and comforted me and personally escorted me right up to the door of the right Ministry.

I took a number (another long story), A160, and waited, not too long, for it to flash. I then waded through the maze of chairs, people and rooms to the place where I needed to be. Upon my arrival, I was greeted by a beautiful, perfectly appointed, meticulously attired quadriplegic woman.

“English?”

“Yes.”

I explained my problem. In perfect English, she instructed me to outline and spell my details as she nodded and spoke into a mic attached to her computer. Miraculously, multiple death certificates were printed out of the machine right next to me.

Was this Hashem sending me a message on perspective?

As I go about my days, trying not to get lost or wet, I am trying to find joy in the good that I am blessed to have. I am not alone in this struggle. There are too many Heroes/Heroines who are trying to look forward and away from the pain of the past two very difficult years. It will take time.

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.

Experience is the Best Teacher

Mr. Richie Altabe Shares His Thoughts on Chinuch, Parenting, and Advocating for the Community

By SuSan Schwamm

Mr. Altabe, you have been in many yeshivos over the past few decades as an educator. Can you tell us a bit about your many years in chinuch?

I started my educational career in Yeshiva of Flatbush in the early 1980s as a science teacher. When I was 27 years old, they brought me into Yeshiva Darchei Torah to be their English principal full-time. It was the first time ever that I know of that a yeshiva hired an English principal full-time, because the model used to be that English principals were coming from public schools or were retirees. But Darchei understood long before everybody else that if you want to do the job right, you really have to be in the building all day. Now, of course, to make the job worthwhile to be doing that all day, they added on government services that they wanted to enhance and I also had to find other funding streams. That’s when I developed my political side and governmental advocacy side, because it was part of my job in Darchei to really uncover sources of potential funding governmentally.

I was in Darchei for 18 years. When I started, the school had 200 kids, with one class per grade. When I left, there were 1,200 kids with a high school, and we had four classes of every grade. I established the general studies program at Mesivta Chaim Shlomo, and we developed a whole host of AP courses. What I was able to accomplish in Darchei Torah was to show that you can have a top-shelf Limudei Kodesh program and still offer excellence in general studies education without compromising the Torah learning.

After Darchei, from 2000-2006, I was the head of

school at Magen David Yeshiva High School in Brooklyn. It was the first time in my life that I had responsibility for Kodesh and Chol. I wasn’t in charge of hashkafa, but I had to manage the Limudei Kodesh curriculum and elevate it. I tried to elevate the hashkafa of the school as well. For example, I made sure that Gemara was being learned in the morning, not throughout the day. I did a little bit more to separate the boys and the girls, even though it was a co-ed school. At the same time, we did some very exciting things on the secular side. My biggest achievement there was that we created a program of senior internships in the field. I sent out 125 kids to the workplace to learn about different careers. In the “old days,” Syrians went into their fathers’ businesses, and that was going to dry up because the businesses were not able to sustain all the third-generation kids going into the business. Also, the girls used to never work. Now, they started becoming more career-minded, and many of them went to college – girls who would have never gone to college before. That was a beautiful and exciting thing that we did in that school.

After Magen David, I was in Yeshiva Shaare Torah in Brooklyn, which was a more right-wing version of Magen David; there are boys’ and girls’ schools, but they are separate. I was headmaster of the whole school and oversaw Kodesh and Chol. In Shaare Torah, the general studies in the boys’ high school was weak. I created connections with Touro College so the students could take college courses in Touro in the twelfth grade, which really elevated the system. A lot of those students got

more college credits and were able to get degrees, even while they ended up in the beis medrash.

At one point, Rabbi Yisroel Kaminetsky called me and asked if I could come in for an interview at HALB. I went to HALB as a kid. I would not be frum today without HALB because my family was a non-affiliated family and they sent me to HALB, and HALB “flipped the switch” for me to become frum. HALB also helped my family grow in frumkeit as well, creating a home environment where my Torah growth could flourish. I have unbelievable hakaras hatov to HALB. The idea that I could become the principal of HALB was a dream come true type of thing. When we finished the interview process, they said to me, “You began your life at HALB, we want you to end your career at HALB,” which in a sense I did because my nine years at HALB were a dream. I went to HALB for nine years from kindergarten to eighth grade, and I gave them back nine years of my life. I used my time there to really create and to build up the kids, and I’m very proud of what I did there.

I always felt my entire life that Hashem has guided me from place to place to a place where Hashem felt I needed to be to fulfill a mission. I always felt that when I left a place, it was never because I was upset. I left a position because it was clear that my time there had ended, and when that happened, at the second that I would see that, another place would open up that clearly was the new direction. It was as if Hashem was calling me, “OK, go here now.”

You’ve been in so many leadership roles in different schools. As a principal or head of school, you would undoubtedly need to hire teachers and educators. What are the characteristics that you look for in the right educator for the students?

Number one is the ability to connect with children, because without that, it’s nothing. We’re not hiring professors; we’re hiring educators. The classroom needs to be warm yet structured. Curriculum is extremely important, but that’s number two. Number one is a person who is a role model, who conveys love to his students and who the children can respect. After that, then, of course, you need to talk about curriculum, and things could be taught. You can teach curriculum management, but you can’t teach somebody to love children. It’s not possible.

What can a school do to make it less about “mass education” and more personalized for each student?

When I started in Darchei, Rabbi Bender was the menahel and I was the English principal. That worked when it was a small school. As Darchei got bigger, Rabbi Bender created divisional menahelim, so that there is a menahel for a couple of grades. In HALB, there used to be one principal for the whole school but they split it with a principal for the lower grades – that was me – and a principal for the middle school and then one for the high school. This way there’s a lot more oversight and more personalization and connection to the teachers and students.

Class sizes are also a big thing. If you can keep the class size under 25, that’s amazing. Once you go, let’s say, past 25 and into the close to 30, you’re losing out. Where I’m at now, we believe in keeping class sizes to 22, 23 students because the needs of children today are so great and the role of a rebbe and a morah is also so great. It’s not just teaching a subject; it’s teaching the child and dealing with the whole child’s needs, which can be a full-time job by itself. In general, it’s best to have more classes with less students and manage the extra set of teachers.

What should a teacher be doing to reach all the students in that class of 25 or even 30, if that’s what they’re given?

At HALB – this is something unique to HALB and I’d love to spread this around – is that we do something called blended learning. I didn’t invent it – that was there before I got there. It utilizes technology so that the kids, instead of sitting at a desk with a teacher in front, are going to stations. They have different stations during the day where they do different things. You’re able to person-

alize that so, for instance, a teacher will teach a 15-minute mini-lesson on a skill in math and then half the kids will work at tables doing the math. The other kids are going on the computer to do things connected to the lesson. After 20 minutes, the table and computer groups will flip. We find that personalized education is a big deal, and any way you could create that results in improved learning outcomes. You don’t need a computer to do it. There are ways to do blended learning even without a computer. The idea is to make stations in your classroom with different things happening in different places. It’s a workable model for reaching more kids.

In my ideal world, teachers and rebbeim would be in school for longer periods of time than their time in the classroom. That’s also ideal for reaching more kids. For example, if a teacher teaches English from 2pm to 5pm, I would have the teacher come in earlier than that. You should do the same thing with a rebbi. If you’re hiring a rebbi to teach until 1:30pm, pay them to stay until

“Helicopter parents are good compared to absent parents.”

2:30pm, 3pm. This gives them the opportunity to prepare, and having that rebbi available in the building all day makes a huge difference.

Wouldn’t that cost a lot of money? Every few years, the issue of teachers’ pay comes up and the concern that quality teachers may leave the profession because of the salary.

The problem is that every three years the teacher pay becomes an issue and then the next two years the tuition becomes the issue, right?

What I’m working on now is called Chinuch First. It’s a model developed by the Cheder of Monsey and it’s the brainchild of our lay leader Yossi Kazarnovsky, who felt, as you pointed out, that teachers need to be paid more but we also need to get more out of our teachers. The teaching profession has to become professionalized. If a rebbi is going into the classroom teaching the lesson and then running to a job to teach English, you’re losing something, right? You’re losing that rebbi’s ability to connect with the kids, to monitor the curriculum, to assess children prop -

erly. What we’re doing now in the Chinuch First system is paying rebbeim to work past their classroom hours for an hour and a half to two hours during which time they’re required to prepare their lessons, and there’s a lot of accountability. We assess the classroom three times a year with standardized assessments in Limudei Kodesh. Because of all that, the rebbe now has the time to meet with a student after class. The rebbe has the time to call a parent. The rebbe has the time to prepare lessons. We have a chinuch menahel in each of these schools. The chinuch menahel can talk to the rebbe about curriculum; two parallel rebbeim on a grade can have conversations about what’s best practice; there could be a teacher training element for the rebbeim. It’s an incredible model, and I’m a big proponent of it.

You’ve been in chinuch for 37 years. Were parents more hands off in their parenting years ago? Do you see more helicopter parents nowadays?

No. In fact, I’ll tell you more than that. I almost miss helicopter parents because the next generation of parents who are new to being parents and are both working fulltime are less able to be on top of what is going on in the classroom and sometimes they’re absent. Helicopter parents are good compared to absent parents.

This is a huge problem in the current generation. I’m not saying that we don’t have helicopter parents – we certainly do – but we have a lot of missing parents. Parents who don’t read emails, don’t answer texts, are not reachable by phone, don’t come to PTA, don’t engage…

The parent-rebbi partnership and the parent-school partnership is essential to the success of a child in school. The more difficulty that that child has in learning, the more that connection’s necessary. In HALB, we created special ed programming that, thank G-d, went really well. When I met with my staff last year, I asked them: what’s the recipe for success? The recipe for success is if you have a parent who’s a partner. With that, you can achieve anything. If you don’t have a parent who is a partner, you will achieve nothing.

When it comes to the partnership, it doesn’t mean the rebbi and parents have to agree. They can have different opinions. But they need to navigate those opinions to determine what’s best for the child. You should not negate parents from the equation; doing so is a disaster. Schools that basically have a put-off approach to the parents are making a huge mistake. I would even say, having taught public school in the beginning of my career, the reason why public schools do not do well is because the imposing

structure of the public school almost keeps the parents out of the equation.

Still, there has to be a balance. Sometimes, the parent does too much and has to be guided on how to let the child struggle a bit and succeed on their own. That can only happen if there’s a discussion up front between the parent and the rebbi. When you go to open school nights, the teachers should communicate the goals of the year to the parents.

What does that partnership look like for the child who is not struggling?

When the child is doing well, there should be regular check-ins to make sure that the child is continuing to do well. Parents need to communicate if there are situations at home that may interfere with the child doing well – a simcha, a tragedy, a medical issue. I’ve often instructed my staff to call parents at the beginning of the year to create a kesher because that kesher is huge. And nachas is always good – always. I’m a believer in nachas. A good nachas report goes a long way in maintaining the partnership.

I learned this from Rabbi Bender. When a kid would do something exciting, I’d make that phone call to the parent to give them nachas. I even do that for adults. I’m at the Cheder of Monsey now. One of the eighth grade rebbeim is a former talmid who spoke at the eighth grade graduation. I was at the graduation – my grandson graduated – and this rebbe spoke incredibly well. I called up his mother after graduation and told her, “Your son is unbelievable. Wow!” His mother was so happy to hear that.

We work very hard as parents, and we need to hear good things. So don’t only call with a problem. Additionally, it’s very important for an educator to demonstrate that they care. If you heard a principal or a teacher say something to you that you may not want to hear but you knew that they cared about your child, you’re going to take it seriously because you know that it’s not about the teacher, it’s about your child. You’ll take that comment seriously and act on it. When you build that connection through caring, you build the ability to say things other times that may not be something they want to hear, but they’ll do it. They’ll know that your intent is to care.

The same thing holds true with children in the classroom. If you truly show love to your talmidim, then when they do something wrong and you need to discipline them, and you tell them, “I know you’re better than that; that’s not really who you are,” you will accomplish much more with that type of discipline in the long run than you’d ever accomplish from yelling at the child. The emotional im-

pact of that statement is very long-lasting. The apologies I used to get from children who I said that to were beautiful because they meant them.

Our educational system has become wonderful at noticing and helping children who have learning challenges. We make accommodations for some students, but can it be that the accommodations underestimate the child’s ability and not help the child reach their full potential?

There’s a Chazal, in Sanhedrin, that says that anyone who withholds teaching from a child is as if they stole from him. Having a low expectation is not the same as giving a child access to learning in the way that they can learn.

The answer to the question is the question: the expectation for these children is the problem. What you want them to learn is something you should want them to learn. Everybody should be pushed to learn as much as they can and pushed to the highest standard possible. What we

“I always felt my entire life that Hashem has guided me from place to place where Hashem felt I needed to be to fulfill a mission.”

need to do when it comes to a special education child is not to worry about lowering the expectation; it’s about changing the way the child’s going to access the material. If a child is a visual learner, give it to them that way. If a child’s an auditory learner, give it to them that way. If a child needs the questions set up on the page differently, set it up on the page differently. If a child needs something to help them with the language, help them with the language. But don’t have low expectations for children.

Everyone can learn the material; they just may need different lenses. I need glasses to drive, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t learn how to drive. It just means I need the glasses to help me drive. Sometimes, people confuse this idea of high expectations with everybody having to be the same. Well, that’s ridiculous. Everybody is not the same. Some people need a different way to ask the question in order for them to access the information you want them to access.

How do we teach our kids resilience nowadays?

Oh, if you can only teach resilience.

I’m a big chassid of Angela Duckworth. In her research, she found that it’s not IQ that makes a difference in success – it’s grit. If you’re able to overcome challenges and stand up to challenges, you will succeed. The question is, how do we build grit in a child? We all agree that grit and resiliency is important. Angela Duckworth identified the problem – that we need to develop resiliency in our children – but she didn’t really find out how to go about it.

I will give you my secret for how to develop grit in our children. It’s very simple. You, the parent; you, the teacher; you, the educator; you, the rav of the shul…your job when you’re raising children is to communicate your belief in the child. If you communicate that you believe in the child, then the child will have the ability to be resilient to overcome challenges.

But if you communicate to the child and tell them, “Don’t try it. You’re not good enough,” if you do that, you’re destroying their ability to have resiliency.

I heard this from Charlie Harary, who said that every morning, we say, “Modeh ani l’fanecha melech chai v’kayam, shehechezarta bi nishmasi b’chemla, rabbah emunasecha.” He asked the question, “rabbah emunasecha,” whose emunah is “emunasecha” talking about? Your belief. Whose belief is that? Hashem’s belief. Hashem’s belief in what? Hashem’s belief in you. You have returned to me my neshama because You Hashem believe in me that I’m going to use my day to accomplish everything I need to accomplish. And that belief that you have in me Hashem is going to carry me to be able to do what I need to do. If we’re davening every day that Hashem believes in us, then we have an achrayus to tell our children and our students that we believe in them. And when you believe in them, then they will have the confidence to overcome anything.

That’s a very empowering thought. You’ve been in chinuch for close to four decades. Do you keep a kesher with your students?

There’s no greater honor that one can have in life than teaching children. I like to say, some people make money, but I make people. I get the nachas of seeing the success of those people as adults, and it’s amazing. My students call me, they see me, and they connect with me. The best is when some of my students become rebbeim – I have two former students who became rebbeim in HALB; it was such nachas. Where I am now, I have a rebbi who’s a former student. I was recently on a

call dealing with a technology issue, and the person I was speaking with was a former student. I can’t go anywhere without meeting former students, and it’s a source of unending, continued nachas.

That’s a wonderful feeling – to see the success in the people you’ve helped and molded. Can we switch gears to your klal work and government advocacy? We just had an election, and you’ve been very involved with bringing out the vote for many years.

My klal work started in 1991, when Rabbi Bender told me that he wanted me to become a member of the board of the JCC of Far Rockaway. I was young, and he encouraged me to get involved in community work. A year later, Chaim Becker and I ran for school board. In those days, in Queens, there were school boards. They got rid of school boards in the late ‘90s, but for a time period of four or five years, I was an elected school board member, and that was my entry into politics because if you have to run for something – even a school board member – you have to campaign and you have to knock on doors and you have to convince people to vote for you.

