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THE JEWISH VOICE
AND OPINION
Promoting Classical Judaism
January 2006
Vol. 19 • No. 5
Tevet 5766
The Vatican Wants Mt. Zion—or at least Part of It
Diaspora Yeshiva and Sephardic Committee Prepare to Save Mt. Zion
D
espite some efforts by Israeli President Moshe Katsav, the rumors that
the State of Israel is preparing to cede
part of Mount Zion in Jerusalem to the
Vatican simply will not go away. Some
observers call the persistence of the rumors the fruits of Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon’s “disengagement” last summer from Gaza after campaigning on a
platform vowing that Gush Katif was as
valuable as Tel Aviv.
“If Ariel Sharon tells you the State
of Israel will be keeping a certain part of
the Land of Israel, you can be sure that
part will be the first to go,” said one pundit.
Mt. Zion, Jerusalem
Those who want to hold onto Mt.
Zion point out that Israel has already given
away the Temple Mount and, for much of
the year, the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Joseph’s Tomb in Shechem and the
Shalom al Yisrael Synagogue in Jericho
have also been lost, as has Gaza. Many
Israelis are determined to struggle against
giving away any other Jewish holy sites,
including Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem
and Mt. Zion, where, according to Jewish
tradition, King David is buried.
In addition to the spiritual attachment to the site, some scholars suspect
that the unexplored tunnels and caverns
continued on page 47
The RCA Promised “Bombs” for Rabbi Tendler, and One Week Later, a Civil
Suit, a Psak, a Published Letter, a Smear Campaign: Just a Coincidence?
For supporters of Rabbi Mordecai Tendler, December was not a good
month. The Rockland County spiritual leader, who was expelled last March
from the Rabbinical Council of America
for “conduct inappropriate to an Orthodox rabbi” with strong innuendos of sexual misconduct, is now being sued by a
woman who claims he sexually seduced
her with assertions that he was “the messiah,” that he would “be there” for all of
her needs, and that he would assist her
in finding a prospective husband so that
she would be able to marry and have
children, as she wished.
Safe Circumcision.......................... 3
Kol Ami: Sharon’s Health?............ 4
The Current Crisis......................... 5
Protecting Baby........................... 12
Keeping up Appearances............. 13
Bolton & Glick at ZOA............... 16
NCSY Alumni Wanted................. 26
In addition, an entity calling itself
The Committee for Rabbinic Integrity,
which has a presence only on the Internet and many believe consists of no more
than an individual or two, has posted online and sent through the mails a packet
of information, most of it anonymous,
insisting on Rabbi Tendler’s guilt.
The packet, which runs close to 40
pages, includes only two signed documents. One is a psak by Rabbi Benzion
Wosner, a controversial spiritual leader, who concluded, without speaking to
Rabbi Tendler or any of his supporters,
that the rabbi is guilty of sexual miscon-
Inside the Voice
Jewish Genetic Testing................. 27
Remembering Rabbi Miller, z”l... 29
NORPAC Hosts Santorum........... 31
New Shidduch Group................... 33
Frisch Wrestlers to the Rescue..... 38
The Log........................................ 40
New Classes................................. 44
duct and should be disregarded as a rav.
The second is a letter, signed by seven
hareidi rabbis, who said nothing about
sexual misconduct, but, rather, that they
disagreed with the Rabbi Tendler’s halachic rulings on divorce, marriage, and
conversions.
Anonymous Accusations
The signed documents take up only
nine of the 40 pages. The rest of the packet consists of unsigned ramblings and feverish prose, accusing Rabbi Tendler, his
relatives, and his supporters of a wide
assortment of misdeeds. The packet alcontinued on page 63
Mazal Tov.................................... 47
We Should Get More.................. 59
Ess Gezint: Cookies..................... 60
Index of Advertisers..................... 73
Honor the Professional................. 75
Letters to the Editor..................... 76
Remembering Chaz’n Braun, z”l76
Page - The Jewish Voice and Opinion
January 2006
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A
Tevet 5766
The Jewish Voice and Opinion
Page - NYC Dept of Health Weighs in against Metzitzah B’peh
lthough it is unusual for
the City of New York
to do anything that risks riling the local hareidi population, the New York City health
commissioner did just that last
month when he issued a warning that a traditional method of
circumcision is endangering
the health—and even lives—
of newborn Jewish sons.
