Page 56 THE JEWISH PRESS Friday, February 15, 2013
Community Currents Upcoming events…
In recent news…
A hamantashen eating contest will take place on Sunday, February 24, at 1 p.m. at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, 114 E 85th St in Manhattan. During the festive event, which is being held on Purim, participants will devour as many hamantashen as possible in five minutes for the chance to win a free flight to Israel. The event will be run by All Pro Eating, which will also bring in its #1 ranked competitive eater, Jamie “The Bear” McDonald, to try to top last year’s record set by Will “The Champ” Millender, who consumed 25 hamantashen in five minutes. If the first place winner “beats the pro,” he or she will win a second roundtrip ticket to Israel. Second and third place winners will receive flight vouchers for $500 and $250. *** The Orthodox Union Job Board will present “Networking for Attorneys” on Thursday, February 28, at 5:30 p.m. at OU headquarters, 11 Broadway. The program will focus on “out of the box job opportunities for attorneys,” explained Michael Rosner, director of the Job Board. Among the topics to be discussed are “Job Prospects: openings and opportunities,” “Solo Practice: Stick your toe in the water – it’s not as cold as you think,” “Chapter 11 – What you don’t want to hear,” and “Credit and Legal Risks – What they are, who gets hurt.” To reserve a place, e-mail oujobs.org, call 212-5634000, or reserve online at www.oujobs.org. The cost is $10 to pre-register and $25 at the door. *** Havurat Yisrael will participate in Shabbat Across America on the weekend of March 1- 2. In addition to a program of Shabbat meals and zemirot, David Alkalay, a Holocaust survivor, will narrate his experiences as a child during this horrible period. Havurat Yisrael is located at 68-60 Austin St. in Forest Hills, near Yellowstone Boulevard. For more information, call 718-261-5500 or e-mail hyoffice18@yahoo.com.
Camp Shoshanim To Incorporate Special-Needs Children
The Orthodox Union’s Yachad agency for specialneeds individuals has entered into a partnership with Camp Shoshanim for girls in Lakewood, PA to provide a fun summer for Yachad members ages 8-13. There will be a Yachad “bunk” and the campers will join in activities with their peers. The camp season extends from July 29-August 19. Camp Shoshanim joins Camps Lavi, Mesorah, Morasha, Moshava/Indian Orchard, Nesher and, and a day camp, Moshava Ba’ir, as partners with Yachad, in which a mainstream Orthodox camp includes Yachad members in its regular activities. Many of these camps also provide opportunities for adult Yachad members to have summer jobs with mainstream peers as well. Interested parents should contact Nechama Braun at 212-613-8369 or yachadsummer@ou.org.
Social Security Expands Online Service Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, announced last month that the agency is expanding the services available with a “my Social Security” account – a personalized online account that people can use beginning in their working years and continuing throughout the time they receive Social Security benefits. More than 60 million Social Security beneficiaries and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients can now access their benefit verification letter, payment history, and earnings record instantly using their online account. Social Security beneficiaries also can change their address and start or change direct deposit information online. “We are making it even easier for people to do their business with us from the comfort of their home, office, or library,” Commissioner Astrue said. People age 18 and older can sign up for an account at www.socialsecurity.gov/myaccount.
‘Accidental’ Mitzvahs By Molly Resnick Two weeks ago I found myself at the International Conference of Chabad Shluchos in Crown Heights running a program together with my friend Rivka Kotlarsky for 120 Guests of Shluchos – many of them not yet especially observant. On Motzei Shabbos, while ascending the elevator of the Jewish Children’s Museum – where we had organized an elegant melave malka banquet – I suddenly saw the woman next to me point in my direction and say to a third woman, “That’s the person you’re looking for.” “Oh, you’re in charge of the Shluchos Program?” the lady asked me. “No,” I said, “I’m one of the women in charge of the Guest of Shluchos program. If you want the Shluchos program, you’ll have to walk a block and a half where the main program is taking place.” “I don’t want to walk,” she said. She was holding 25 beautifully embroidered challah covers that her husband – the rabbi of the David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem – had asked her to distribute among the shluchos as a promotion for the hotel. “Well,” I said, “if you want, I can give them to shluchos’s guests. I’ll auction them off,” I said. “No,” she said, “you can’t auction them. They have to be given for free.” “I mean, auction them for mitzvos,” I said. “Every woman who wishes to receive a challah cover will pledge to do a mitzvah and then we’ll place all their pledges in a bag and randomly pick the winners.” “Okay, let me ask my husband,” she said. She called her husband, he gave the okay, and I was left holding the bag of beautiful challah covers. All this was done on a whim. The idea popped into my head, and I went with it. I didn’t make much of it initially and even temporarily forgot about the covers. But then on Sunday, on the
way back from the Ohel, the resting place of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, I suddenly remembered and introduced the mitzvah raffle idea to our guests. Right there on the moving bus the women shakily wrote their determined pledges. Our accommodating bus driver pulled out the lucky winners. But they were all winners – each one of them. You should have seen their pledges. They really touched our hearts. “I promise to stop watching TV and turn off my cell and computer on Shabbos,” one woman wrote. “Go to the mikvah and light Shabbos candles,” wrote another. “To learn and start saying the bathroom blessing,” wrote a third. “Give daily tzedakah,” wrote a fourth. “Maintain kashrut at home,” wrote a fifth. “Won’t smoke or wear make-up on Shabbos,” wrote a sixth…and on and on Who were these women? In a sense they were all ordinary people – like you and me. They were brought to Crown Heights from literally all four corners of the globe by some of the 2,000 shluchos who attended the conference that weekend. And something that Shabbos (the Shabbos of the Ten Commandments) touched their souls. The lectures they heard, the workshops they attended, the spirituality they imbibed that weekend permeated their souls and they wanted to do… more. Will all these women keep all their pledges? Who knows? But I truly believe they will. Each one of these women entered the raffle voluntarily and on their own decided to pledge to undertake a new mitzvah. This act of devotion in itself is truly awe-inspiring. Of course none of this would have happened had the woman with the challah covers not “accidentally” entered that elevator at that moment. Who said Hashem doesn’t run the world?