What I learned from that time period was once you’re an elected official, you have to worry about what your backers want from you as opposed to doing what you want to do. In a way, what’s more important than actually serving in office is actually creating the network of power that influences politicians to do what’s needed for a community. You really need to empower the community to become involved, and I saw myself as somebody who could do that. We created something called the Far Rockaway Jewish Alliance back in the ‘90s. For the last 30 years or so, we’ve been encouraging people to vote for candidates that we vet and encourage people to vote for. We take the time to meet the candidates and understand their position on the issues that affect us, and then we’ll advocate that they should get elected. When you can bundle a community’s votes in one direction, it has a tremendous impact. In the recent mayoral election, we obviously didn’t get the result we hoped for. But the 29th election district, which is the Read’s Lane area, had the highest percentage of Cuomo voters in the whole city –97% of the people who live in that district voted for Cuomo. That election district has around 850 voters. Usually, election districts have around 1,000 registered voters, so that was like number two or three in the city in terms of numbers. So now, a politician who is running for office looks at that and thinks to themselves, “Wow, if I could get them to all agree with me, that’s 800 votes in my pocket against

none for my opponent. Of course, I’m going to go there and talk to them.” That’s where you develop electoral power that can influence the people in government to do what’s needed for a community. If you use it the right way, for toeles, for what’s good for the community, that’s really impressive.

We had more frum people in Far Rockaway vote for Andrew Cuomo this year than voted for Donald Trump last year. That’s not because we like Andrew Cuomo better than Donald Trump; it’s because we registered 1,000 new voters and many of those people came out to vote and a higher percentage of people came out to vote than ever before. I am tremendously proud of the fact that we were able to get to that point. We were never able to, outside of a presidential election, get to 4,000 votes. Now we can walk around saying, Far Rockaway can package for you, a candidate, a potential of 4,000 votes.

It’s about advocating for the needs of your community and making sure there’s somebody on the other end who can and will listen.

“The idea that a parent has to be perfect undermines a parent’s ability to be a good parent.”

In the last 30 years, I’ve had an untold number of opportunities to help Klal Yisrael through that advocacy. The one I would mention specifically was the area of when there was an attack on yeshivas with the substantial equivalency issue. I was able to combine my educational expertise and my political knowledge and ability into one to really be a strong advocate for yeshivas in that tekufah. Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato got me a meeting with one of the members of the Board of Regents – a oneon-one meeting that couldn’t have happened unless I had developed the relationship with Stacey Pheffer Amato.

There was an issue we had with antisemitism recently, where we felt that the chancellor of the schools was not really understanding our needs. Councilwoman Selvena Brooks, through my advocacy, put together a meeting with the educators in the Five Towns with the Chancellor. That didn’t happen on its own; it happened because of advocacy.

If you want to reach the halls of power, you have to

be a powerful community. We are a powerful community. We’re not huge. We’re not as big as Borough Park or Flatbush, but we’re powerful.

Over the years, have you seen the frum community become more informed and more educated about the issues and about elections?

Yes and no. It still boggles my mind, honestly, to find election season after election season, people who really have no clue about the electoral process, have no clue about voting, have no clue about the roles of what each politician does – what does a state assemblyman do? What does a city councilman do? What does a county executive do? It’s a missing piece in our education. People just don’t know how the legislative process works.

The good thing is there’s been a lot more voter engagement in the last five years than ever before, because I think people have realized that if you don’t vote, there are consequences. AOC exists because when she won, I think voter turnout was something like 10%. So 10% of the people decided to put her in and now we’re stuck with her for the rest of eternity. We lost a really pro-Israel congressman out of apathy. We can’t let that happen. We can’t let apathy undermine our needs.

So true – it’s important for people to become involved voters. Are there any books you would recommend for parents to read?

I’m not one of those types of people who recommend books, but I would think that Make Them, Not Break Them is a basic one.

More important than the resiliency and all those other things we talked about is to at least not damage your child.

As a parent, Hashem has given you the most incredible thing in the world. It’s a tremendous gift. Don’t mess it up. Don’t mess it up by being too overbearing and don’t mess it up by being absent.

You’re not going to be perfect, and that’s OK. There’s no such a thing as a perfect parent. The idea that a parent has to be perfect undermines a parent’s ability to be a good parent. Parenting comes with a lot of struggle and a lot of pain and a lot of crying and a lot of nights that are difficult. But don’t worry. Don’t worry about being perfect. Just be real and be the best person you can be.

If your kid sees that you’re real and you care and you love them and you struggle with them and you go through things with them, they’ll grow up great. That’s the secret.

IR’ Shmuel Luger Battling Addiction and Finding Hashem

By Eliyahu RosEnBERg

t wasn’t the most pleasant car ride home.

Shmuel’s father sat in the driver’s seat, his expression solemn yet sad. Next to him was his son, 14-year-old Shmuel.

The two were on their way back home after visiting Shmuel’s yeshiva. Well, it actually wasn’t his yeshiva. Not anymore. Shmuel had just been kicked out, and his father had come to take him home.

In His Words…

Every second of silence was dreadful. But talking felt scarier. At that moment, something needed to be said, but it seemed like there was nothing good to say. When Shmuel’s father broke the silence, he did so with a painful question.

“Shmuel,” the boy’s father said. “Do you still want to be…frum?”

Shmuel’s sad face turned surprised. His eyes lit up.

“Yeah, of course,” Shmuel replied. But that was a lie. In truth, he want-

hashem doesn’t want us to be robots. hashem wants us to be individuals. he wants us to follow our strengths. so what is it that we’re supposed to do? how are we supposed to connect? By using our own kochos and our own abilities and our own way of connecting to connect to hashem… you have something unique that you can bring to the table. hashem doesn’t love one more than the other when it comes to yidden. he loves all of us equally. a nd whatever you bring to the table, hashem wants.

i think people talk about the halachos of tying your shoes as an example of how halacha is restrictive... [But in reality], it gives me an opportunity every moment to connect to hashem. Even something as mundane as tying your shoes is an opportunity to connect to hashem.

With Torah, the sense of accomplishment never leaves. you sit and learn, and you’re connected to hashem. you can be connected to that happiness every single day.

ed out. He was sick of the religion, of the rules. In his teenage mind, frumkeit was a prison, and he wanted his freedom.

“My Judaism was largely, ‘do what you’re told.’ There was a very open-ended quality to it,” Rabbi Shmuel Luger explains. “It wasn’t like, at some point, you’re going to find it geshmak and it’s going to be awesome and you’re going to be connected. It was just like, ‘Yeah, this is what we do.’ We’re told this is the most important thing, but I don’t really remember them ever mentioning emunah and bitachon or Hashem much in yeshiva. Kiddush Hashem was this thing that happened on trips — singing, ‘2-4-6-8, who do we appreciate? The bus driver!’ — but what does it actually mean to be mikadesh shem Shamayim?”

In school, Shmuel always learned that one who breaks Shabbos will die. So, naturally, the first time he did something muktzah, he was confused as to why he was still alive. Shmuel was seven years old, and he had mistakenly flipped on a light switch. Fearing that someone would think he did it intentionally, the young boy turned the light back off. “And I didn’t die,” he recalls. “So I thought, ‘Oh. What else isn’t true about this?’”

Rabbi Shmuel Luger’s childhood, growing up in Monsey, was normal in many ways. He went to yeshiva, had friends, and played sports. But in other ways, it was abnormal. From as young as he could remember, he felt like he didn’t belong. Tragically, he was neither comfortable in his Yiddishkeit nor in his own skin.

“When I was nine, I had my first real drink. And it was just an amazing feeling. It made me feel a lot more confident with who I was and what was happen-

ing. Life around me, to some extent, felt overwhelming,” Rabbi Luger shares.

“There were definitely things that were going on. I didn’t feel comfortable in my own skin. I had been beaten and bullied. I just felt, from every possible angle, like a target — whether it was true or not didn’t really make so much of a difference. It’s just the way I felt. So, I was withdrawing more and more.”

As time went on, drinking became an increasingly consistent hobby for young Shmuel — his coping mechanism for all the negative feelings that haunted him. In high school, the habit turned into an addiction. And when Shmuel went to Israel after high school, it escalated further. When he returned to the U.S., things got even worse, as he was suddenly expected to become an adult, but he didn’t know where to begin.

“Mentally, I wasn’t in a great place. I started working, and that was great. But drinking was still a huge part of my life. And then, at work, I got injured and I got prescribed medication. And that just took it to the next level. Once you start something like that, the door kind of opens up, especially if you have an addictive personality. So, if one is good, two is better, a hundred is even better, but there’s never a number that’s enough,” Rabbi Luger shares.

“Very quickly it became a habit. I can’t tell you when a person gets addicted on a chemical level, but it was definitely a big challenge. I left yeshiva and walked away from everything, not because of the drugs or drinking, but because of the whole package of everything that was happening.”

He knew it was a problem but didn’t see much point in changing. He knew it was killing him, but he couldn’t get

himself to care. One day, when he was 22, he spoke to a friend of his about his predicament. At the time, Shmuel was reeling from depression and anxiety.

“What’s your goal here? What are you trying to do?” his friend asked.

Shmuel said he doesn’t care.

“Well, this is no way to live,” his friend said. “Are you willing to try a different way and stop drinking and everything else?”

Shmuel said yes.

“I said, ‘Yeah,’ mainly because I didn’t want to lose the friendship that I had with him. I was very close with him,” Rabbi Luger recalls. “So, someone came and picked me up and took me to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. That was 15 years ago, and I’ve been in recovery pretty much ever since.”

* * *

After he started recovery, Shmuel’s life got worse before it got better. He had depended on the substances to cope with life; without them, he felt helpless.

“I got sober, but I was still miserable because I didn’t know how to live life. So, I just threw myself into work, got very sick from overworking myself and from my inability to deal with stress. I was a very good worker, and I just kept climbing the ladder and getting promotion after promotion. I was doing great on the surface. So, on paper, I’m great. I’m 22. I’m sober. I’m almost done with college. I’m a capable person. I have a good work ethic. I should be great. I should be really happy,” he shares. “I have no clue, but I don’t think I’d ever felt more lost in my life. I started having panic attacks, my blood pressure was through the roof. And that’s when I had the realization that I was trying to run the world; I was trying to completely control my life. It was like pure hishtadlus. I wasn’t taking what Hashem gives me and balancing emunah and hishtadlus. I was in survival mode rather than thrive mode.” He decided he had to relax. From then on, he worked fewer

hours, stopped the cycle of workaholism, and began doing things he enjoyed: going to concerts, restaurants, and spending hours in the gym. Life wasn’t perfect, but for the first time, he was taking care of himself and having fun.

He kept that up for five years. And then, his mother suddenly passed away. He was at the gym when his father called and told him that his mother wasn’t going to make it. Shmuel got in his car and headed to Monsey. As he drove, he started thinking about his relationship with his mother. There was a period of a year and nine months when he hadn’t spoken to his parents. One day, after being sober for a while, he had decided to call his mother. He’d told her everything that was going on in his life. He didn’t expect her to accept him. But to his surprise, that’s when his relationship with his mother began to flourish. For four and a half years, they had a close and real relationship, even though he wasn’t religious.

After his mother passed away, Shmuel sat shiva and went to shul to say kaddish. And though he didn’t immediately change his lifestyle, he gradually started returning to his roots.

Then, he and his roommate decided to take a two-week trip to Israel. The experience was grounding — he started thinking about his future and his priorities, and what kind of family he would like to raise — and the trip was inspiring, too, so much so that he decided to make aliyah.

Within the span of six weeks, Shmuel’s life changed in four major ways. First, he moved to Israel. Two weeks after he made aliyah, he married his wife. Less than a month after that, he joined a semicha program at a Kollel, despite the fact that he hadn’t learned Torah seriously for a long time. And then, his wife was expecting.

“Baruch Hashem, through AA and the 12 Steps, I had a way of living life that made it that this stuff wasn’t crazy overwhelming for me. I’m not saying it

was a total breeze, but at the same time, it was totally manageable. And it just catapulted me to a completely different plane of existence,” Rabbi Luger shares. “Because, once I made that right decision, it set up all the next decisions. And going and learning gave me an opportunity to work on building that connection with Hashem. I never really worked and focused on halacha, growing up. But when I went to the semicha program, it gave me structure and taught me what I’m supposed to do. And I stopped looking at it as restrictive.

“I think people talk about the halachos of tying your shoes as an example of how halacha is restrictive. First of all, I don’t think anybody’s going to gehenom because they don’t tie their shoes properly — ask bigger people than me if it’s that case. Instead, it gives me an opportunity every moment to connect to Hashem. Even something as mundane as tying your shoes is an opportunity to connect to Hashem.”

* * *

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

With encouragement from his mentors, Rabbi Shmuel Luger, a few years ago, started a yeshiva called Yeshivas Veshachanti for boys who, like his younger self, have trouble connecting to Yiddishkeit. But it’s not only a place where boys learn Torah; it also develops them into adults and prepares them for a career and marriage.

As Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Luger’s goal is to enhance each talmid’s relationship with Hashem and Yiddishkeit.

“Hashem doesn’t want us to be robots. Hashem wants us to be individuals. He wants us to follow our strengths. So what is it that we’re supposed to do? How are we supposed to connect?” Rabbi Luger asks. “By using our own kochos and our own abilities and our own way of connecting to connect to Hashem…

“You have something unique that you can bring to the table. Hashem doesn’t love one more than the other when it comes to Yidden. He loves all of us equally. And whatever you bring to the table, Hashem wants.”

Dating Dialogue What Would You Do If…

Moderated by Jennifer Mann, LCSW of The Navidaters

Dear Navidaters,

Thank you for your insightful column. I appreciate all the panelists and their perspectives.

I am 26 and have been dating since I’ve been 21. I am dating a guy seriously now (let’s call him Aaron). It’s been three months so far, and things had been progressing really well! I just met his parents. His mother is so sweet, but to put it simply, his father is inappropriate and really has no filter.

They took us to dinner at Reserve Cut, which was super nice of them. But during our dinner, the comments his dad made made me super uncomfortable. Just a few examples, “No wonder you have such a great figure, all you eat is salad! Get a steak!” “Aaron you did good... We always knew he’d end up with a blonde,” “You’re the only girl in your family; you must have daddy issues” … to name a few. All the while his mother made apologetic statements to which his father seemed oblivious.

I laughed it all off at the time as he seemed to just be a big personality. Other moments during dinner were very good and normal, but then he’d come out with some inappropriate joke.

I don’t know what to make of this. Do I re-think this whole relationship because his father is like this? Or do I just laugh it off? Is it a red flag about Aaron or completely not connected?

Thanks, Miri*

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.

Don’t condemn Aaron because of his father. However, you do want to make sure that Aaron is socially appropriate and has proper social skills.

You don’t want to tag his father as inappropriate in an obvious way. That would be insensitive. See if you can find social situations where you can see whether Aaron has social skills. And do find out from him and others about his relationships with friends and peers. You can also check through fellow congregants. Is he appropriate and does he pick up on social cues?

The Shadchan

Wow, what a conundrum! I completely understand how you must be feeling right now. You’re in a great relationship with Aaron, and then BAM, you realize his dad clearly has no filter. This was a speed bump you were not expecting.

Many good relationships end up at some kind of crossroad where one recognizes the need to stop and think. Aaron’s father clearly has issues, but are they issues you are willing to leave Aaron for? Or are you able to laugh his father off and look at him with an element of pity mixed with

humor? Can you look at him as a bit nebach and try not to take him so seriously?

You must have a talk with Aaron about this so you are on the same page. You will want to set the record straight about expectations when you visit his family. Discuss how you’d like Aaron to react/defend you when his father brings these topics up. Also, you will want to discuss boundaries surrounding how often (or not often) you will spend time with his family.

As long as you have a game plan for all of these potential issues, things will be a lot less anxiety provoking. Make sure you feel that Aaron is taking your feelings seriously and not belittling you. You want to be very careful to make sure he is on your side and sympathetic. It would be a red flag if Aaron makes light of your feelings and tries to convince you that you’re overreacting. Hatzlacha navigating this!

The Zaidy

Dr. Jeffrey Galler

All singles fantasize that their in-laws will be decorous, jovial, and supportive wellsprings of wisdom and love – kind of like my wife and me. Unfortunately, the reality is often in-law shock.

Your boyfriend’s father may have thought he was being funny and friendly. But he was coarse and cringe-inducing. Now, you are wondering whether to laugh it off, run for the hills, or brace yourself for a lifetime of uncomfortable remarks. Here are some thoughts for you to consider.

How do you view this situation?

• If you have met the right guy, do not drop him because of his parents’ shortcomings.

• If his parents raised such an incredible young man, they cannot be all bad.

• If your boyfriend was equally mortified by his father’s comments, that is a very encouraging sign.

• If you remember that many parents are just as nervous as you are when meeting a potential son-in-law or daughter-inlaw, you will understand that in trying too hard to make a good impression, we can sometimes come across as awkward or inappropriate.

How do you lessen the impact of inappropriate in-laws?