In an Open Letter to the
Jewish Community, Dr. Thomas Friedan said, “There exists
no reasonable doubt metzitzah
b’peh can and has caused neonatal herpes infection.”
Jewish parents, he said,
should choose to circumcise
their children using other, al-
ternative methods that many
Orthodox rabbis say fulfill the
halachic requirements without the risk. The Rabbinical
Council of America, a Modern-Orthodox organization,
recommends using a sterile
tube and gloves to perform
the treasured, traditional halachic procedure while avoiding direct genital contact with
the mouth and lips.
In metzitzah b’peh, a
mohel orally sucks blood
from the site of the genital
cut made during the circumcision procedure.
Not Seeing the Risk
According to Dr. Friedan,
there have been seven cases
of herpes in newborn sons in
the New York area, including
two this past year. All, he said,
were transmitted by mohels
performing metzitzah b’peh.
Nevertheless,
hareidi
sects which consider metzitzah b’peh mandatory argue
that there is no risk. As soon
as the Health Department
(DoH) issued its letters, Rabbi Aaron Weiss, director of
the Brooklyn-based, ad-hoc
Jews for First Amendment
Rights, announced it would
hold a protest demanding that
the government agency not
“mess around with a millennia-old religious practice.”
Rabbi Weiss said his
group regarded the warnings
issued by Dr. Friedan “as religious persecution.”
Public Health
Dr. Friedan argued that
the DoH is doing little more
than engaging in publichealth education, similar to
the project undertaken to help
the public understand how to
avoid AIDS.
The Open Letter, he said,
is an attempt to present information and clear up misinformation. In addition, the DoH
has prepared a flier entitled
“Before the Bris: How to Protect Your Infant against Herpes Virus Infection Caused
continued on page 6
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January 2006
Kol Ami: Sharon’s Health?
By Sharon Hes
Israeli Prime Minister and candidate for re-election Ariel Sharon had a stroke last month and, as we go to press, he
is back in the hospital, a medical catastrophe that, in the US,
would probably doom even a Congressional race, to say nothing of a campaign for head of state. But things are different in
Israel where polls predict Mr. Sharon, 77, will win by a landslide in March. At Chopstix Chinese Take-Out on West Englewood Ave in Teaneck last month, the question was: Will Mr.
Sharon’s health impact Israeli elections?
It will definitely have an
impact. People want healthy
leaders as heads of state. If
there is a question about Sharon’s health, people will take
that into consideration.
Michael Samuel
Teaneck, NJ
It would not make a difference to me. I’d care only if
he is fit to run. But some people will see it as a problem. In
general, it probably is not good
for Israel to have a leader who
may become too ill to serve.
Noah Kinstlinger
Teaneck, NJ
I don’t think his health
will be an issue. If his doctors don’t think it is a problem,
why should anyone else? Let
the doctors make the decision.
Rachel Weinberg
New York, NY
It will absolutely be an
issue. Most people think he is
no longer the same person he
was before the incident. One
stroke often leads to another,
meaning he is not as invincible as he may think. It is time
for him to leave the position
of leadership to those who are
younger and healthier. This
episode was just a warning.
Dr. David Manela
Teaneck, NJ
O
Tevet 5766
Page - The Current Crisis: “Even in Laughter, the Heart Can Ache”
kay, this is how Israel’s Magen David Adom got to join the Sri Lanka to help people who find it odious to receive aid from
International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) last Jews who identify themselves as such.
month: The Palestinians wanted their ambulance service to be
As the Wall Street Journal put it: Jews as individuals might
guaranteed speedier passage through Israel’s checkpoints in Judea not need baptisms (or completely secular identities) anymore to
and Samaria. Never mind that these ambulances have been used be accepted. The Jews as a nation are a different matter.
in the past to transport terrorists and weapons in order more effecFor some reason, the Israeli government, officials of Magen
tively to murder Jews. That hasn’t happened in at least the last 24 David Adom, and their supporters are looking at all this as a vichours, so, at the end of November, Israel signed an agreement with tory. We would hate to see their definition of defeat.
the PA, giving them just what they wanted.
