The Local News Issue 398

6th December 2018

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Issue 398

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With the financial climate in the UK so stormy and cloudy...

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6th December 2018

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6th December 2018

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6th December 2018

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6th December 2018

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6th December 2018

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6th December 2018

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6th December 2018

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6th December 2018

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6th December 2018

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6th December 2018

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6th December 2018

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Are you the person others always ask for help?

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6th December 2018

Issue 398 ‫בעזהשי״ת‬

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To request an application form please email admin@beisyaakov.barnet.sch.uk Closing date for applications: Thursday 13th December 2018 Our School and all its personnel are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the children. This post is subject to an Enhanced Disclosure Application to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

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Chanukah Campaign

5779

‫ַצ ִדיק ג ֹו ֵזר‬ A Tzaddik decrees

In a moving handwritten letter containing a unique and historic blessing Maran Sar HaTorah Harav Chaim Kanievsky shlit”a writes: BS”D 18th Kislev 5779

Those who donate the numerical value of ‫נ”ר‬ to Kupat Ha’ir’s Chanukah campaign will merit ‫ תורה אור‬- worthy children with Yiras Shomayim as well as sons who will become Talmidei Chachomim.

Chaim Kanievsky

Whoever donates in accordance with the above request can give in names for Rav Chaim’s Tefilla at the auspicious time of the ‫ אשמורת השלישית‬of the eighth night of Chanukah for brocho and yeshuah and fulfillment of personal requests Names to be given in by Sunday, 1 Teves / 9th of December 10:00 am local time

0800-169-6631 Send your donation to: Dayan Shulem Friedman Shlit”a, 105 Osbaldeston Rd. London N16 6NP

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DARK TAPESTRY

by Ruthie Pearlman

Chapter Five cont Gently, firmly, he propelled her to the kitchen table.

Pressure on her shoulders made her sit. She sat, eyes downcast, twisting her hands in her lap.

Don sat backward on another chair, facing her, his arms folded along the back.

“Ilana, look at me. Listen to me.”

“No. Can’t. Too much to do. No time, no time.”

“Ilana. Look at me! Listen to me!”

The sharpness of his tone brought her head up like a whip. He looked into her empty, ravaged eyes and his heart bled.

“Josh is missing. But we hope and we pray, yes, we daven like crazy that soon he will be found safe and well. In the meantime, we have to keep our wits about us. Maybe someone will contact us for a ransom demand. We have to be alert and on top of things if that happens. I know that escaping into your own world helps you cope, but in the long run it’s a false world, and you must confront the real one. Please, Ilana, try.

For me. And for Josh.”

Something flickered in her eyes, as if someone was switching on a light or opening a door. And as if that same someone had opened a floodgate, her eyes filled with tears that quickly overflowed.

“We’ll never see him again,” she whispered, tears flowing freely.

“You mustn’t believe that. We will see him again, safe and well. We must daven.”

“Maybe I don’t have the zechuyos,” she said tremulously.

“Don’t talk like that. Don’t even think it. You’re a good woman. Just have faith.”

There was a long pause. Then, as tears overflowed again, Ilana lifted her devastated face to Don’s.

“Why did you bring me out of that warm, safe place where I was hiding, Don? The place where at least I could pretend Josh was safe here with us? Why drag me into the real world, where all is dark and ugly and desolate?”

“That warm, safe place only looked warm and safe. It’s a false safety and a dangerous one for you. You must be strong. You are strong, Ilana. Use that strength now as you have never used it before.”

They maintained eye contact for a long moment. Then she nodded. She would be strong. For Josh.

Outside, it was growing dark. Unconsciously, Ilana

62

was waiting for a ransom demand by telephone. Every time the phone rang, she ran as if trying to win a race in her eagerness to answer it. But it was usually her mother or her friends or well-meaning members of the community asking if she needed anything. To everyone she answered firmly in the negative. She did not need support or help from anyone. She was grateful they cared, but the phone calls were beginning to annoy.

Every second she spent murmuring platitudes on the phone she was wondering if the kidnapper was at that very moment trying to get through. She would tell everyone, “Please, I really do appreciate you calling, but I must keep the line clear in case.” Everyone knew what the “in case” was, and slowly the well-intended phone calls began to tail off.

Even her mother, who had spent the day at the Hardmans’, was beginning to irritate, and Ilana had sent the protesting Sarah home. “I’ll be in touch, Mum, really. I don’t need people hanging around all day. It isn’t helpful.”

Well meaning though the rebuff was, Sarah was hurt. “If a mother can’t help at a time like this…”

“You can’t help. That’s the whole point. No one can help except the police. And Hashem, Who is guiding them,” Ilana had tried to explain while firmly propelling her mother doorward.