• You can reframe coarseness as humorous, by viewing it as quirky eccentricity. If you can laugh at a strange comment, you can reduce tension and maintain peace.

You may discover that the father’s awkward comments become nothing more than background noise.

• You must avoid turning this into friction between you and your husband. As unusual as his parents may be, they raised him and he loves them. Rather than criticizing or complaining, you can preserve shalom bayis by loving them, respecting them, and showing him that family harmony matters to you.

Michelle Mond

• You can fake it when necessary. When you are with your in-laws, put on your friendly face and respond to odd questions or comments with calm, warm, gentle replies.

• You do not have to live next door, and you can plan manageable visits of shorter duration on holidays and special occasions.

How do you incorporate Pavlovian techniques?

• When you apply classical conditioning techniques in your conversations with his father, you may be able to modify his inappropriate behavior.

• When his father says something proper or pleasant, respond with positive reinforcement. You can smile approvingly and respond generously, “That is so refreshing to hear,” or, “I love when you say things like that,” or, “I can see where my husband gets his wisdom.”

• When he says something out of line, do the opposite. Look blank, offer no reaction, and let the moment fall flat. Over time, he may learn which comments get rewarded.

How do you envision your future?

You are not marrying his father. You are marrying his

son. If this young man treats you with kindness, loyalty, respect, and love, then you may discover that the father’s awkward comments become nothing more than background noise. Couples thrive when they focus on each other, on common goals and aspirations, and not on unimportant distractions.

Reader’s Response

Isaiah Cox

The Curmudgeon

Dear Miri,

If I were you, I would send the following letter, on actual old-fashioned paper, to Aaron’s father. I think the reason I suggest this path should be self-evident from the text.

Dear Prospective Father-In-Law, Thank you for the delicious dinner and company the other night. I appreciate your kindness and generosity.

I am writing this letter (instead of going through other channels) for a few reasons. First of all, I never want to create drama in a family, and I certainly don’t want to be in the position of unnecessar-

Pulling It All Together

Dating and Relationship Coaches and Therapists

Dear Miri,

Thank you so much for writing in. Meeting a partner’s parents is already a vulnerable moment, and when someone behaves in a way that feels inappropriate or uncomfortable, it can leave you unsure of how seriously to take it. The comments his father made weren’t harmless jokes; they crossed boundaries and objectified you. Your discomfort is completely under-

ily creating tension or conflict between a son and his father or between any other members of a family. I am keenly aware that I never want to embarrass another person, and certainly not someone whom I would like to respect.

Which is why this letter is just between us; I have no intention of sharing it with Aaron or anyone else.

I am writing with a very serious purpose in mind. I am quite sure that you meant your remarks the other night in the most positive way imaginable. And I am flattered – really! It can be refreshing to hear what someone is thinking without any of the normal social filters. And I know you meant no harm.

My problem is that I need those filters to be there. Your comments hurt me. They made me doubt whether a long-term relationship with Aaron is worth being made to feel the way you made me felt. I am simply not willing to be made uncomfortable like that. Ever again.

In short, if we are to have a relationship going forward, then I need your help and active support.

Our future can only play out one of three ways:

1: Aaron and I break up. If that happens, it would be because you refused to react to this letter constructively.

2: Aaron and I marry and have a blessed life, with children and the works. But if you have not been able to

It’s about whether you feel heard, validated, and protected by the man you’re dating.

filter your thoughts, then this family will be separate. Aaron will not only “leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife” as the Torah commands him to do, but there will also only be minimal contact between Aaron’s family and yours.

3: Aaron and I marry and have a blessed life, with children and the works. If you are able to filter yourself appropriately, then you will be a full part of that future.

No reply to this letter is needed: how you speak about and to me in the future will be answer enough.

I deeply hope that you take this letter to heart, and we are able to have a long and healthy relationship, sharing simchas for many years to come. I want to respect and love you as my father-in-law. I pray that you choose to honor my wishes.

Optimistically, Miri

standable.

That said, this isn’t really about his father. Plenty of wonderful, emotionally healthy people come from families with one difficult or inappropriate parent. What matters far more is how Aaron relates to what happened and how he relates to you.

If Aaron is able to say, “I know my dad can be inappropriate and I’m sorry you had to sit through that — how did it feel for you?” that shows emotional maturity, empathy, and the ability to create safety inside the relationship. If, instead, he shrugs it off, minimizes your feelings, or expects you to laugh it away, that tells you something important, too.

This isn’t about whether you can tolerate his father’s personality. It’s about whether you feel heard, validated, and protected by the man you’re dating. You’re

not looking for him to fix his dad…just to be attuned enough to acknowledge what the evening was like for you. So check in with Aaron. Share how you felt, gently and honestly. His response will give you the clarity you need. Often the red flag isn’t the parent’s behavior — it’s whether the person you’re dating recognizes the impact and holds your experience with care.

Warmly, Jennifer

There are some kinds of pain that move silently through a person’s life. They don’t make noise. They don’t show themselves in dramatic ways. Instead, they sit quietly beneath the surface while the person carrying them tries to look normal. They put on clean clothing, show up to work, manage carpool, host meals, laugh at jokes, take photos, and smile politely. They look fine. Sometimes they even look stronger, happier, or more composed than the average person. But inside, they may be fighting a battle that is stealing their energy breath by breath.

A recent Meaningful Minute skit captured this reality with rare honesty. It struck a chord because it reflected something almost everyone knows but rarely says out loud: you never truly know what someone else is living through. Depression doesn’t always look sad. Anxiety doesn’t always look frightened. Pain doesn’t always look broken. And the people who seem the most put-together are sometimes the ones holding themselves together by the thinnest thread.

This is why grace matters. Not as a lofty idea, but as a way of moving through the world. Grace for others. Grace for ourselves. Grace as a form of compassion and as a form of truth.

The Hidden Battles

No One Sees

We live in a world where struggle can be carefully edited out. With a smile, a filtered picture, or a well-timed joke, we can cover the darkest parts of our hearts. People can be deeply depressed yet still functioning. They can be anxious yet still parenting. They can be grieving yet still showing up at work with a polished face and a polite greeting.

Invisible pain is real. It walks beside people every day. It sits with people at Shabbos tables. It shows up in meet-

Health & F tness Behind Every Smile There is a Story

By Rivka Kramer, PMHNP-BC

ings. It stands behind people in line at the grocery store. You can be talking to someone who is fighting to get out of bed in the morning, and you would never know.

Mental health struggles do not always look dramatic. They do not always look like tears or a crisis. They can look like a person who is organized, capable, and put-together. They can look like a mother who runs a home beautifully but breaks down the moment the door closes behind her. They can look like a father who cracks jokes all day but feels completely empty inside.

We have to stop assuming that struggle looks a certain way. People often look “fine” because they are trying their best. Not because they are not hurting.

The Power of Slowing Down Before We Judge

We are humans, and we naturally evaluate the world in front of us. But sometimes our quick conclusions do more harm than good. We judge a snapped comment as disrespect. We in-

terpret a lack of warmth as arrogance. We label a moment of forgetfulness as irresponsibility.

But what if the person who snapped has been awake all night caring for a sick child? What if the person who seemed distant is battling depression so heavy they can barely breathe? What if the person who forgot something important has been dealing with overwhelming anxiety that is draining their ability to manage details?

Grace asks us to pause and ask a simple, life-changing question:

What if there is more to this story than I can see?

This question is not about giving people excuses. It is about giving people space to be human. It is about giving people the dignity of complexity. No one is one dimensional. No one is a single moment. No one deserves to be judged on the worst day of their life.

Grace is a softening of the heart. It is the choice to lean into kindness instead of conclusions. It is the decision to recognize that we all have moments we are

not proud of and that we all hope others will understand.

Giving Grace to Those We Love Most

It is often hardest to give grace to the people closest to us. When we love someone deeply, their actions can hit us more intensely. A sharp tone. A moment of withdrawal. A forgotten errand. These things can sting.

But love also gives us the ability to look deeper.

If your spouse seems distant, it does not automatically mean they are upset with you. They may be overwhelmed, stressed, or emotionally drained. If your child is acting out, it may not be defiance. It may be confusion, anxiety, or insecurity.

If your friend suddenly goes quiet, it may not be disinterest. It may be exhaustion, sadness, or fear.

Grace allows us to ask with sincerity: - Are you OK?

- How can I support you?

- What is happening underneath the surface?

It builds bridges where misunderstanding could have built walls. It creates connection instead of conflict. And sometimes, it is exactly what helps someone open up about the pain they were too afraid to show.

Grace for Ourselves

We often speak about giving others grace but rarely about giving grace to ourselves. And the truth is many people are far more forgiving of others than they are of themselves.

We tell ourselves we should be stronger. We should have handled that better. We should not feel this way. We should be able to juggle everything without breaking.

We speak to ourselves with a harshness we would never use on another person.

But what if we extended the same compassion inward? What if we recognized that we also have invisible battles? Our own fears. Our own disappointments. Our own exhaustion. Our own trauma. Our own healing.

Grace for ourselves looks like:

- Allowing yourself to rest without guilt.

- Admitting when something feels too heavy.

- Forgiving yourself for the days you are not at your best.

- Understanding that your worth does not depend on constant performance.

- Knowing you are allowed to be a work in progress.

You do not have to earn the right to be human. You already are.

How Grace Changes Communities

A community built on grace feels different. Conversations are gentler. Interactions are more patient. Differences are navigated with curiosity instead of judgment.

Imagine if we looked at each other with softer eyes. Imagine if we assumed goodness instead of assuming the worst. Imagine if we allowed people to be com-

plicated and imperfect and still deserving of understanding.

Grace turns communities into safe havens. It allows people to show up as they are. It encourages honesty. It reduces shame. It builds support instead of fear.

A childhood that shaped them. Experiences that changed them. Wounds that still ache. Dreams that have not yet been fulfilled. Fears they hide behind laughter. Emotions they do not have the words for.

When we see someone only through

Imagine if we allowed people to be complicated and imperfect and still deserving of understanding.

When people know they will not be judged for their struggles, they are more likely to seek help. They are more likely to share. They are more likely to feel connected instead of isolated.

Grace strengthens relationships. Grace reduces conflict. Grace transforms the way we move through the world.

Remembering That We All Have a Story

At the heart of it all, grace is about remembering that everyone has a story.

the moment we encounter them, we miss the full picture. Grace reminds us to look deeper. To assume that there is more than meets the eye.

We do not lose anything by being kinder. But we can give someone everything.

The Soft Strength of Grace

Grace is not weakness. It is strength of the highest form. It takes strength to hold back judgment. It takes strength to choose understanding. It takes strength

to treat people with compassion even when they are difficult. It takes strength to forgive yourself for not being perfect.

We are all walking through this life with invisible weight. Some days are heavier than others. Some seasons are darker than others. Grace is the gentle voice that says:

- You are trying

- You are worthy

- You are human

- And that is enough

Meaningful Minute reminded us of a simple truth. You never know what someone is carrying. This is why we give grace to others. And this is why we must also give grace to ourselves.

Because the world becomes softer when we soften. And sometimes, a single moment of grace is the thing that helps a person make it through another day.

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.

Fighting with a spouse can be an incredibly uncomfortable and frustrating experience. Yet when people can share and receive more vulnerably from each other, fighting slows and conflict resolves. This is true, and something that I’ve seen time and time again. At the same time, this leaves the elephant in the room: what if the conflict itself is the problem?

Let’s take a new hypothetical couple, Yehuda and Malky. Yehuda and Malky generally have a strong relationship – they support and feel supported by each other, enjoy spending time together, and when they have arguments, they are able to work through most of them without any lingering resentments.

They have one sticking point: Malky’s aging mother. Malky is concerned about her mother, and as the only child in the country, she wants to move closer to be near her mother and help her when needed. Yehuda understands Malky’s concern, but he does not want to move. “If we move, I’ll end up needing to travel an extra two hours each day for work or find a new job. The kids’ schedules will be completely disrupted, and the school we found for our oldest is the one place where he is finally thriving. We can’t give that up after years of struggle.”

Malky and Yehuda show up at my office in the middle of this crossroad. Like many couples dealing with what I call a “non-compromisable” concern, they feel stuck and desperate. They understand where each other are coming from, but they also feel the weight of their own concerns. Neither of them want to force the other to do something that they will be miserable about, but they also can’t give up on their own needs.

Conflicts like these are real. Yehuda and Malky have a secure, strong relationship, and that by itself isn’t going to make this conflict disappear.

My job as a therapist is not to be a judge or a decision maker. I’m not the one living in Yehuda or Malky’s life, and because of that, I can’t say that one option is the better one. They both have valid

Wired for Connecti n

Standstill

By Michal Goldman, LCSW

reasons for holding their positions. What I can do is help the couple take off some of the extra load and really isolate the problem as the problem itself.

With conflicts like these, which can be life-altering and very emotionally laden, what often happens is that each person starts to overexplain their perspective, hoping that with some more explanation, something can change. As Yehuda and Malky do this, not only do the conversa-

are just dealing with the problem itself. The noise around it quiets.

Yehuda and Malky spend a few months working on focusing on each other’s perspective and validating each other without immediately jumping in with their side of the story. As they do that, the anxiety around the conversation lessens, and slowly, they find themselves having conversations about it, not by overexplaining their points, but by making lists

With something so weighty, it can be easy to fall into the trap of overexplaining.

tions go in circles, both partners end up feeling more frustrated and misunderstood, which leads them to tiptoe around the conversation or speak for hours while the anxiety is increasingly rising.

My job as the therapist is to help Yehuda and Malky take away all that extra noise that came from their conversations where they felt misunderstood and frustrated. When they can work through that and reconnect as a (loving) team who both want to figure out the best things for their family, then we

of what would need to be done in either situation. Malky begins imagining more what it would be like if she didn’t move, and Yehuda begins accepting the possibility of moving.

None of this changed the situation. The situation itself is hard – there is no perfect compromise, and one of them will end up not being where they want to be. Instead, the work that Yehuda and Malky did separated a challenging situation in life from their relationship – the challenge is still a challenge, and their relationship

is their relationship, and is stronger for the work that they’ve put in.

Try This at Home if You are at a Standstill

• Shift your focus to listening instead of responding. With something so weighty, it can be easy to fall into the trap of overexplaining. When that happens, pause, and shift your focus into trying to better understand your partner. Chances are, in this situation, they already know your perspective, but they haven’t had the experience of feeling understood by you.

• Separate the problem from your relationship. Remind yourselves that you are both a team. Life will bring challenges, and not all of them will have perfect solutions. Your relationship is stronger than the problem, and it doesn’t need to be impacted.

• Managing hope and grief. In situations like these, where one person will end up without what they want, there is often a grieving process. It can be helpful for both of you to acknowledge and process some of that grief (through writing or speaking with a friend or therapist). Simultaneously, try to maintain hope by imagining the potential positive aspects of any resolution, even if it’s not your preferred one. For instance, Yehuda could focus on the benefits for him of moving, while Malky considers the upsides for her of staying. This can lower the stakes in the conversation, making discussion easier.

Michal Goldman is a licensed clinical social worker in Queens specializing in helping individuals and couples navigate relationship challenges. She can be reached through her website at www.michalgoldmanlcsw. org, via email at michalgoldmanlcsw@ gmail.com, or by phone at 917-590-0258. If you have questions that you would like answered here, you can submit them to the email provided. This content is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a replacement for therapy.

Health & F tness

Eat Better, Think Better Foods for Brain Health

By Aliza Beer MS, RD, CDN

The human brain is an incredibly complex organ, responsible for cognition, memory, emotional regulation, and overall mental well-being. As we age, however, the brain undergoes various structural and functional changes that can impact these abilities. One of the most concerning conditions associated with aging is dementia, a broad category of cognitive decline that includes Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form.

Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia cause progressive damage to brain cells. In Alzheimer’s disease specifically, abnormal proteins (amyloid-beta plaques and tau tangles) begin to accumulate in the brain. These disrupt communication between neurons, trigger inflammation, and eventually lead to the death of brain cells. Over time, areas involved in memory, learning, and decision-making shrink, which is why symptoms gradually worsen. Reduced blood flow, chronic oxidative stress (cell damage caused by unstable molecules), and long-term inflammation also play major roles in this decline.

Research into the prevention of these conditions has focused increasingly on lifestyle factors, particularly diet. While there is no definitive cure for dementia or Alzheimer’s, studies suggest that certain foods and nutrients may play an important role in promoting brain health, improving cognitive function, and potentially reducing the risk of neurodegenerative diseases.

The Connection Between Diet and Brain Health

The idea that what we eat can impact our brain function is not new. Studies have consistently shown that diet influences not only our physical health but also the health of our brain. The brain

is an energy-intensive organ, consuming roughly 20% of the body’s daily energy. Its neurons are sensitive to damage from oxidative stress and inflammation, which play a central role in causing Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases.