***
This effort to mollify the PA led to a Muslim
There’s also some good news. Despite all the hype
agreement that Israel could use a “Red Crystal,” which
(or maybe because of it), Steven Spielberg’s “Munich”
would be recognized by the ICRC alongside the Red
seems to be dying at the box office. The weekend of
Cross and Red Crescent emblems. As a concession,
Dec. 26, it came in at 12th place and earned under a bare
the ICRC agreed that Israel could still keep its out$1.6 million. Even the silly “Wolf Creek” and “Rumor
dated Star of David while operating within Israel’s naHas It” did better than Spielberg’s paean to moral equivFor use only
tional territory. Outside of Israel, if the host country where the host alency between Islamist terrorists and Israeli law-enagrees, Israel can stick its Star inside the Crystal. Oth- doesn’t mind. forcement officials who fight them.
Otherwise, bye,
erwise, the Star is verboten.
Spielberg’s PR team, headed by Israeli spin-doctor Eyal
bye, Magen
By the by, the Red Cross itself was rather pleased with
Arad, hasn’t helped. Maybe this will foreshadow the result
David
the arrangement, because other members, too, can use the
of another Arad project: He is also Ariel Sharon’s public
new symbol, which is devoid of any possible religious, ethrelations consultant, and a new book by two Israeli journalnic, or national connotation, when it goes into places, such as Iraq, ists credits Arad with dreaming up the entire “Disengagement-fromwhere crosses are no more welcome that Stars of David.
Gaza” scheme as a way of rescuing Sharon from his legal jeopardy.
This is not the first time Israel has ever been offered memWe wonder if Sharon is concerned about the spooky symbolbership into the ICRC if it would just relinquish its national ism inherent in the fact that his spin-doctor is now whitewashing the
pride. It’s just the first time the Jews ever accepted it.
murder of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes and promoting the notion that
Some Israelis tell us they are not going so far as to call for when good guys kill bad guys, they’re as bad as the bad guys.
a boycott of ARMDI, the American fundraising arm of Magen
Maybe even more telling is the philosophical take on ZionDovid Adom. But they do want all Jews to be aware of what the ism offered by “Munich” screenwriter Tony Kushner: “I wish
group has done—just so that they can now go into places like modern Israel hadn’t been born.”
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Protecting Baby
continued from page 3
by Metzitzah B’peh.”
The flier is a one-page
fact sheet which will be available to new parents at hospitals, especially those that service large Jewish communities.
Dr. Friedan said he hopes
the fliers will encourage new
parents to think for themselves,
rather than simply allowing religious authorities to make all
the decisions for them.
“A Smokescreen:
This seemed to enrage
Rabbi Weiss who, like most
proponents of metzitzah
b’peh, insisted “there is not
one shred of evidence” that
the procedure causes the herpes hsv-1 virus.
“The only evidence is
purely circumstantial, and in
the most serious cases, there
is stronger evidence pointing
to sources other than the mohelim,” he said.
He called the Open Letter “a smokescreen” for a separate document Dr. Friedan
circulated to hospitals and
physicians.
“In this much less-publicized letter, he mandates reporting of infections in connection with all circumcisions, and requires all health
professionals to maintain ‘a
high index of suspicion’ for
all babies on whom metzitzah
b’peh was performed,” said
Rabbi Weiss.
While it is not certain
how carefully these mew
guidelines will be observed,
many Jewish doctors and professionals will welcome them
as a help not a hindrance.
Pediatrics
The issue of metzitzah
b’peh hit the New York Jewish
community in the summer of
2004, when Rabbi Dr. Moshe
Tendler, rosh yeshiva of Ye-
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shiva University, professor of
biology at YU, and an expert
in Jewish medical ethics with
a doctorate in microbiology,
and 11 co-authors, most of
them pediatricians, published
a study in the prestigious medical journal Pediatrics, which
surveyed eight cases of Jewish male infants who, in a sixyear period, contracted herpes
after circumcisions performed
using metzitzah b’peh.
Since mothers of the infected infants all tested negative for the virus, the study
implicated the mohelim, concluding that metzitzah b’peh
places infants at much greater risk of contracting herplex simplex and, therefore,
should be eliminated in favor
of the sterile tube.
Many hareidi sources,
including Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz, editor of the Rockland County-based Yated
Ne’eman, referred to the article in the peer-reiviewed Pediatrics journal as “junk science,” “unimpressive,” and
“shabby scholarship.”