After speaking to the umpteenth well-meaning friend or relative on the phone, Ilana had put on the answering machine for two hours with the following message: “Thank you for calling the Hardmans. We ask you please to understand that the family is undergoing much stress at the moment and that the phone lines need to be kept clear in case of developments. There is nothing we need from anyone, except to find our son, and for that reason we entreat you most politely and sincerely not to call unless you have news of that specific kind.

Thank you.”

It sounds so rude and ungrateful, Ilana said to herself, playing it back. She added another bit at the end and recorded it.

“Thank you for your tireless support and offers of help for which we are unendingly grateful. Davening and saying tehillim would be appreciated.”

The good people of Golders Green took her up on this immediately, and Tehillim rotas were quickly set up.

They took Ilana at her word, however, and once they had heard the message, they stopped calling.

“We can do more by staying out of her way and

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davening,” they said. Once the phone had stayed silent for a few hours, Ilana had dared switch off the answering machine.

Don had not been pleased with this turn of events. “You need your friends. It’s not right to drive them away.”

“I can’t cope with them now, Don. All I do is repeat the same old things to each one: no, there is no news; we are trying to keep the lines clear; no, there is nothing you can do to help except daven, thank you so much for calling. I can’t take anymore, Don.” So now, as the evening turned into night, the house was silent, waiting for a little boy whose parents feared he might never come home.

--- ---- ---Colin had a team of constables lined up in front of him in the newly set up Josh Hardman incident room. Video display units all had a scanned picture of Josh on their screens, along with a sidebar listing all his statistics — height, weight, distinguishing marks, color of hair and eyes. Each officer had a printout of this picture and stats in his hand and was trying to look concerned and official, hiding his excitement. They were only human, and it had been a while since they had had a case like this in Golders Green. It made a change from the usual burglaries and petty muggings that were their bread and butter. Once in about six years they got a murder, but it had been quiet recently, nothing interesting to break the monotony. This was a case to get their collective teeth into, as it were, and they were champing at the bit.

The day before had been spent asking a few questions, doing a bit of tracking, but officially they couldn’t open the investigation until the boy had been gone twentyfour hours. As soon as he could, Colin put together a task force and called a meeting.

“Now,” Colin said, “first things first. The neighbors.

I want every house in the street, and several streets around, door-to-door’d. Ask questions. Show a photo of the boy; you’ve all got a printout. Find out if they’ve got kids the same age, maybe go to the same school.

Ask the kids if they’ve seen Josh anywhere. Above all, assume nothing. Sweet little old ladies are usually the worst.” Here he grinned.

“But, sir, all the neighbors are Orthodox Jews, like the Hardmans.” This from a young rookie at the end of the line.

Colin shot him a hard stare. “Your point being?”

The rookie swallowed. “Well, sir, ain’t they all meant to be ’olier than thou? Good eggs and all that?”

6th December 2018

“Plenty of rotten eggs in a basket,” Colin said. “I repeat: assume nothing. A mean-looking chap might be innocence personified, and a sweet little old lady, well, as I said, they’re the worst.”

“In your experience, of course, of sweet little old lady ax murderers,” someone along the line murmured in a stage whisper.

“Of course, Simpson,” Colin said. “Now get to work.

This kid has been missing more than twenty-four hours.

It’s evening. Everyone should be at home. Check ’em out. And do your jobs well. Report anything. Get back to me on your mobiles and I’ll come. In the meantime, I have some more questions to ask the Hardmans. Now on yer bikes.”

Ilana and Don sat listlessly at the kitchen table. Supper, apathetically thrown together, lay untouched before them. Well, not totally untouched. They each poked the food around their plate. Friends and family had brought food in. All of it had gone into the freezer. Somehow the act of putting a meal together, however basic and however uneaten, was a small comfort, and Ilana needed that comfort.

The doorbell shattered the silence into a thousand ice crystals. They both jumped high, holding their hands to their pounding hearts.

“It’s me. Detective Inspector Sommers. I need to ask you some more questions,” said the voice through the door. Don opened it, ashen-faced.

“What’s happened?” Colin said, alarmed.

“Nothing, nothing, you just startled us. Come in, please.”

Colin stepped into the Hardman place carefully, as if afraid to step on something fragile, like their hopes.

“I don’t have any news for you yet,” he began, and watched their faces fall. “But I do need some more information to help with our investigation.”

“Of course. Sit down,” Don said. Colin sat at the kitchen table, noting the almost full plates.

“I’ve disturbed your supper. I apologize,” he said.

“Oh, please don’t apologize, Inspector. We had no appetite anyway. We’ve been sitting here looking at the same congealed food for hours.”

“That’s no good. Gotta keep your strength up.” Colin found himself voicing the same platitudes his mother used to spout at him many years ago.

Ilana smiled faintly but said nothing.

To be continued....

You’re reading Dark Tapestry. Get the rest of Ruthie Pearlman’s gripping thrillers either in your local Judaica store, or check out her website at www.ruthiepearlman.com to link to Amazon. Also two books are in audio book format at www.mostlymusic.com

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