In Alzheimer’s, oxidative stress and inflammation accelerate the buildup of harmful proteins, weaken brain cell membranes, and make it harder for neurons to send signals. Chronic inflammation can also damage the blood vessels that supply the brain, limiting oxygen and nutrients.

Diets rich in antioxidants, anti-inflammatory compounds, and omega-3 fatty acids have been found to help protect the brain by reducing this damage, improving blood flow, and supporting the brain’s ability to make new connections. Antioxidants neutralize harmful molecules that contribute to plaque buildup, while anti-inflammatory foods help calm the brain’s immune response, preventing further injury. Omega-3 fatty acids, found in foods like fatty fish and walnuts, support the structure of neuron membranes and help reduce inflamma-

tion, which may slow the progression of cognitive decline.

Some foods can also help prevent the buildup of amyloid plaques linked to Alzheimer’s, keep brain blood vessels healthy, and support neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to form new connections) making them potentially powerful tools for protecting long-term brain function.

Foods That Benefit the Brain

1. Leafy Green Vegetables

Leafy greens like spinach, kale, and collard greens are rich in vitamins and minerals, particularly folate, vitamin K, and antioxidants like lutein. These nutrients support cognitive function and may help reduce the risk of dementia. Folate is especially important as it helps regulate homocysteine levels—a high homocysteine level can damage blood vessels and impair brain function. A study published in JAMA Neurology found that a higher intake of leafy greens was associated with slower cognitive decline, potentially due to the high vitamin K content, which plays a crucial role in brain cell signaling and neuroprotection.

2. Fatty Fish

Fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel, and sardines are excellent sources of omega-3 fatty acids, specifically EPA and DHA. These fats are essential for maintaining healthy brain cell structure, supporting communication between neurons, and reducing inflammation. Research consistently shows that omega-3s improve memory, learning, and overall cognitive function, making fatty fish a cornerstone of brain-boosting nutrition.

3. Berries

Berries, particularly blueberries, are packed with antioxidants like flavonoids, which protect brain cells from oxidative stress and inflammation—two key contributors to cognitive decline. These antioxidants also enhance communication between brain cells, which is crucial for memory and learning. Regular berry consumption has been linked to improved cognitive function, so incorporating a variety of berries such as blueberries, strawberries, and blackberries into your diet can provide a wealth of brain-boosting nutrients.

4. Nuts and Seeds

Nuts, especially walnuts, are a powerhouse for brain health. Rich in polyunsaturated fats, antioxidants, and vitamin E, walnuts help protect against oxidative stress and support cognitive function. Walnuts stand out due to their high content of omega-3 fatty acids, particularly ALA, which plays a role in improving memory and potentially reducing the risk of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. The vitamin E content in walnuts further supports brain health by neutralizing free radicals and protecting against age-related cognitive decline.

5. Turmeric

Turmeric contains curcumin, a compound with strong antioxidant and an-

ti-inflammatory properties. Curcumin can cross the blood-brain barrier, helping reduce inflammation and oxidative stress—both of which are linked to neurodegenerative diseases. It may also help break down amyloid plaques in the brain, which are associated with Alzheimer’s disease. While more research is needed, curcumin shows promise as a brain-boosting nutrient. Adding turmeric to your diet, whether in curries, smoothies, or teas, can be a flavorful way to support brain health.

6. Olive Oil

Extra virgin olive oil, a staple of the Mediterranean diet, is rich in monounsaturated fats and polyphenols. These antioxidants have anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective properties that may reduce the risk of cognitive decline. Studies suggest that people who regularly consume olive oil have better memory and cognitive function and a lower risk of Alzheimer’s. The polyphenols in olive oil help protect brain cells from oxidative stress and reduce the accumulation of harmful proteins associated with neurodegenerative diseases.

7. Whole Grains

Whole grains, such as oats, quinoa,

and brown rice, are excellent sources of fiber and B vitamins, both of which support brain health. Fiber helps regulate blood sugar levels, preventing spikes and crashes that can affect cognitive function. B vitamins, including B6, B12, and folate, are essential for maintaining healthy brain function and lowering homocysteine levels, which are associated with cognitive decline.

8.

Dark Chocolate

Dark chocolate (70% cocoa or higher) is rich in flavonoids, antioxidants, and essential minerals like magnesium and zinc. These compounds improve blood flow to the brain, support neuroplasticity, and enhance memory. Studies suggest that dark chocolate can also reduce the risk of neurodegenerative diseases. The flavonoids in dark chocolate have neuroprotective effects and help support cognitive function, making it a delicious and beneficial treat for the brain.

Tips for Incorporating

These Foods:

• Mix and match: Try adding leafy greens to smoothies, incorporate fatty fish into weekly meals, and enjoy a handful of berries as a snack.

• Snack: Keep a stash of nuts, especially walnuts, for a quick snack or add them to salads or oatmeal.

• Spice: Use turmeric in curry dishes, roasted vegetables, or even sprinkle it into smoothies or teas for an added boost.

• Olive oil: Use extra virgin olive oil for cooking or as a salad dressing. Drizzle it over roasted vegetables or even popcorn for a flavorful snack.

Foods to Avoid

While focusing on brain-boosting foods, it is equally important to avoid or limit foods that may contribute to cognitive decline. These include:

• Refined sugars and processed foods: Diets high in sugar and refined carbs can lead to insulin resistance, inflammation, and oxidative stress, all of which have been linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.

• Trans fats: Found in many processed and fried foods, trans fats can promote inflammation and impair brain function.

• Excessive alcohol consumption: Chronic alcohol use can damage brain cells

and contribute to cognitive decline.

The food choices we make can significantly impact our brain health and may play an important role in preventing or delaying the onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. A diet rich in leafy greens, fatty fish, berries, nuts, seeds, and healthy fats—particularly those found in olive oil—provides the nutrients and antioxidants that support brain function, protect against oxidative stress, and reduce inflammation.

Adopting such a diet may offer a promising strategy for enhancing cognitive function and preventing age-related cognitive decline. While diet alone cannot prevent Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia, it is a powerful tool when combined with other healthy lifestyle habits such as regular physical activity, mental stimulation, and social engagement.

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

Health & F tness Your Guide to Polarized Training

By Sara Weissman

Ipreviously introduced polarized training as a top training plan for elite high-volume endurance athletes. How does this approach translate to your own fitness journey?

To recap, “polarized training” emphasizes two extremes: low intensity and high intensity. This training model involves spending the majority of your time working out at low intensity (“easy”) and a small amount at high intensity (“hard”). In the polarized training model, moderate intensity is avoided, although, practically, even professionals who rigorously follow the polarized training model will occasionally exercise at moderate intensity.

Gauging Intensity

“Easy” and “hard” can feel relative, so there are some ways to ensure you are at the right intensity. Using the five-zone heart rate model, low intensity typically corresponds to “zone 2” and below, while high intensity corresponds to “zone 4” and above. Moderate intensity, which would be “zone 3,” is avoided. If you have a heart rate monitor (e.g., a fitness watch or chest strap), you can see if your heart rate is in the right zone. For low intensity, or zone 2, your heart rate should hover at roughly 60-70% of your maximum heart rate. For high intensity, or zone 4-5, aim for a heart rate greater than 85% of your maximum heart rate. Alternatively, you can use the talk test: if you can hold a conversation with some pauses, you are going easy. If getting more than a few words out at a time is impossible, you are going hard.

Easy workouts should not feel too taxing, so for some athletes, the greatest challenge is overcoming the fear of looking slow. You certainly should not feel burning in your lungs from this type of workout. Depending on your fitness, the heat, and the elevation, you may need to mix in some walking to stay in the right zone, which is nothing to be ashamed of.

High-Intensity Workouts

High-intensity workouts should usually be structured as intervals, meaning you go hard, recover, and repeat. This allows you to spend more total time at high inten-

sity than if you were doing one continuous, hard effort, thus maximizing the training stimulus for your body. As a bonus, intervals are usually mentally more approachable than a continuous, hard effort. The ideal interval length depends on your fitness goals, but for most people, alternating between short, medium, and long interval workouts on separate days is best, as each interval type covers its own unique fitness adaptations.

There is an abundance of interval workouts that follow no pattern. Both Peloton and Zwift (a popular cycling platform) have libraries filled with random interval workouts. Pushing the right amount in each interval is more challenging if each one is different. Progress across workouts also becomes more blurred. I follow Leonardo da Vinci’s mantra that “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” My personal recommendation is to keep intervals simple and structured. As a bonus, your Strava chart will look much cooler.

For runners, one classic track workout is 400-meter repeats. Each interval consists of a fast quarter mile (or one lap on the track), ideally faster than your 5K pace, followed by a break (walking or jogging). This is repeated 810 times, or if you’re a beginner, as many times as you can. Other common variations are 800-meter repeats, 1,000-meter repeats, and 1-mile repeats. As the interval

distance increases, you should adjust the number of repeats (down), speed (down), and time for recovery (up) accordingly. The same concepts apply to cyclists, although intervals are traditionally timebased rather than distance-based due to the more varied terrain.

Make sure to warm up before every intense workout to enhance performance and reduce injury risk. Recovery during an interval workout should be long enough that you’re able to maintain the same speed on the next interval, though often (and depending on the interval type), at the end of the recovery, you will not feel quite as fresh as you did when you started the workout.

I encourage you to try some of my suggestions or create your own interval workouts. Just follow these basic principles: keep intervals structured and simple; try different interval lengths on different days to target different adaptations; and leave enough time to recover between intervals.

Who Should Do Polarized Training?

Most published studies observe professional endurance athletes, and the polarized training approach typically works best compared to other traditional approaches. This applies to a variety of endurance athletes, such as runners, cyclists, rowers, and swimmers. These athletes often follow the

“80/20 rule,” which proposes a time ratio of ~80% low intensity and ~20% high intensity. However, it’s important to keep in mind that the vast majority of amateur runners have a significantly lower training volume than the professionals and will benefit from a higher percentage of time spent at high intensity.

If you are running two to three times a week, your risk of an overuse injury is reduced compared to higher-volume athletes. If performance is your priority, low-intensity exercises should take a smaller role. To make the most of your limited time, dedicate one to two of your weekly workouts to high intensity and throw in low or moderate intensity when a mental or physical break is needed. As David Roche writes in The Happy Runner, “Consistent beats epic, because epic is not consistent.” If improving race times is not your priority, an abundance of low-intensity runs can be helpful for low-volume runners. When I first started running, I loved my easy runs. I felt great pride in increasing my distance and enjoyed absorbing a podcast as I removed myself from the day’s stress. To me, easy runs can’t happen without hard runs, and that association motivated me to go to the track and bang out some hard intervals. If you are running twice a week and need one of your weekly runs to be easy (or even both when first starting out), do what you need to get yourself out there. If you enjoy running at a moderate intensity (which is avoided in polarized training), go for it. Ultimately, the best training plan is the one you stick with. Whether you love flying through intervals on the track, pushing your pace to impress your Strava followers, or slowing down to smell the flowers, the runners who improve are the ones who consistently show up.

Sara Weissman is a high school psychology teacher, biochemistry researcher, former adjunct professor of biology, and distance runner. Follow her running adventures on Strava @Sari Weissman. If you have feedback or suggestions for future articles, contact Sara at sara.lifshitz18@gmail.com.

School of Thought

By Etti Siegel

Q:Dear Etti,

I’m at my wit’s end. My daughter is bright, articulate, and curious. She’s the kind of child who can have an intelligent conversation with any adult and who reads everything she can get her hands on. But when it comes to schoolwork, she just…doesn’t.

Her teachers tell me she’s capable of excellent work; when she actually turns something in, it’s thoughtful and well-written. But those moments are few and far between. Most of the time, she doesn’t finish her classwork, puts off assignments until the last minute (if at all), and always seems to be “getting ready to start.”

At home, I see the same pattern. She’ll talk about her ideas for a project with great enthusiasm, but when it comes time to sit and do it, she’s suddenly “tired,” “needs a snack,” or “just remembered something else.” Her teachers are frustrated, and honestly, so am I. She’s too capable for this cycle to continue, but I’m not sure how to help her find her motivation or manage her time.

Do you have any suggestions for how we all can support her without making her feel like she’s a problem?

Sincerely,

- Frustrated but Hopeful Mom

A:Dear Frustrated but Hopeful, You’ve described a child who sounds delightful: verbal, insightful, and full of potential. The very qualities you notice – her strong language skills, curiosity, and rich imagination – are tremendous strengths. Bright children sometimes struggle most when it comes to managing their own time and work habits. Their minds are racing ahead, full of connections and ideas, while the real-world task in front of them feels slow, boring, or overwhelming.

It’s important that your daughter doesn’t start seeing herself as “lazy” or “the problem.” What she’s facing is a skill gap, not a character flaw. Skills like planning, prioritizing, and staying focused are part of what psychologists call executive functioning. These skills mature gradually, and for some children, especially those who are imaginative, easily distracted, or possibly have ADHD, they develop later or unevenly.

Large wall calendars can be helpful if the information gets on the board. A focus wall can be helpful; pictures of where she wants to be (drama head one day?), who she

wants to be (profession?), what she wants to have (a good report card? a necklace?). These keep her grounded. As she starts to slip away into a new daydream, she is reminded of her bigger goals.

Here are some more practical ways to help her build those skills without chipping away at her confidence:

1. Break Tasks Into Manageable Chunks

It’s important that your daughter doesn’t start seeing herself as “lazy” or “the problem.”

Big projects or long assignments can feel like climbing a mountain with no visible top. Sit down with her and break tasks into small, concrete steps: “head the paper,” “write the heading,” “choose a topic sentence.” Check them off as she goes. This builds momentum and gives her a sense of progress.

2. Help Her Prioritize

Many bright students are idea-rich but structure-poor. Have her make a short “Now, Next, Later” list when facing multiple assignments. Keeping it visual and limited helps prevent the freeze that comes from feeling overwhelmed.

3. Remove Unnecessary Distractions

Children like your daughter are often highly sensitive to their environment. A ringing or buzzing phone, other kids running around, or even an interesting book nearby can pull her away from her work. Create a quiet, as distraction-free as possible workspace where she can focus for short stretches.

4. Use Timed Work Bursts

Set a short timer, 10 or 15 minutes, and let her know she only needs to focus until it rings. Then she earns a short break. These “work sprints” can make tasks feel

less endless and help her brain learn the rhythm of effort and reward.

5. Celebrate Effort, Not Just Output

Make a point of noticing the small wins: “I love how you stuck with that paragraph,” or “You really planned that project step by step today.” Positive attention for effort, rather than nagging about avoidance, reinforces her progress.

6. Play Games Games are a wonderful way to strengthen a child’s ability to focus. Turn-taking, thinking ahead, learning strategy, and following directions all build the kind of mental discipline she, and all children, need to succeed. Even if you only have a few minutes, quick activities like “Simon Says” can make a real difference. It’s an all-age favorite that boosts attention, listening skills, and careful thinking while keeping things light and fun.

7. Consider an Evaluation

Since procrastination, disorganization, and distractibility can sometimes point to underlying ADHD or executive function challenges, it may be worth having her evaluated. A clear diagnosis (if there is one) can help guide the right supports both at home and in school. With patience, structure, and the right support, your daughter can learn to harness her strengths instead of being derailed by them. She’ll discover that her intelligence and creativity are assets, not obstacles, and that the same brain that loves ideas can also learn the strategies to get things done.

Hatzlacha, - Etti

Mrs. Etti Siegel holds a MS in Teaching and Learning/Educational Leadership and brings sound teaching advice to her audiences culled from her over 35 years of

ence.

is an Adjunct at the

Mount

Vincent/Sara Shenirer.

Yeled V’Yalda; is

Parenting Pearls Gifting Gratitude

By Sara Rayvych, MSEd

Itried to hold off on this article until Kislev. The sukkah was barely in the shed when I already overheard children discussing Chanukah. Like most people, I happen to like Chanukah, so the excitement didn’t surprise me. Unfortunately, most of their conversation revolved around what gifts they wanted. The vibe I got from the kids was one of continuously wanting bigger and better. Naturally, they didn’t phrase it this way, but I could tell it was the underlying feeling.

With this attitude, a person is never happy. There will always be something else they want – something newer, bigger or seemingly better. The society around us is built around this sentiment. Each day something different goes “viral,” another influencer discovers the greatest product, or a new item hits the shelves. This attitude is actively encouraged through more subtle means. Products today are meant to be limited time use only. Many items are either built to break or become outdated, quickly necessitating the purchase of a new one. The mixer purchased after my wedding lasted for over two decades; the new one sounds like it’s crying from a simple cookie dough.