Machon Yerushalayim Continues Producing Scholarly Works On any given day, nearly 200 rabbinical scholars, researchers, and historians can be found poring over voluminous amounts of ancient Jewish texts and rare manuscripts at Machon Yerushalayim’s 12 branches across Israel, in a quest to elucidate and amend errors which might have crept into early editions of important sefarim. The fruits of their tireless efforts can be found in a series of unique sefarim which Machon Yerushalayim has published that have rapidly become bestsellers. Upcoming sefarim include: • The Shulchan Aruch-Friedman Edition: Scholars scanned through earlier manuscripts and printings, correcting thousands of errors and misprints, restoring deleted sections, and inserting many heretofore unknown new commentaries; • Maharal of Prague: A 29-volume set that has been revised based on earlier printings and manuscripts; and • T’Shuvos HaRishonim: A 15-volume set that includes supplemental materials, notations, sources, and explanations.
Declicious Cupcakes At Breezy’s By Naomi Mauer Breezy’s is a shop on Central Avenue in Cedarhurst that sells housewares, giftware and bakeware. I could spend hours there looking at and fingering each beautiful dish and bowl, etc. But on Sunday, February 3, something altogether different was taking place at Breezys. This was the day of the great cupcake bakeoff. Four different companies, Lil Miss Cakes, Cup Of Cake, Cake a Bite and Delightfully Sweet, were invited to compete in making the best cupcakes using special ingredients and having a Purim theme. We, the large audience, got to taste their fares before the contest started. All the little cakes and cupcakes were delicious and we could hardly wait to see what they would present for the contest. Breezy Schwartz, the owner of Breezys, read off the list of what the contestants had to use in the cupcakes and in the frosting. The cupcakes had to include fig jelly, Heering Liquor in cherry or coffee, King Arthur flour and balsamic vinegar. The frostings had to have three of the following ingredients: pomegranate seeds, apricot oil, cumin, cinnamon maple butter and orange tea. The panel of judges were: Alessandra Rovati, a food writer and cooking teacher, whose Italian recipes were recently featured in The Jewish Press Magazine; Bobbi Lloyd President of Magnolia Bakery.com; Tamar Genger who works with Jamie Geller; and Jamie Geller, herself, who had flown in from Israel that very day. Jamie Geller, the “cook who knew nothing,” the author of Quick and Kosher, and host of a wellknown television program, made aliyah a number of months ago. Many of Jamie’s articles appeared over the years in The Jewish Press. Thirty minutes passed very quickly and the contestants came in bearing the most amazing cupcakes I had ever seen. There were cupcakes with the faces of Esther, Mordechai and Haman and there was one that had a noose hanging from a “tree” with a cupcake swinging from it with Haman on it. There were cupcakes with a clown and with a Megillah. I marveled at the ingenuity of the bakers. The judges had to pick based on taste, presentation and creativity. I was thankful that I was not a judge because I would never have been able to pick a winner. The judges chose Cup Of Cake whose winning cupcakes are shown on page 57. Aside from the delicious cakes that the contestants had brought for all of us to taste, there was a wonderful fruit platter donated by Fruit Platters and More, and D. J. Ben Black lent his musical talents throughout. The prize was a two-page spread in Bitayavon Magazine featuring the cupcakes. I had never been to an event of this kind before, but as I told Breezy, I will be very happy to come to the next one.