He insisted that since the
authors came up with only
eight cases, the procedure
could not be “so dangerous.”
Freedom of Religion
Rabbi Avi Shafran, director of public relations at
Agudath Israel, a hareidi
umbrella group, said his or-
ganization was not so much
endorsing metzitzah b’peh as
it was “speaking out for the
rights of all observant Jews to
practice Judaism according to
their established custom.”
“If there is a risk in the
age-old method, it does not
appear at present to be a great
one,” he said.
Rabbi David Zweibel, an
attorney who serves as executive vice president of Agudath
Israel, agreed. He estimated
that the procedure is performed
more than 2,000 times each
year in New York City alone.
Should See More
According to proponents
of metzitzah b’peh, the fact that
herpes is not seen more frequently in hareidi communities, in which mohelim perform
the procedure routinely, is proof
that the danger is minimal.
“Given the vulnerability
of the infants—open wound
and immature immune systems, as the commissioner
points out in his Open Letter—there should be a much
greater incidence of infection, which is not borne out
anywhere, either world-wide
or across the millennia,” said
Rabbi Weiss.
Some hareidi leaders
have said metzitzah b’peh is
safer than taking a flu shot.
“Could it be, as the Talcontinued on page 8
Tevet 5766
Page - A message from Ronald S. Lauder
seven are already established. Our Economic Development Fund helps
them finance the move. Our involvement shows our partnership.
Together with Aleh Negev, we are building a 25-acre, world class,
residential rehabilitative village, to provide services to the entire Negev
population which suffers from a tremendous shortage of paramedical,
therapeutic, and special education services. The Aleh Negev project will
serve as home to more than 200 adults with disabilities – meeting their
needs throughout their lives – and will serve an additional 12,000 disabled
children and young adults each year as outpatients. This project, situated
near Ofaqim, will bring 3,000 new jobs to the area.
Tourism, which will bring even more employment opportunities, features
heavily in our blueprint. Our plans include building a new bike path in the
Southern Arava, with bike rental stations and refreshment centers.
A little more than a year ago, Jewish National Fund embarked on a
challenge, a long-term vision: developing the Negev into a hospitable,
habitable, profitable environment that would become home to an
additional 250,000 people.
Blueprint Negev is not a mirage, it is a vision becoming a reality – with
seven new communities created, hundreds of families moved to the
Negev, and new job opportunities.
JNF’s Blueprint Negev initiative is essential to Israel’s future. The Negev
represents 60% of Israel’s landmass, but only 8% of its population
lives there. Overcrowding and a strain on resources in the center of
the country – 92% of Israel’s population resides on 40% of Israel’s land
– further underscore the importance of this plan. Additionally, there are an
estimated 170,000 Bedouin in the Negev whose population is expected
to double in the next seven years. But their educational and medical
standards are very low and unemployment hovers at 90%. Opening up
the Negev economically will positively impact their future as well. This is a
vision for all of Israel.
Blueprint Negev builds on the extensive work already achieved by
KKL/JNF. Over 30 JNF reservoirs already in the Negev translate into 10
billion gallons of water. In Beersheva, new housing and large parks are
being built. Together with the Beersheva Foundation, KKL/JNF and the
Or Movement are creating a $300 million consortium of projects that will
transform Beersheva into a bustling metropolis.
JNF, together with the Or Movement, has established the Negev Central
Information Center, which gathers up-to-date data on communities, job
opportunities, housing, and education. Already, 10,000 names of Israelis
interested in moving to the Negev are in our central database and we
have identified 960 new employment opportunities in the Negev. Today,
our vision is turning into a reality.
Blueprint Negev allows us to be 21st century pioneers and to once again
be part of a nation under creation. Twenty-five communities are planned;
Bird watchers from around the world will flock to Israel, following the
migrations of millions of birds, from world-class centers in Eilat, up to
Kibbutz Lotan then north to the Hula Valley.
All of these are examples of our Negev Plan in action, bringing people
to the Negev, and creating jobs that will transform the Negev into a
desirable
place to live.
Our plan
encompasses
so many
projects:
building new
communities,
revitalizing
established
towns
and cities,
bolstering
services and
opportunities
Young families are calling the Negev home
throughout
the region, improving quality of life, and making all this possible by
building vital reservoirs. Singly, they are just projects; together, they form
a vision. The Blueprint Negev vision.