It’s exhausting to keep chasing a fleeting feeling that doesn’t truly exist. They’re happy for the moment but soon looking for the next new thing they “have to have.” Still, there is nothing wrong with children receiving gifts or new items. Life is a balance, and parenting is no exception. But, among all the Chanukah gifts and other daily necessities, perhaps we can give our children the greater present – the gift of gratitude.

A Chanukah Note

Chanukah is such a beautiful yom tov. The menorah lights up our homes and hearts. The singing and dancing bring laughter and joy into the festivities. Latkes and sufganiot need no explanation as little hands reach out with excitement. Each night we are surrounded with a unique mitzvah of light and a reminder of our Divine purpose. As Jews in the cur -

rent galus, we readily see in ourselves and in our surroundings the temptations and dilemmas faced by the Jews of long ago – the enticement of the outside world and the desire to fit in, contrasted with the eternal holiness of our Torah and the beauty of mitzvos.

Each family has their own minhagim regarding presents and other gift giving on Chanukah, and this article is not taking a position on this matter. There are many ways to celebrate and enhance these days for our children, and it’s hard to deny the simcha that a new toy can bring. The issue isn’t whether or not a gift is given on Chanukah or any time of the year. The discussion is how to encourage parents to gift gratitude and other good middos with it.

The Issue

There are two complementary sides to this issue, one negative and the other positive. One part is intentionally avoiding the continuous need for more. The other side is experiencing gratitude for what we have (and receive). Both need to be actively included in a child’s chinuch. Children usually want more things. Their friend has it. Everyone has it (it’s always debatable if this is true). They saw it somewhere. It was advertised. A vision in a dream. There is no limit to the ways children can decide on the next latest and greatest “must have.”

As parents, we often underestimate the power of peer pressure and to what level children can be influenced. Having the “in thing” is perceived as more than merely acquiring a possession; it’s seen as a key to being accepted and as a status symbol. It doesn’t matter how silly the item is. Often, it seems like the more foolish the item is, the more desirable it becomes.

Being grateful for what we have is a separate but important middah. It could be considered one of the keys we give our children to help them attain a future of happiness. Children have to be taught to have gratitude – it’s not automatic.

Gratitude is a 24 hour a day experience. We can appreciate not only the gifts we openly receive wrapped in pretty paper but also the ones we tend to ignore. Air to breathe, food to eat (even if it’s not their favorite) and a body that functions. We have before us many daily gifts. We can either get simcha from appreciating each and every one of them or never notice they exist. The choice is ours.

Parents Lead

As with all areas of parenting, our children look to us as a guide for their own behavior. We may not recognize it, and the lessons we impart may be subtle or unintentional, but we are their guide. Our attitudes seep into them, diffusing into their hearts, minds and souls.

This can be rather frightening to think about. Imagining our every action being separately viewed by a pair of young, impressionable eyes can be overwhelming. At least by Rosh Hashana Hashem understands our challenges and intentions. With kids, they have only the view in front of them.

This can also be reassuring and inspiring. It’s so hard to teach our children everything there is to know as Torah Jews. To recognize the power of our actions, and that we can teach by example, gives us a powerful tool that is always available. We don’t have to think of complex algorithms to pass something on; we can live it ourselves and daven they follow us on the proper path.

It’s also an opportunity. We can be so focused on the daily needs of our children that we forget our own personal growth. By improving our own middos to match those we’d like our children to emulate, we’re also raising ourselves in the process. It’s amazing to think we can double the benefit of our every action. Not only are we growing as individuals, we’re also engaged in the act of chinuch ha’banim –true efficiency!

Our children notice if we’re always looking for the latest and greatest new item or if we purchase things based on our needs. They can tell if we need physical items to make us feel secure as individuals or if we can appreciate our worth separate from our possessions. Our children can sense if we value the daily gifts we have or if we ignore what we receive. As we prepare for Chanukah and work to make the yom tov even more meaningful, we can add the gift of gratitude to the list.

Sara Rayvych, MSEd, holds a master’s degree in general and special education. She has been homeschooling for over 15 years. Sara provides personalized parent mentoring services, addressing a variety of general and specific parenting concerns. She can be contacted at Sara.Rayvych@gmail.com with comments, questions or for private consultations.

Shmooze & Muse

The Heimishe Minyan

By Mordechai Schmutter

I’m always up for a Motzei Shabbos Maariv in someone’s house. Even when it’s not Motzei Shabbos. Yet.

People who eat shalosh seudos in shul probably don’t know what I’m talking about, unless they’re really committed, or they eat shalosh seudos in the house of the neighbor at whom they’re davening Maariv.

The other people who don’t know what I’m talking about are the people who drive to shul on Friday while their wife lights candles. They’re like, “I can’t go to your living room Maariv with you; I have to go to shul for my car.”

“You can get your car later. I can drive you there.”

“No, I’m blocking people in.”

The home minyan has a whole different vibe than the shul you’ve been davening in the rest of Shabbos. It’s more heimish, for lack of a better word. There’s no membership, no dinner, everyone knows everyone, and no one’s kicking you out of their makom kavua , like, “No, I daven on the third step. You can daven on the sixth or the ninth. Those guys are away for Shabbos.”

And it’s very clear who’s in charge, though it’s not the guy whose house it is, like you’d think. He did not get into this minyan to do work. He did so he could

daven in his slippers. And the guy’s wife likes it because it allows her to clean up from shalosh seudos before Shabbos is over. She gets an early start on cleaning, which doesn’t count for much, because she has to be absolutely still in the back of the house while you daven.

But she’s also happy that her husband is home immediately after Maariv, tallis already folded, and isn’t out shmoozing who-knows-where.

“What?! I had to walk everyone out!”

You’re always davening in the room that the kids play, and their toys are everywhere, and you have to make sure that when you back up three steps, it’s not into the puzzle.

And there’s always this odd collection of siddurim to choose from, piled on the arm of the couch. Way more siddurim than the number of people that can fit in the house.

Like what’s with the pink siddur that closes with a zipper? Does his daughter know we’re using her siddur? Why is there a zipper? I can’t imagine a scenario where I would need to zip my siddur shut.

“No more davening now. I locked it. It’s all in the hands of the Ribbono Shel Olam at this point.”

Is she supposed to put a little lock on it if she doesn’t want people to use it? Are

there private bakashos written in the margins? Is she preserving her tears in there? Is it that the siddur has weak binding and the pages are always falling out, so they put in a zipper?

I kind of wish yeshiva Gemaras came with a zipper, so you can put loose notes in there.

The host also puts a Chumash out that no one takes, because they’re like, “There’s no leining tonight, right?” And he’s like, “No, there’s Shabbos davening in the back. I think. Oh, wait, maybe not this one.”

Everyone is instead going for the Mincha/Maarivs that they give out at bar mitzvahs that have no Viyhi Noam. But they do have Atah Chonantanu.

He also has a whole set of Machzorim out.

“What?! There’s a Maariv at the end! Maariv for Motzei Rosh Hashana, Maariv for Motzei Yom Kippur… The only thing you have to say by heart is Mashiv Haruach. And Viyhi Noam.”

There’s also a kid’s siddur siddur that’s lost all of Shacharis, one page at a time, but it still has a decent cushion before it starts losing Maariv. And there’s a Shiloh Siddur, and you’re wondering, “When did they make orange Shilohs?”

“I don’t know; my wife brought it into

the marriage.”

And then you hear a voice from the back of the house: “It was my grandfather’s!” And everyone’s davening in a coat. Except the people who live really close, who b’davka don’t bring a coat, to save time, and they come in dark red.

But it’s a nice change. Wherever your shul is, even if it’s closer, you just walked all the way there three times in 24 hours. More if there was Avos Ubanim. You want to walk in a different direction for a change. Turn on different motion sensor lights on the way there.

I sometimes walk further to a home Maariv than I do to shul. When else do you get to daven on a couch? Without feeling guilty, I mean? At a shiva home? You can’t daven on your own couch.

The best is actually Friday night Mincha-Maariv in someone’s house. Kabbalas Shabbos on a couch? And your kid has to pull you up Bo’i B’shalom? And then again for Barchu?

And you definitely want to be one of the asara rishonim to this minyan, so you could claim the corner of the couch. And also so you can grab a siddur that’s actually a siddur.

People walk in, “Do we have ten? I don’t see.”

“Yeah, Mordechai’s on the couch. We

just have to wake him.”

They’re like, “Who wants to go outside and snag a passerby?”

“Not me. I’m on the couch. I’m OK if we don’t start for a while.”

No one’s actually sure what time it’s supposed to start, because there’s no official zmanim. It’s all word of mouth, like an illegal speakeasy: “Maariv at Roffman.”

“When?”

“After dark? I don’t know.”

You all look at the guy in charge like, “What time are we davening, again?” And he says a random time that does not seem to fit the cheshbon of what time it was last week.

“Oh, we’re doing 60? I think last week we did 50.”

It keeps everyone on their toes so they all come a little bit early. And then everyone gets to shmooze a little before, and it brings the block together. That’s why they keep it vague, so you can say, “Welp! Got to go to Maariv!” and your wife doesn’t say, “Doesn’t it start later?”

“We don’t know when it starts!”

And then you announce what time Shabbos is over as you leave, because no one else in your house knows how to figure it out. You’re that guy for your house.

You don’t want to be the first one there, though. You want to at least walk in with one other person who doesn’t live there. And you’ll stand outside until that person comes. You show up too early, and it’s awkward. It’s not like a shul, where you can just open up a sefer.

“Where do you keep your Kitzur?”

“I don’t know; our kid needed it in yeshiva this year.”

“Ooh, a Chumash!”

He asked earlier, but he thought they were being sarcastic.

And all the host’s older kids are still on the couch, reading, in your seat…

So you just spend some time wandering the room and quietly doing detective work… “Oh, so the name in the pink siddur is his second daughter… Oh, so they’re a Shabbos-cereal-at-shalosh-seudos family… Oh, so they don’t clean their fishtank.”

It’s all word of mouth, like an illegal speakeasy: “Maariv at Roffman.”

You come early, and all the kids are still on the floor, playing. They do not care that you’re there until they get kicked out of the room to go be quiet in the back of the house with Mommy.

And there’s always has one Shabbos guest who’s still at the dining room table, continuing the conversation as the table gets cleared around him, and after about five people come in, he asks, “Where are we davening? Oh, here? In this house?”

And then, sometimes the host isn’t there for Shabbos, and everyone’s waiting outside awkwardly until 10 people show up so they could walk together to the home of one of the people and surprise his wife. That’s something that doesn’t happen a lot with regular shuls – that everyone’s locked out for Maariv.

“How do we get in?”

The combination of the guy’s house is not 613.

“OK, who knows their anniversary?”

Sometimes, he just tells the combination to one of the other guys, and you all let yourselves in. That’s awkward. You’re trying to find where he keeps the siddurim…

“Can we turn on the lights yet?”

“No, not yet. We have to wait in the dark until Barchu.”

I don’t know why we can’t have home minyanim for weekday Maariv, though I guess during the week everyone wants to daven Maariv at a different time. We can’t just make this guy host a minyan factory. His wife has to come out of the back sometime

But we should definitely figure out some other great time for house minyanim, such as Megillah leining on Purim! That way, his wife can benefit directly. Someone is bound to know how to lein it, and the shul has a rule against firecrackers. But this guy’s house doesn’t.

Yet.

Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia and other magazines. He has also published eight books and does stand-up comedy. He can be contacted at mschmutter@gmail.com.

Fd for Thought

The Wandering Que

IBy Nati Burnside

f you keep kosher and are a fan of smoked meats, you’ve probably met Ari White.

Unlike most famous people in the kosher food industry, White hasn’t been stuck in the kitchen of a fancy restaurant in one Jewish community. In fact, exactly the opposite is true. As the owner of the Wandering Que for more than a decade, White has been “wandering” around the country with his trailer and smoker, bringing the finest and most authentic smoked meats to many Jews who wouldn’t otherwise have access to such delights.

White has won many awards, but the two most notable are his First Place in Innovation at Brisket King 2015 and his Grand Prize as Brisket King of NYC in 2016, both against the best non-kosher chefs in the industry. Now the Texas kid has brought his southern stylings to Bergen County.

“The Que” has decided to “Wander No Longer” and take up residency on East Palisade Avenue in Englewood, a bustling kosher food scene where they are one of four new kosher restaurants to open this year alone.

“I knew right away that Englewood was the perfect spot for a barbecue outpost,” White said about finally settling down a bit. “A kosher oasis has sprouted here in this amazing community nestled between the kosher powerhouses of Monsey, NYC, and Teaneck.”

When I was invited to check out the Wandering Que’s new home in New Jersey, I was greeted with a menu that almost seemed like two different restaurants in one. The first is a simple place where you can order a half dozen types of smoked meats by weight in à la carte fashion, or you can get a platter with some combination of those meats along with the customary sides of the house slaw, baked beans, pickles, and cornbread. The second restaurant is a more creative place with different types of apps, shared plates, and sandwiches.

And while usually I might start with the former option, the latter had some selections that were calling my name. In terms of a shared plate for your group, let me introduce you to the Nacho Mama’s Nachos. It’s a pile of house-made tortilla chips with pretty much everything you would ever want on top. Savory pulled brisket, delicious chili, smoky baked beans, creamy guacamole, a nice acidic salsa, and more make this a no-brainer for any group that walks through the door and wants a classic done right.

For a more individualized appetizer, let’s move away from the classic and towards a modern viral sensation. Korean Corn Dogs have become a big hit in many places around the world in the last few years, and White wanted Wandering Que to be riding that wave. So what’s a Korean Corn Dog, you ask? Well, it’s kind of like a regular corn dog but with a much bigger focus on texture. The dough isn’t your standard cornbread; it’s usually made from sourdough and has an almost spongy texture. But the biggest difference is that there’s a crunchy coating on the outside that can be made up of pretty much anything. That exterior coating has contributed to the popularity because of how interesting some versions look. Wandering Que offers ramen, panko, Frosted Flakes, and BBQ Taki. Don’t miss your chance to try one.

Let’s make our way over to the more straight-up part of the menu and try to decide what smoked meats we want to try. The truth is, they are all going to be great, and this question is really more about personal preference than anything else. For me, the top overall selection is going to be the Burnt Ends. I just can’t resist the taste and texture of this Kansas City invention, and there’s nothing like biting into one of those succulent chunks of beef and getting those hits of smokiness and sweetness at the same time. Some dishes are simple yet perfect, and this is one of those for me.

You want another recommendation?

Fine. The Flintstonian Short Ribs are absolutely fantastic. The smoke creates a nice shallow layer of bark on the outside that really enhances the texture given the moisture encased in the inside, while the meat is so tender that it simply falls right off the bone as soon as you try to coax a small piece onto your fork. Is it pricey? Sure. But you get what you pay for here. White is an expert at what he does, and the food supports his credentials.

Getting back to the other side of the menu, let’s check out the sandwiches section. Longtime fans of the Wandering Que will certainly recognize some of the items here, and I wouldn’t blame anybody for going with one of the signature standbys. That said, you might want to check out the Pregnant Ladies Dream, a bacon-wrapped hot dog in a bun with pickles, pickled red onions, and BBQ sauce. It’s certainly not the most elaborate dish ever created, but also…don’t knock it till

you try it. It’s like a hot dog with a much more complex combination of flavors and mouthfeel. (Now that’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.)

Last but not least, get the Smoke House Sliders. With all the options on the menu, I understand this might sound fairly pedestrian, but chances are you’ve never had a smoked burger. If that’s the case, don’t miss your chance. Because of the way a smoker works, this will be the juiciest burger you’ve ever had, and you can get them for just $6 each so there’s really no excuse not to try one.

“Hamburgers are one of those things that I could eat every day,” White says about the sliders, a new menu addition. “I love that people can play with so many fun parts of our menu and still get a burger without having to spend over 20 bucks to do so.”

So, now that you can visit The Que whenever you want, will you make the trek? White used to come to you, but will you go to him? Needless to say, where White smokes, the food is fire. So wander your way inside and grab a plate.

Meat - BBQ Smokehouse - Counter Service 52 East Palisade Avenue, Englewood, NJ 07631 (201)-408-4581

TheWanderingQue.com

In The K tchen

Pumpkin Challah

Pareve / Yield: 6 medium challahs

By Naomi Nachman

Ingredients

◦ 4 cups warm water

◦ 2 cups sugar

◦ 2 Tablespoons dry yeast

◦ 3 eggs

◦ ½ cup coconut or canola oil

◦ 2 cups canned pumpkin puree

◦ 5 pounds high gluten flour, plus up to 1 additional cup

◦ 1 Tablespoon salt

◦ 2 beaten eggs whites, for egg wash

◦ Streusel Topping, recipe follows

Preparation

1. Into a large mixing bowl (or bowl of a Magic Mill), place water, sugar and yeast. Proof the yeast for a few minutes until foamy.

2. Meanwhile, in a smaller bowl, mix together eggs, oil, and pumpkin.

3. After the yeast has foamed, add pumpkin mixture to yeast mixture; mix together by hand or in the machine for about 1 minute. While the machine is running, slowly add half the flour from the bag, then the salt, then the remaining bagged flour. The mixture will start to form into a dough ball. It may be sticky, so you can gradually add up to 1 more cup of flour.

4. When the dough is no longer sticky, let it rise for 2 hours, covered, in the bowl.

5. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2-3 baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside.

6. Divide dough into 6 portions. Then divide each portion into 3 parts. Roll each

part into a rope; use 3 ropes to braid each challah. Place challahs on prepared baking sheets.

7. Brush challahs with egg wash; add streusel topping, if using (see below). Bake for about 45 minutes, until the challah is golden brown.

Cook’s Tip: An easy way to tell if the challah is baked through: Carefully tap the bottom of the challah. If it sounds hollow, it’s fully baked.

Streusel Topping (optional)

Ingredients

◦ 1 cup flour

◦ 1 cup sugar

◦ ½ cup coconut or canola oil

◦ 1 cup mini marshmallows

Preparation

1. Use a fork to combine all ingredients in a small bowl till crumbs form.

2. Toss marshmallows into the streusel before serving.

3. Can serve with additional mini marshmallow on top when serving.

Recipe from Perfect Flavors by Naomi Nachman published by Artscroll/Mesorah

Naomi Nachman, the owner of The Aussie Gourmet, caters weekly and Shabbat/ Yom Tov meals for families and individuals within The Five Towns and neighboring communities, with a specialty in Pesach catering. Naomi is a contributing editor to this paper and also produces and hosts her own weekly radio show on the Nachum Segal Network stream called “A Table for Two with Naomi Nachman.” Naomi gives cooking presentations for organizations and private groups throughout the New York/New Jersey Metropolitan area. In addition, Naomi has been a guest host on the QVC TV network and has been featured in cookbooks, magazines as well as other media covering topics related to cuisine preparation and personal chefs. To obtain additional recipes, join The Aussie Gourmet on Facebook or visit Naomi’s blog. Naomi can be reached through her website, www.theaussiegourmet.com or at (516) 295-9669. In 2013, Thanksgiving and Chanukah fell out on the same day and so I created a pumpkin-flavored challah for that Shabbos. Since then, every Shabbat of Thanksgiving weekend, I make this challah (I even included it in my cookbook, Perfect Flavors!).

Notable Quotes

“Say What?!”

To my knowledge, he has not told anyone to do anything illegal.

- Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), who, along with 5 other senators, put out a video telling military personnel to disobey orders by Pres. Trump, when asked on ABC’s “This Week” if she knows of any illegal orders by the Trump administration

If you look at popular culture, like if you watch A Few Good Men, we have plenty of examples since World War II and Vietnam where people were told to follow illegal orders.

– ibid.

[Trump’s] like a colossus that just strides over the party and the country, and they know that and they’ve tried everything, Laura. They’ve tried to raid his house, they’ve de-balloted him, they had five lawfare cases, 91 charges, indictments and he’s kind of, anything that doesn’t destroy him makes him stronger, and so he’s going to have a booming economy next spring when all those foreign investment, this more energy development, more tax reduction, deregulation, it’s going to be a good year and I think everybody knows it and I think the left, they’re reduced to nothing and they’re cutting these videos that are calling for military insubordination and violating a lot of the elements of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Article 88, Article 90, Article 92 and they’re so desperate, but there’s no defection. I think he’s stronger than he ever was.

-

The Democrats’ plan is the Somalification of America. When you see the state of Somalia, that’s what they want for America. Because it’s easier to rule over an empire of ashes than it is for the Democratic Party to rule over a functioning, Western, high-trust society with a strong middle class.

- White House Deputy Chief of Staff Steven Miller on Fox News

Look how powerful the Democrat Party became in Minnesota once they flooded it with 100,000 Somalians! Once the elections were decided by clan rivalries and ethnic feuds, once that happened, the Democrat Party became permanently powerful in Minnesota. They became permanently powerful in the Twin Cities. That’s their model for America – to make the whole country into a version of Somalia. And everything they do gets down to that.

- ibid.

I can tell you my impression of the mayor-elect is he’s a young man with a lot of old ideas that have never worked. Point to one example where policies like his have led to anything other than a decline.

- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent talking about NYC Mayor-elect Mamdani on CNBC

How do we maintain maybe some of that frustration we have as we travel this Thanksgiving season? Maybe we should say “please” and “thank you” to our pilots and to our flight attendants.

- Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy at a pre-Thanksgiving press conference

I think — again, I call this — just maybe dressing with some respect, you know, whether it’s a pair of jeans and a decent shirt. And I would encourage people, maybe dress a little better, which encourages us to maybe behave all a little better. Let’s try not to wear slippers and pajamas as we come to the airport. I think that’s positive. - ibid.

Goodness. Pride. Proud. Thankful that I had been blessed. Little country boy to achieve something like that.

- Raymond Hager, 95, who drives a public bus in Wichita Falls, Texas, upon achieving the Guinness World Record for being the oldest active bus driver

These people have gone mad—[Trump] just sat down and had a great meeting with the communist Muslim immigrant Mayor of New York about how to make New Yorkers happier, healthier and wealthier. Isn’t that what Democrats want?

– Jesse Watters, Fox News

You’re not a hostage anymore… Today you’re heroes.

- Pres. Trump addressing 27 freed hostages in the White House

Because of his service in the IDF, Matan was subjected to severe beatings, even at times losing consciousness. Alone and under special guard, he went through [gehenom]. Matan never broke, and today he’s a living testimony to the toughness, heart, and faith of the Jewish people. I’m telling you – you’re a great inspiration to everybody.

- ibid.

Mamdani bent the knee. Trump punked the [daylights] out of him…[During the campaign] Mamdani was like, “He’s a this…he’s a that and when I get there I’m going to tell him this.” Trump was like, “Don’t sit down.”

- Tyres analyzing the Trump-Mamdani meeting on Gutfeld

Mamdani is going to go on TV and say, “I told Trump this, I told Trump that.” Actually, no, you sat there with your hands crossed and kept looking, “Is it OK to talk.” Mamdani is the toughest guy in the room when he is surrounded by his people. He literally said, “I am your worst nightmare,” then he’s like, “Is standing here OK?”

- ibid.

I haven’t spoken to the President about that strike specifically, but of course the President supports Israel’s right to defend itself and to take out any terrorist threats.

- White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt when asked whether Trump supports Israel’s elimination of the Hezbollah Chief of Staff

After a thorough and very rigorous investigation … into a terrible situation caused by a man named Sleepy Joe Biden, he used an autopen last year for the turkey’s pardon… So, I have the official duty to determine, and I have determined, that last year’s turkey pardons are totally invalid.

- Pres. Trump at the pre-Thanksgiving White House turkey pardoning ceremony

When I first saw their pictures…I was going to call them Chuck and Nancy, but then I realized I wouldn’t be pardoning them, I would never pardon those two people.

- ibid.

Jails and incarceration and law enforcement is a sickness that has not led to safe communities.

- Chicago Mayor Johnson at a press conference

This is an isolated incident.

- ibid., at the same press conference when asked a horrific event this week where a man with 49 prior arrests doused a woman in flammable liquid and set her on fire.

You know what this reminds me of is that I wish that there could be like a huge national sound system. And, we would all wake up, and they’d say, “Attention, attention. We have found the problem, and we have solved it, he is gone.”

- Hillary Clinton talking about President Trump at a recent event

It helps her forget that other daydream— someone calling her Madam President.

– Greg Gutfeld, Fox News

My prediction is that work will be optional. It’ll be like playing sports or a video game or something like that.

- Elon Musk at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum last week talking about what the world will look like in 10-20 years because of AI

If you want to work, [it’s] the same way you can go to the store and just buy some vegetables, or you can grow vegetables in your backyard. It’s much harder to grow vegetables in your backyard, and some people still do it because they like growing vegetables.

- ibid.

We must move the capital… The reality is that we no longer have a choice; it is an obligation.

- Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in a national address warning that a severe drought may make it impossible to live in Tehran

Iran spent billions to build a nuclear bomb and the proxies to destroy Israel instead of a water infrastructure.

- Tweet by Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA)

Iran or Gaza: stop attacking Israel and rebuild your own failed nations. Israel isn’t going anywhere.

- ibid.

Political Crossfire

Trump Built a Winning Coalition. White Nationalists Will Destroy It.

Tucker Carlson’s effort to bring white supremacist and antisemite Nick Fuentes into the mainstream of the conservative movement is not only morally reprehensible, it is a path to political suicide for the right. Those defending or excusing Carlson’s sane-washing of Fuentes need to ask themselves a simple question: Do they want to be a majoritarian movement or not?

Conservatives cannot build a lasting majority without appealing to minority voters – and that won’t happen if they embrace white nationalists.

It is true that Democrats have a problem with White men. In 2024, Democrats organized “White Dudes for Harris” – a $10 million effort to appeal to White male voters, particularly in the “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. It failed. Estimates vary, but Harris lost “White dudes” by a double-digit margin. But while Democrats did not make significant new gains with this demographic, neither did Trump. According to the Pew Research Center, Trump got a similar percentage of White men – and White voters overall – in 2024 as he did in 2016 and in 2020.

Yet Trump won a far more decisive victory in 2024 than he did eight years earlier – this time securing a swingstate sweep and popular-vote victory. At 49.9 percent of the vote, he fell just short of an outright majority.

So, what changed between 2016 and 2024? Simple: Trump’s political comeback was powered by significant gains among minority voters.

In 2020, Trump won just 36 percent of Hispanic voters. In 2024, he won 48 percent – a 12-point gain. In 2020, Trump won just 30 percent of Asian Americans. In 2024, he won 40

By Marc A. Thiessen

percent. He also more than doubled his share of the Black vote over the past eight years from 6 percent in 2016 to 15 percent in 2024, when he won almost a quarter of Black men. He also gained 11 points among Jewish voters – jumping from 24 percent in 2016 to 35 percent in 2024. According to the Republican Jewish Coalition, 31 percent of Jewish voters now identify as Republicans, the highest percentage on record.

Trump also made significant gains among legal immigrants. He won 47 percent of naturalized citizens in 2024 – a nine-point gain from over four years earlier. He was nearly even with Harris, who won 51 percent of this voting bloc. Trump won a decisive 57 percent majority of new citizens who had not voted in 2020 – including 55 percent of White naturalized citizens, 51 percent of Hispanic naturalized citizens and 46 percent of Asian naturalized citizens –all double-digit gains from the previous election. In 2020, by contrast, Biden had won naturalized citizens by 21 points.

In other words, Trump’s 2024 coalition was significantly more racially and ethnically diverse than it had been in 2020 or 2016. Indeed, Trump increased his support in almost every key demographic. That’s why he went from losing the popular vote in 2016 and 2020 to winning it in 2024.

A normal political movement would celebrate this success and try to build on it. Instead, some on the right seem intent on driving away these new voters by tolerating or even embracing white nationalists. That is both repulsive and insane.

How long will the gains Republicans made with minority voters last if we cannot bring ourselves to denounce a vile bigot who says Mexicans need to “get the [expletive] out! … Go back over the border”; calls JD Vance a “fat dumb…dork with a brown family” and declares of his South Asian wife: “Jeet First Lady? I hope I never see the day”; who defends Jim Crow and says, “White people are every single bit justified in being racist” against Black people; and

declares that “perfidious Jews” need “to be given the death penalty, straight up.”

But instead of castigating Carlson for trying to mainstream a white supremacist, some have turned their fire on their fellow conservatives for pushing back on Carlson. Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said Carlson’s critics are part of a “venomous coalition” that is “sowing division” on the right. This week, Princeton University professor Robert P. George, one of the most brilliant conservative intellectuals in America, resigned from the board of the Heritage Foundation over Roberts’s refusal to issue a full retraction of his defense of Carlson. The wrong man stepped aside. A conservative movement that has room for Fuentes, Carlson and Roberts, but not for Robbie George, is no longer conservative – and no longer politically viable.

Politics is a game of addition, not subtraction. Trump succeeded in adding more minority voters to his coalition not by playing Democrats’ toxic game of identity politics but by appealing to these voters’ self-interest and desire for a better life. And while he has been very tough on illegal immigration and is pursuing changes meant to create more rational and better-vetted system overall, he has not embraced restrictionism when it comes to legal immigration. That’s the right way to build a broad, multiethnic conservative majority. Wouldn’t it be ironic if we allowed a bunch of white nationalists to destroy the coalition Trump built because they chose to copy Democrats with their own nativist brand of identity politics?

Allowing overt racists into our movement is a sure way to do just that.

Political Crossfire Zelensky May Never Have Faced a More Agonizing Choice

The Trump administration’s new push for a peace deal in Ukraine accelerates Sunday as U.S. envoys travel to Geneva to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky. Despite widespread skepticism, officials say the talks will be a flexible negotiation, not a directive to Kyiv. U.S. officials close to the negotiation told me Saturday that the administration recognizes that “security guarantees are not strong enough yet” in Trump’s 28-point peace proposal. Trump might raise or remove a proposed 600,000-person cap on Ukraine’s army, for example. And to bolster postwar deterrence, officials are considering supplying Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles if a peace agreement is reached.

“Ukraine’s sovereignty can never be compromised. That would open the floodgates in Europe,” one key official told me Saturday. “We don’t want to see a collapse of Ukraine,” he explained, describing that as the “second coming of Yugoslavia,” whose breakup in 1991 began a decade of regional strife. Critics of the Trump peace bid argue that it would reward Moscow and undermine Ukrainian sovereignty in precisely the way the officials I spoke with claim they want to avoid.

The official said that contrary to some reports, the Trump administration was “100 percent” committed to continued U.S. intelligence support for Ukraine. The 28-point plan was “aspirational” and open to negotiation, he claimed. Trump’s public comments have not been so reassuring. He spoke Friday of a Thanksgiving deadline but denied Saturday that the 28 points were a final, take-it-or-leave it offer.

A cautionary note: The U.S. officials spoke with me because they wanted to convince Europeans, Ukrainians and Americans that Trump’s peace proposal is not as pro-Russian as it might appear. But the best judge of that will be Zelensky. If he endorses the deal, the onus will shift to

By David Ignatius

Moscow. If he rejects it, the war will likely continue into next year and beyond.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff were set to fly Saturday night to Geneva to meet the Ukrainian leader. If he agrees to a framework for negotiations, Witkoff will then take it to Russian President Vladimir Putin, though probably not immediately.

This account of the negotiations is drawn from discussions with two U.S. officials who requested anonymity because of the delicacy of the talks. It was buttressed by conversations with European officials and sources who are familiar with deliberations within Zelensky’s government.

What prompted this peace bid, the officials told me, was a sense that recent reversals on the battlefield in the Donetsk region and a corruption scandal in Kyiv have brought Ukraine to an inflection point. Russia, meanwhile, is feeling growing economic pressure and might prefer to end the war rather than fight on for the two years that might be necessary to take Donetsk completely.

The model for Trump’s Ukraine effort is his successful push for a ceasefire in Gaza. Officials liken the current moment in Ukraine to the opening created by Isra-

el’s September bombing of Hamas officials in Qatar, which broke an impasse. Turkey played a key role as an intermediary with the Ukrainians, just as it did with Hamas in the earlier talks.

This negotiating drive began nearly a month ago, when U.S. officials started developing a new framework in consultation with Russian, European and Ukrainian contacts. The effort moved into high gear last weekend after a senior Turkish official told Witkoff that Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s secretary for national security, was ready to meet him in Florida.

According to the U.S. officials, Umerov said in the Florida meeting that Zelensky might be ready to compromise on the crucial issue of swapping land in Donetsk for a peace deal, which has been a Russian demand. Umerov also said that Ukraine might be willing to cap its army at 600,000, the officials said. After that cap roused a storm of protest Friday, an official told me it might be raised or removed altogether – since it didn’t really affect the manpower balance, which strongly favors Russia in any event.