Sincerely,
Ronald S. Lauder, President, Jewish National Fund
email: RLauder@jnf.org
P.S. To get a free DVD visit www.jnf.org/dvd or to learn more visit
www.jnf.org or call 888-JNF-0099.
Forestry • Water • Community Development • seCurity
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www.jnf.org
Protecting Baby
January 2006
mud attests, that metzitzah b’peh really does help aid the health of the baby?
Over the centuries, the Talmud has certainly proven more consistent and reliable in preserving our people than the
daily vicissitudes of so-called modern
science,” said Rabbi Weiss.
Evolving Virus
Rabbi Tendler disagreed, arguing
that there is evidence that the virus is
currently evolving and becoming more
virulent, which is why, he said, there
seems to be an increasing number of cases, leading the DoH to act.
In adults and older children, the her-
pes virus usually causes nothing more serious than a cold sore. In infants, whose
immune systems are much more vulnerable, the disease can be catastrophic.
Rabbi Tendler stressed that with the
growing evidence of brain disease as a result of infection, parents will realize that
herpes contracted through metzitzah b’peh
can lead to dangers other than death.
Behavioral Disorders
He said he was convinced that the
sudden rise in behavior disorders, especially those that are found primarily in
boys, might be attributed to herpes.
“I’m convinced that many children
have been infected, but not diagnosed,
and years later, they must be placed in
special-education schools, and no one
knows why,” he said.
Dr. Jonathan Zenilman, chief of the
infectious disease department at Johns
Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in
Baltimore and an internationally renowned expert in sexually transmitted
diseases, agreed.
“Because neonatal herpes has a large
variety of presentations, it’s quite likely
that cases prior to this recent increased
awareness were undiagnosed. And because neonatal herpes causes encephalitis, the long-term effects of that infection
will be lifelong, including neurological
impairment,” he said.
Brain Damage
In 2004-5, five Jewish babies, three
of whom were circumcised by the same
mohel, Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer of Monsey, who used the metzitzah b’peh procedure, contracted herpes. One of “Rabbi
Fischer’s” babies died, and another was
left severely brain damaged.
The two most recent cases to come to
the DoH’s attention do not involve Rabbi
Fischer. In one of those cases, which appeared in October, the baby already shows
signs of severe brain damage.
Dr. Friedan said, in the two new
cases, neither family has been willing
to identify the mohel who performed the
circumcision.
According to Dr. Friedan, in infants,
herpes is fatal in as much as 30 percent
of the time.
Lawsuit
Last spring, New York City instituted a lawsuit against Rabbi Fischer
for what DoH officials saw as his role in
spreading herpes to the three babies, but
in September, the city withdrew its suit
as well as a court order forbidding him
to perform the procedure.
For his part, Rabbi Fischer agreed
temporarily to stop using metzitzah b’peh.
The entire issue of Rabbi Fischer’s
suitability to perform metzitzah b’peh
was turned over to the Williamsburg Beit
Din for adjudication. But when the beit
din passed the deadline set by the DoH
to conclude its proceedings, Dr. Friedan
held his press conference to unveil the
department’s new initiative against metz-
itzah b’peh.
The Williamsburg Beit Din made
clear it was investigating only Rabbi
Fischer’s suitability to perform the procedure, not whether or not the community will continue using metzitzah b’peh. It
definitely will, said Rabbi David Niederman, a spokesman for the beit din.
Rabbi Weiss said he feared that the
city’s action against Rabbi Fischer could
presage a movement in which Dr. Friedan
“picks off our mohelim one by one until
he will have accomplished what is in effect a total ban.”
Blaming the Messenger
While many hareidi groups castigated Rabbi Tendler for his role in authoring the Pediatrics paper on the issue and
endorsing circumcision with the use of a
sterile tube, even earlier, two senior pediatricians at Long Island Jewish Medical Center issued warnings about the
danger of metzitzah b’peh.
According to the New York Jewish
Week, in 2000, Dr. Philip Lanzkowsky,
chief of staff of Schneider Children’s
Hospital at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, and a colleague reached out
to city health officials as well as members of the Brooklyn hareidi community to discuss the dangers of metzitzah
b’peh. The physicians told the Jewish
Week, they decided to act after determining that two cases of neonatal herpes had
been caused by metzitzah b’peh.