U.S. envoys recognize that security guarantees are the critical issue in getting Ukrainian and European support. Russia

won’t budge in its opposition to European troops in Ukraine as a “deterrence force” after a ceasefire. Instead, U.S. officials have considered offering the Tomahawks to Ukraine as an alternative. The officials feel confident that Ukraine wouldn’t use these preemptively against Russia, because that would cost it U.S. and European support.

Because of Ukraine’s political instability, U.S. officials included a proposal for national elections in Ukraine within 100 days after an agreement is signed, which would amount to a public ratification or rejection of the agreement. They also added a clause providing postwar amnesty, at Ukraine’s request, to reassure Zelensky and members of his government that they wouldn’t face prosecution if the current corruption scandal widens.

The draft agreement calls on Ukraine to withdraw from the roughly 25 percent of Donetsk it now holds, meeting Russia’s key demand. To reassure Ukraine that it would be secure behind the ceasefire line, the U.S. draft agreement says this withdrawal zone should be demilitarized. A U.S. official told me Saturday that, in addition, the U.S. and its allies would help Ukraine build a security “wall” along the ceasefire line, using advanced technology.

Zelensky’s initial reaction to the new peace initiative had been to propose instead a ceasefire for energy-infrastructure targets. U.S. officials thought Moscow might accept this, because it has already damaged the Ukrainian power grid so severely. But the Russians responded that this approach was a “nonstarter,” an official told me.

Zelensky now confronts the most agonizing choice of his presidency. If he says yes to giving up Donetsk, some Ukrainians will never forgive him. If he says no, this tragic war will continue. For all Zelensky’s courage, he may never have faced a more agonizing moment.

© 2025, Washington Post Writers Group

Political Crossfire

Can’t Fight the Muslim Brotherhood While Groveling to Qatar

President Donald Trump finally took the first step on Nov. 24 toward an action that many of his allies and supporters have been calling for since his first term in office. He signed an executive order setting “in motion a process by which certain chapters or other subdivisions of the Muslim Brotherhood shall be considered for designation as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.”

The Brotherhood is a transnational Islamist group that spreads fundamentalist Sunni Muslim ideology around the world, preaching hatred for and war against the West—co-religionists who do not share their extremism, as well as for Israel and Jews. It acts as a support network for terrorists such as Hamas, which was founded as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as for those who are working to undermine or overthrow non-Islamist governments in Arab and Muslim countries, such as those in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan.

The Grandfather of Jihadism

The Brotherhood is an open and avowed enemy of the United States and is allied to many of those with American blood on their hands. As U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said, “the Muslim Brotherhood is the progenitor” and “the grandfather of all modern global jihadism.” Moreover, to speak, as the executive order does, of only the group’s “military wing” being subject to sanctions as a result of the designation is to fall into the trap of thinking that organizational divisions within the group are meaningful distinctions with respect to terrorism and other illegal acts. As is the case with Hamas and Hezbollah, these are distinctions without a difference. Though different branches have different roles in their war on the West, all have the same objectives. So, the question to be asked about Trump’s decision is not why the United

By Jonathan S. Tobin

States has done something that many Arab and Muslim countries, who rightly fear the group, have already done, and which members of the administration, including the secretary of state and White House staffer Sebastian Gorka, have openly called for. It’s why didn’t this happen in Trump’s first term or earlier in his second? And, just as importantly, why is the executive order Trump signed so narrowly drafted and tentative in its approach?

The answer is that the Muslim Brotherhood has powerful friends, both foreign and domestic, who seem to have Trump’s ear. In particular, the emirate of Qatar, which has spent vast sums freely to acquire enormous influence over the worlds of American business, education and politics, doesn’t want the administration to act against the group.

The question the executive order raises goes to the heart of the struggle to determine Trump’s Middle East policy. While the president has always been eager to fight Islamist terrorism and support American allies, such as Israel and moderate Arab governments that the Brotherhood is seeking to destroy, he is

also clearly enamored of and influenced by Qatar and the American friends the emirate has purchased.

As a result, this order may turn out to be nothing more than an impotent gesture rather than a genuine policy shift aimed at combating a sly and dangerous foe of the United States. Unlike many other such orders that have flowed in plentiful numbers from the Oval Office as Trump has undertaken a comprehensive effort to overturn many of the policies of his predecessor and beloved by the Washington establishment, this one leads to no immediate action. Indeed, unless the forces within the administration that have pushed for the designation of the Brotherhood are ready to spend political capital and really fight to commit the government to rolling back the influence of the Islamist group, this may be as far as Trump goes on the issue.

A Contradictory Policy

This highlights a basic contradiction in Trump’s stance. You can’t seriously fight the Brotherhood and its terrorist offshoots like Hamas while at the same time cozying up to the government that is their chief do-

nor and protector. Yet that’s exactly what the administration has done.

Qatar is not just the object of Trump’s trademark flattery when he is seeking to engage with allies or adversaries and to get them to do what he wants. It is being treated as a full-fledged ally of the United States and even as a nation whose security will be treated as a national priority to the point of recently issuing a White House statement to the effect that, “The United States shall regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty or critical infrastructure of the State of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States.”

That gives Qatar, which hosted the spiritual leader of the Brotherhood Yusuf al-Qaradawi and his successors, as well as the leaders of Hamas, impunity to act as a headquarters for international terrorism.

The argument in favor of close relations with the Gulf state, despite it being integral to the spread of terror and the Islamist ideology that is its foundation, rests on the notion that the emirate is an essential middleman in the effort to contain the threat from radical Muslims.

A successful foreign policy often requires leaders to see the world in shades of gray as opposed to merely black and white. So, it is arguable that there are times when the United States may want to deal with a treacherous government such as that of Qatar, in spite of its record and actions. But what the Trump administration—and, to be fair, what was also true of the Biden administration, which made it a major non-NATO ally—has done is to skew the balance between the two countries in favor of Doha.

Doha Needs America, Not The Other Way Around Qatar has played a double role in the region for years, simultaneously hosting a major regional U.S. airbase and a wide array of terrorist functionaries. The Al Udeid

base is well-suited to help America project power in the Persian Gulf, especially after Biden’s catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan, in which the United States abandoned the Bagram base there to the Taliban. Moreover, Qatari officials have also been the intermediaries by which the United States was able to broker the ceasefire-hostage release deal with Hamas that halted the war in Gaza with Israel.

These are not unimportant considerations. But the problem with embracing Qatar is the misnomer that Washington needs the emirate more than it needs Washington. The truth is quite the opposite. Other nations in the Gulf could host that base. And it is equally obvious that playing the role of go-between with Hamas allows Qatar to both launder its international image and help its terrorist friends survive the war they started with the atrocities committed on Oct. 7, 2023.

By committing itself to an alliance with Qatar, the United States isn’t engaging in a productive transaction with a problematic frenemy. It is completely undermining any effort to craft a coherent anti-terrorism policy and setting itself up for more misery in the years to come. And a half-hearted executive order with no teeth in it about the Muslim Brotherhood can’t rectify this mistake.

Why is Washington so willing to ignore the obvious and embrace Qatar?

A great deal of attention has been focused on Qatar’s “gift” of a 747 jetliner to Trump to serve as a new Air Force One to replace one of the two other ones that have been in use for that purpose for the last 35 years. But that is more symbolism than a bribe. The plane will require extensive renovations for it to be used to securely transport a president, which will likely cost more than double its value at a reported $200 million. But the Qatari plane is still believed to be likely to wind up at a Trump presidential library and museum.

But whatever one thinks of the airplane, the answer as to how the emirate has acquired so much traction in Washington is no secret. Qatar’s influence-buying operation, which operates on a virtually unprecedented scale, has been enormously successful in either persuading many American leaders of its value as an ally to cause them to downplay its role in promoting terrorism or in purchasing them outright.

Israel-bashers like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and his counterparts on the left, like congressional farleft “Squad” members Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), often speak as if supporters of the Jewish

state, specifically the AIPAC pro-Israel lobby, have bought an alliance with the United States. But the truth is that the amounts spent by AIPAC and pro-Israel sources on lobbying in Washington or in supporting political candidates are dwarfed by the vast sums expended by Qatar in the United States.

Influence Buying

Doha is involved in lobbying, though it exerts more influence as a major player in the business world, creating connections with a broad array of political affiliations on both sides of the aisle. In this way, it has used its financial clout to help and/or bail out some prominent persons, such as Trump’s foreign envoy Steve Witkoff, with purchases amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. It has also invested heavily in American media outlets that add to its ability to project its views on the world. That is in addition to the clout it has via its Al Jazeera news station, which dominates the market in the Arab and Muslim world.

Just as important is the way Doha has poured money into academia, essentially purchasing the Middle East studies departments at many prestigious institutions of higher learning. Qatar isn’t just the largest foreign donor to American education. It has played a part in ensuring that these schools are uniformly bastions not only of anti-Zionism, but also of exponents of anti-Western and anti-American ideologies.

The point here is that the differences with Qatar go far beyond the obvious ones in terms of the values of a diverse democracy and those of an Islamist absolute monarchy. Qatar does business with the West while playing both ends against the middle in a never-ending game of diplomacy with Washington in a way that can be represented as similar to that of any nation with interests that don’t coincide with those of the United States. The regime’s real goals, however, are no different from those of the Brotherhood—namely, to undermine and subvert the West.

Both Qatar and the Islamist government of Turkey, which plays its own double role seeking a restoration of the old Ottoman Empire and supporting terror groups like Hamas while also remaining a NATO member, have clout in Washington. They also sit on both sides of the American dispute with an aggressive, terror-supporting Islamist regime in Iran. They and their American clients and auxiliaries have a pro-Islamist agenda and were able to stop the first Trump administration from taking action against the Brotherhood. And

they have helped limit its current tentative steps toward designating it as a terrorist group and, no doubt, think they can prevent the follow-up necessary to put the executive order into effect.

The irony here is that the portion of the political right led by Carlson that is hostile to Israel, and soft or even welcoming to antisemitism, likes to speak of defending “America First” or “America only” policy priorities against those who support the alliance with Israel, who are falsely labeled “Israel firsters.” But they seem completely uninterested in noting the way a country like Qatar is actively seeking to undermine a bipartisan American foreign-policy goal of opposing Islamist terror that threatens the West. While Carlson falsely labels Qatar as a faithful U.S. ally and trashes Israel as manipulating Washington against its own interests, the truth is just the opposite. The real opponents of “America First” are not supporters of Israel but the pawns, both witting and unwitting, of the jihadists of Qatar and the Brotherhood.

Trump’s Choice

Trump faces an important choice about the Muslim Brotherhood. If he allows this toothless order to be as far as he goes with respect to efforts to stop this dangerous

group, then he will be demonstrating that the administration is hopelessly compromised by its ties to Qatar. That ought not to happen. The president needs to understand the dire nature of the threat from fanatic Islamic terrorists, along with the insidious impact the Brotherhood’s Qatari funders and hosts are having on American media, culture and education. And, as he’s done time and again on many issues—not least his support for Israel—he needs to ignore the voices telling him that protecting U.S. interests means groveling to establishment thinking and Islamists. The time is long past due for the United States to recognize that it is at war with the Brotherhood and act accordingly. If it doesn’t, it will just be setting in motion a process by which those who seek to spill American blood as well as that of Israelis will be given a leg up in their generational war against the West. That is something an administration that represents its policies as a clean break from the failed ideas of the Washington establishment and which says it is all about defending Americans should avoid at all costs.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate).

It took 100 years, but the Vatican has finally agreed to surrender a kayak and other cultural artifacts that it stole from indigenous Canadian tribes for use in Pope Pius XI’s “Vatican Missionary Exposition” in 1925.

Members of the indigenous Inuvialuit nation are understandably annoyed that Pope Leo XIV, in announcing the return of the kayak, called it a “gift” that the Vatican is giving to them. “It’s not the Pope’s kayak,” said a spokesperson for the Inuvialuit tribes.

Is the Vatican holding Jewish property, too? Questions have been raised over the years about whether the Vatican has in its possession any sacred Jewish vessels that the Romans stole from the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE.

The Vatican denies it has any such Jewish objects, although there are some eyewitness accounts to the contrary. In addition, scenes of the menorah and other Jewish property being carried off are depicted on the Arch of Titus, in Rome—the ancient equivalent of photographic evidence.

In any event, there is no denying that another government seized large amounts of Jewish property in the 1950s and may still be holding some of it—the government of Jordan.

The Jordanian regime stole, destroyed, or otherwise desecrated an estimated 38,000 gravestones from the Mount of Olives cemetery in Jerusalem, when Jordan illegally occupied parts of the city from 1948 to 1967.

The 3,000-year-old site is the oldest and largest Jewish cemetery in the world. Among those buried there are the biblical prophets Haggai, Malachi, Zechariah and Hulda; Talmudic sages as well as more contemporary rabbinic leaders such as Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar (better known as the Or Ha-chaim) and Chief Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hakohen Kook; and modern luminaries, including Prime Minister

Jewish History The Pope’s Kayak: A Lesson for the Jews

By Rafael Medoff

Menachem Begin and Hadassah founder Henrietta Szold.

On July 5, 1967, just weeks after the Six Day War and the liberation of Jerusalem, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported the discovery of what it called “one of the most shocking reported episodes of the 19-year occupation by Jordan of Mount of Olives Cemetery.”

Israeli officials found that “tombstones from the historic burial ground had been used in the construction of an Arab Legion camp near Jericho,” the JTA reported. “Tombstones carted from the cemetery [were] used for the main parade ground, roads, buildings and even the lavatory structure. Inscriptions were still visible on the desecrated stones…”

American Jewish journalist Trude Weiss-Rosmarin, who visited the Mount of Olives later that year, reported that “the Jordanians’ full fury was unleashed upon the dead.” Tombstones “were carted away to be used after being cut, in the building of houses, or ground into gravel in road construction. Many sections of the cemetery were plowed up, either to lay a new road or just for the sake of desecration. Among

the tombs completely obliterated was that of Henrietta Szold.”

It’s time for the Jordanian government to provide a full accounting of the gravestones it “carted away” from the Mount of Olives; some may still be in Jordan’s possession. In addition, the Jordanian regime needs to pay restitution to the families of those whose graves it desecrated. And Jordan needs to publicly apologize for the crimes it committed against the Jewish people.

There is ample precedent for insisting on restitution for damage to Jewish cemeteries. In 2014, the city of Warsaw returned and restored some 1,000 Jewish gravestones that had been stolen from the Brodno Jewish cemetery during the Holocaust. Jewish tombstones that had been fashioned into stairs in a church in Vilnius, Lithuania, were dislodged and returned to a nearby Jewish cemetery in 2022. And earlier this year, hundreds of pieces of Jewish tombstones were returned to the cemetery in Brest, Belarus, from which they had been stolen decades earlier.

As compensation for their role in destroying Jewish cemeteries during the

Holocaust, Germany and Austria today pay part of the maintenance costs for a number of Jewish cemeteries in Central Europe. Each country also contributes $1.1 million annually to a fund for guarding Jewish cemeteries.

Jewish leaders have shown that they know how to press for restitution of Jewish property, even if the process is slow. The passage of time should not relieve Jordan of its legal, financial, and moral responsibilities.

For decades, Swiss banks refused to pay the families of Jews whose accounts were seized during the Holocaust. It took half a century of Jewish protests before the Swiss finally agreed, in 1999, to pay up.

France was extremely slow about returning Jewish-owned paintings that had been stolen by the Nazis. Only a few dozen were returned during the first fifty years after the Holocaust. It took many years of protests and pressure before the French government finally, in 2013, established a commission to address the problem.

And Jewish organizations are still working to persuade the governments of Poland and Lithuania to pay full restitution for Jewish property seized there during the Holocaust.

The problem of the stolen or destroyed Jerusalem gravestones should not be forgotten. Seventy-six years is a long time for an injustice to continue. But that’s still less time than it took the Pope to hand over that stolen kayak. There is no reason for Jewish leaders to be any less persistent than the indigenous Canadian tribes have been.

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 latest is The Road to October 7: Hamas, the Holocaust, and the Eternal War Against the Jews, published by the Jewish Publication Society & University of Nebraska Press.

Jewish History

A Thanksgiving Plan to Save Europe’s Jews

By Rafael Medoff

The autumn of 1938 was a grim time for the Jews. The Nazis’ Kristallnacht pogrom had devastated German Jewry. The Evian conference, which was supposed to find havens for Jewish refugees, had proven to be a farce. And Britain was preparing to shut the doors of Palestine.

But on Thanksgiving Day, one courageous U.S. government official proposed a bold rescue plan, offering the Jewish people a glimmer of hope and reason to give thanks.

The plan’s target: Alaska.

Rich in natural resources but badly underpopulated, the vast northern territory, which the U.S. had purchased from Czarist Russia for $7 million, was the unlikely refugee haven suggested in 1938 by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes.

Ickes toured Alaska that summer, meeting with local officials to discuss ways to attract settlers to develop the region. At the same time, Japan’s aggression against China and the likelihood of war in Europe intensified American concerns about Alaska’s strategic value—and its vulnerability.

But previous attempts by the U.S. government to draw settlers to the northwestern frontier had failed. Who was willing to brave Alaska’s harsh climate?

Kristallnacht provided the answer. From the smoldering ruins of the synagogues and Jewish homes that the Nazis burned to the ground was born the idea of German Jewish refugees developing and fortifying Alaska.

As Sen. William King (D-Utah) pointed out, refugees from Hitler, when confronted by the hardships of frontier life, “would not be thinking of the comforts of life in the States that they had sacrificed, but in terms of the savagery and hopelessness of the conditions abroad from which they had been rescued.”

At a press conference on Thanksgiving eve—two weeks after Kristallnacht—

Secretary Ickes proposed Alaska as “a haven for Jewish refugees from Germany and other areas in Europe where the Jews are subjected to oppressive restrictions.”

Alaska was “the one possession of the United States that is not fully developed,”

Ickes pointed out. He noted that 200 impoverished families had recently relocated from the dust bowls of the American West to the 23,000-mile Matanuska Valley in south central Alaska. Ickes predicted their pioneering efforts would “open up opportunities in the industrial and professional fields now closed to the Jews in Germany.”

Like the brave pilgrims of the Mayflower who landed at Plymouth Rock three hundred years earlier, the Jews would flee intolerance in Europe and carve out a new life for themselves in a land of liberty.

The Interior Department proceeded to prepare a full report, explaining the vast economic potential of Alaska, the military risks of leaving the area unpopulated, and the logic of bringing in “hundreds of thousands of pioneers” from other countries. The regular immigration quotas would not apply, since Alaska was not yet a state. Based on the report, King and Rep. Franck Havenner (D-Calif.) introduced legislation to allow

refugees to settle in Alaska.

Refugee advocates created a National Committee for Alaskan Development, which built an ecumenical coalition of VIPs to back the legislation. Endorsers included Academy-Award winning actors Luise Rainer and Paul Muni, renowned theologian Paul Tillich, and the Federal Council of Churches.

Anti-immigration groups rallied against the legislation, claiming King-Havenner would open America to “Trojan horses,” such as Jews who believed in “the Marxian philosophy.” The most important opposition came from the State Department, which regarded the bill as an attempt to sneak aliens into the United States through the back door.

The key to the bill’s fate was the position that President Franklin D. Roosevelt would take. Strong leadership by the president might have made a difference. Unfortunately, Secretary Ickes already had some disappointing experiences with FDR when it came to the Nazis and the Jews.

In 1935, Roosevelt compelled Ickes to remove critical references to the Hitler regime from the draft of his commencement speech at the University of Alabama. Likewise in April 1938, FDR insisted that Ickes “cut out the references that I had made to Naziism” in a forthcoming speech, Ickes

wrote in his diary. And again that November, when Ickes was preparing a speech in response to the Kristallnacht pogrom, the president ordered Ickes “to cut out all references to Germany by name as well as references to Hitler, Goebbels, and others” from his draft. Roosevelt was concerned that such criticism would harm U.S.-German relations.

Especially ominous for the Alaska’s plan prospects was the refusal of the White House to even let Ickes gently suggest, in his draft of a December 1938 speech, that “in time,” the United States might yet “return to its former noble historic policy” regarding immigration.

Sure enough, when Ickes met with FDR on November 7, 1939 about the Alaska proposal, he found the president would accept only 10,000 settlers per year for five years, and of that number “not more than 10 percent would be Jews [so] we would be able to avoid the undoubted criticism that we would be subjected to if there were an undue proportion of Jews.”

In the end, Roosevelt was not willing to call for even that many immigrants; he refrained from saying anything publicly about the Alaska issue. Without the backing of the White House, the Alaska proposal never got off the ground.

The plan that Ickes broached on that hopeful Thanksgiving in 1938, offering a chance at life for Europe’s Jews, ended up in the growing pile of proposals for refugee havens that President Roosevelt and his administration discarded for the sake of political expediency.

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 latest is The Road to October 7: Hamas, the Holocaust, and the Eternal War Against the Jews, published by the Jewish Publication Society & University of Nebraska Press.

Leopold David, a Jew from Brooklyn and the first mayor of Anchorage, Alaska

Forgotten Her es Early Israeli Aviators

By Avi Heiligman

During the first few months of the Israeli War of Independence in 1948, the Israeli Air Force was small, with only a few planes and trained pilots. However, there were many people working in cities around the world to bolster their ranks. This effort to train and recruit pilots started many years earlier. Several Jews from Eretz Yisrael joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II, and the Palmach had an air branch called the Palavir. These are some the accounts of these pilots and their subsequent incorporation into the Israeli Air Force.

Established in 1943, the Palavir was a very small flying platoon of just eight pilots led by Pinchas Ben-Porat. Born in the Ukraine, Ben-Porat came to Eretz Yisrael with his parents in the years following World War I. He learned to fly at the pilot school set up by the Aviron Aviation Company at Afikim. After acquiring enough hours to earn his pilot’s license, Ben-Porat joined the Palavir. He went to Great Britain to get his license to fly commercial aircraft, and upon his return to Eretz Yisrael in 1947, he joined the Sherut Avir, the Haganah’s air force. In December of that year, Ben-Porat was sent in a small plane to fly an air support mission at Nevatim in the Negev. The moshav was being attacked by Arabs, so Ben-Porat and his gunner took a Bren gun and filled the plane with grenades.

The gunner opened fire and dropped grenades at the 200 attackers who soon retreated. Ben-Porat landed, left his gunner at the moshav and returned to his base with a wounded man. His actions during the mission were studied and replicated during the upcoming Israeli War of Independence.

Ben-Porat transferred to the Israel Air Force in 1948 and was sent to Europe with nine other pilots to train in the recently purchased S-199 fighters. On one mission, he broke his arm when his plane crashed, but he survived. After the war, he became the commander of a squadron flying B-17 bombers and was the first Israeli instructor at the IAF’s flying academy. In 1950, he left the military to become a pilot for El Al. Tragically, in 1955, as the co-pilot of Fight 402, Ben-Porat was killed with 57 other passengers and crew when their plane was shot down over Bulgaria. The plane veered off course – the cause of which has never been fully determined – and Bulgarian MiG-15s shot down the Israeli passenger plane.

Emanuel Zurr, shortened from Zuckerberg, was born in Poland and moved to Eretz Yisrael in the 1930s. Trained as a mechanical engineer, he worked for Aviron as a flight instructor and trained pilots for the Palmach and Haganah. In late 1947. after the UN Partition Plan was adopted and an arms embargo was

placed on the region, future Prime Minister David Ben Gurion called upon Zurr to acquire more planes from Europe. Zurr did his best to purchase planes and had some success with getting together some small Czech aircraft but more were needed. This time, Zurr looked towards Great Britain which was in the process of unloading excess aircraft.

Close to 6,000 Bristol Beaufighter multi-role aircraft were produced, with manufacturing starting in 1940. Sometimes referred to as the Beau, Zurr got word that someone in London had purchased twelve of them that were destined for the scrap yard and was looking to sell them. Since he was already known to British authorities as a plane smuggler, Zurr had someone else check out the planes. The British dealer was willing to fix up the planes and sell them for cheap, but Zurr had to check them out personally. He hired a small plane to fly him under the radar from France, and when he arrived in England, he was dismayed at the conditions of the planes. The dealer wanted to close the deal, so he lowered the price and offered to have some of them fixed in two to three weeks.

The tricky part was to fly them out of England without authorities realizing that they were headed towards Israel. Zurr came up with a plan that they were shooting a film about New Zealand’s pilots fighting against the Japanese during

World War II. A bogus movie company was set up, and pilots were recruited by South African ace pilot Terence Fairfield. Extensive work was done in creating the plot and auditioning for the movie. Only the pilots and Zurr knew what was about to happen. Five planes were ready to fly out on the third day of production, but one malfunctioned and crashed.

On August 2, 1948, four Bristol Beaufighters took off and were supposed to be heading towards Scotland. Instead, they flew towards Corsica where landed to refuel. Then they made another stop in Yugoslavia before reaching Ekron Airfield on August 4. The planes were immediately readied for aerial combat as they were painted for action in the IAF. These planes played a significant role in the conflict until they were so battered that they were unable to fly. Zurr was sent back to Europe to buy more planes and after the war became the director of Lod Airport.

The work of Ben-Porat and Zurr were essential in the early days of flying in Israel. Their dedication and heroics are 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.

A Bristol Beaufighter

Pinchas Ben-Porat Emmanuel Zurr, left

An Israeli aircraft during the War of Independence

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The spot for all your custom leather Judaica. Tallis/tefillin bags, lulav and esrog bags, havdallah sets, challah covers, shtenders, pesach sets, matzah/afikomen bags.  WhatsApp: (732) 523-0007 or email: theleathershoppe732@gmail.com for a full catalog. We ship.

PEACEFUL PRESENCE STUDIO

Men’s private yoga, Licensed Massage & Holistic Health Guidance 436 Central Ave, Cedarhurst Info. & free video training www.peacefulpresence.com 516-371-3715

DIAL-A SUB-LEGENDARY & experienced teachers available for emergencies. Substitutes teaching all subjects.

$180 per day. Payment a must before entering a class. Please call (516) 265-4872

GERBER MOVING

Full Service Moving Packing Moving Supplies

Local Long Distance. Licensed Insured 1000’S Of Happy Customers Call Shalom 347-276-7422

HANDYMAN AVAILABLE

For big or small jobs, Sheetrock, carpentry, painting, electrical, plumbing, install & repair appliances Call Ephraim at 347-593-4691

MANAGEMENT STAFF WILL ASSIST

you with:

* Obtaining Medicaid and Pooled Income Trust

* In-home Assessments, Individual and Family Counseling

* Securing reliable home care assistance

* Case and Care Management services Dr. S. Sasson, DSW, LCSW (718) 544- 0870 or (646) 284-6242

Traveling EMT

For school trips & Shabbatons, hotels, all social events. last summer was sold out! Make reservations early! Please call (516) 265-4872

HAIR COURSE:

Learn how to wash & style hair & wigs. Hair and wig cutting, wedding styling Private lessons or in a group Call Chaya 718-715-9009

ZEVIZZ WOODTURNING JUDAICA

Challah knifes, batei mezuzah, besamim holder, kiddish cups, havdalah candle holders, yad for sefer torah, pens, stenders, bowls and more  952-356-2228

MY MOTTO IS DON’T WAIT TO buy real estate

Buy real estate and wait Your realtor for life 516-784-0856 Alexandra at Realty Connect USA

PRIVATE DRIVER AVAILABLE For all your needs. Reliable. Safe. Experienced and Trustworthy Call Yaakov 917-825-7057

REAL ESTATE MANAGEMENT Services – Do Not Manage Your Properties Alone! Contact Aliyah Suites for all your real estate management needs and affordable office space near you! (516) 366-1049 Management@aliyahsuites.com Marc Jeret (MJ) Team Leader & Licensed Real Estate Agent

DEERFIELD BEACH FLORIDA 1 bedroom 1 and 1/2 bath corner unit 1st floor - lake view 5 minute walk to Shul Call Ms Marylynn Charnas for details 917-912-0021

Classifieds

COMMERCIAL REAL ESATATE HELP WANTED

CEDARHURST

Prime Restaurant Location For Lease.

For more information: Call/Text/WhatsApp Owner: (516) 206-1100

5 TOWNS - OFFICES FOR LEASE

250SF to 500SF Offices in Inwood & Cedarhurst Utilities, Internet & Parking incl. with some Kosher kitchen - Minyan Next to LIRR - No broker fee Call/text/Whatsapp: 516-206-1100

Don’t Get Stuck With a Two Story House Ya Know, It’s One Story Before You Buy It But a Second Story After You Own It!

Call Dov Herman For An Accurate Unbiased Home Inspection InfraredTermite Inspection

Full Report All Included NYC 718-INSPECT

Long Island 516-INSPECT www.nyinspect.com

ZAREINU

Is seeking a Co-Rebbe position for this year for a sixth and seventh grade boys class in a local Yeshiva. Great pay!  Warm environment with administrative support!

E-mail resume: info@zareinu.org or call 718-406-8343 ext 229

ZAREINU

Is seeking an assistant Rebbe position for this year for a sixth and seventh grade boys class in a local Yeshiva. Great pay!  Warm environment with administrative support!

E-mail resume: info@zareinu.org or call 718-406-8343 ext 229

DELIVERY PERSON NEEDED to deliver this Newspaper every Thursday  morning to locations in Brooklyn. Must have Mini van or SUVand availability to work Consistently every week. Good pay - Please email gabe@fivetownsjewishhome.com or call (917) 299-8082

HELP WANTED HELP WANTED

REGENTS EXPERT

Tutoring regents in Algebra and Geometry A Darchei Torah instructor. Guaranteed results Text 347-491-8045

WhatsApp 347-767-1755

ARE YOU A DOULA?

Or have a passion to be? Come join our great referral group and get access to a vast new clientele through Medicaid.

JUST CALL 347 668 7886

ACCOUNTING MANAGER

seeking a proactive accounting manager to handle monthly closing,reconciliations and reporting. 2 -3 yers accounting exp and a BA  required. Solid finacial reporing and excel skills necessary malky@candidrecruits.net

INSURANCE OPERATIONS

Manager within an ANA company to lead daily insurance operations incl. Payor rnrillements, credentialing, authorizations etc. Must have relevant experience and problem solving skills. malky@candidrecruits.net

LOOKING TO HIRE: F/T Customer Service in Inwood / FR. Answering phones & emails for kids clothing store. Email jobs@shirtstop.us

LOOKING TO HIRE: F/T Website & Content Editor in Inwood / FR. Edit & upload product photos (will train), design banners, create promo emails etc. Email jobs@shirtstop.us

SEEKING ELEMENTARY TEACHERS and assistants for General Studies for the ‘25-’26 year. Assistants should have skills to take over for teachers if needed. Far Rockaway area boys’ school, M-Th, PM hours, strong support. Excellent salary. Send resume to teachersearch11@gmail.com.

ZAREINU

Is seeking a Co-teacher position for this year for a seventh and eighth grade girls class in the 5 Towns M-TH 2:00-4:30 & Friday 8:15-12:45. Great pay!  Warm environment with administrative support! Email resume: info@zareinu.org or call 718-406-8343 ext 229

Classifieds

HELP WANTED

YESHIVAT KOL YAAKOV

In Great Neck, NY, is seeking general studies teachers for both the elementary and middle schools, for the upcoming academic year. Mon-Thur afternoons. Competitive salary, warm and supportive environment.  Send resume to m.kalati@kolyaakov.org

MDS REGIONAL NURSE

5 Towns area Nursing Home management office seeking a Regional/Corporate level MDS Nurse to work in our office. Must be an RN. Regional experience preferred. 2-3 years MDS experience with good computer skills required. Position is Full Time but Part Time can be considered. Great Shomer Shabbos environment with some remote options as well. Email: officejob2019@gmail.com

HELP WANTED

DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANT

A multi-tasker needed for general office work. The ideal candidate is someone who is detail-oriented, responsible, and can take ownership. Looking for someone who is eager to learn, and expand his/her skill set while possessing the ability to work independently and as part of a team. Experience with Excel required. Five Towns location. In-office position only, not remote. Please send resume to 5tpart.timecareer@gmail.com

BOOKKEEPER

A Five Towns Real Estate Company is seeking a full-time Bookkeeper. The right candidate must be proficient with QuickBooks and Excel. They must also be self-motivated, organized, detail oriented, reliable, and able to work independently or as a team player. Warm, frum office environment with excellent salary & benefits. Please email resume to HR@capsprop.com

HELP WANTED MISC.

HASHAVAS AVEIDA

Apple airpods found on Wednesday morning on the way to the Woodmere dock. To claim, 516-351-8105.

SHMIRAS HALASHON

Text 516-303-3868 with a time slot of your choice to be careful on lashon hara. Be a part of the 1,000 people for klal yisroel!

BEIS HAMEDRASH CONG.

Chasdei Uvois Oshpitzin

Talmidei chachomim are willing to learn mishnayos, say kaddish and be the shliach tzibbur to daven for the umid on the yartzeit yom hashanah of your parents or close relatives or loved ones  To arrange please call

Rabbi Miller 917-445-6220

HALLANDALE BEACH

Don Miller Tamar Miller