Dr. Lanzkowsky said he went to
Brooklyn and met with a representative
of the DoH without a lot of fanfare or
publicity, because he did not want to risk
gaining adverse publicity for bris milah
in general.
“We wanted to deal with it in the local Jewish community,” he told the Jewish Week.
Dr. Lanzkowsky’s investigation into
the two cases was published in the March
2000 edition of the Pediatrics Infectious
Diseases Journal.
Halachic Authorities Care
While some members of the hareidi community have reacted with outrage
like Rabbi Weiss, others, such as Rabbi
Shafran, were more nuanced.
“No one is disputing the seriousness
of herpes infection in infants. Halachic
authorities will be the first ones to take
whatever steps might ever be necessary
to ensure the safety of Jewish babies. But
Tevet 5766
at least thus far, no evidence has been put
forth to indicate that any evolution of the
virus has resulted in an increase in herpes
cases in babies,” said Rabbi Shafran.
Rabbi Weiss said he feared that the
influence of “Reform and other Jewish
groups” would encourage the DoH to call
for a ban on metzitzah b’peh all together.
“The commissioner is trying to impose their views on the Orthodox-Jewish
community,” he said. “Some members
of the non-Orthodox Jewish community
are already trying to ban metzitzah b’peh
outright.”
Unenforceable
According to Dr, Zenilman, there
probably would have been a ban on the
Page - procedure already were it easier to enforce.
As it is, since most brith milahs take place
in synagogues or private homes, a ban
would be almost impossible.
Fear of this perception in the hareidi
community has prompted some city officials to meet with Orthodox leaders who
want to lobby them on this issue. Most of
all, the hareidim want assurances that despite the DoH’s suspicions, the department
will do nothing to ban the procedure.
During his election campaign, Mayor Mike Bloomberg told Jews in Brooklyn and Rockland County, NY, “We’re
going to do a study to make sure that everybody is safe, and, at the same time, it is
Page - 10
Protecting Baby
not the government’s business
to tell people how to practice
their religion.”
Enticing Parents
With the use of the new
educational materials on the
subject, Dr. Friedan is hoping parents will jump into the
fray themselves.
The flier begins with the
statement: “Circumcision has
health benefits.” It then discusses how herpes is contracted from mohels who perform
metzitzah b’peh. Finally, the
flier encourages parents “to
consider other options.”
It directly tackles the
arguments used by hareidi
leaders who are convinced
the practice is safe.
The flier tells parents:
“There is no proven way to
reduce the risk of metzitzah
b’peh. Although a mohel may
use oral rinses or sip wine before metzitzah b’peh, there is
January 2006
continued from page no evidence that these actions
reduce the spread of herpes.”
The only way is to use
a mohel who will perform
the procedure using a sterile
tube, says the flier.
Informed Consent
Mr. Zweibel said that
while he wishes the city
had not issued the statement
against metzitzah b’peh, he
found reason to be grateful
that the procedure will not
be regulated or forbidden.
He had been concerned that
the city might require mohels
to have parents sign an informed consent form.
“That was on the table at
an earlier stage,” said Mr. Zweibel, who is also an attorney.
Rabbi Weiss said Dr.
Friedan’s recommendation is
troubling because “it makes
certain assumptions about
halachic issues that are not the
province of the government.”
“The more than 3700year-old history of bris milah
and metzitzah b’peh testifies
eloquently to its safety. Any
action against it should be
fought strenuously, especially actions as aggressive as
these,” said Rabbi Weiss.
Medical Contingencies
Rabbi Tendler, however, pointed out that, in previous generations, great poskim
have ruled to curtail or prohibit metzitzah b’peh when
conditions required. “The
Tifereth Israel, the Chatam
Sofer, the Panovitzer Rav,
HaRav Kook, HaGaon Elyashev, and many others concur
that, if medically recommended, there is no objection
to the use of a sterile tube to
fulfill the requirements of
metzitzah b’peh,” he said.
In the 1980s, while the
AIDS epidemic was raging,
many Jewish poskim ruled
that metzitzah b’peh should
not be performed out of fear
the procedure might prove
too risky to the mohel.
“If we stopped the procedure to protect the mohelim,
surely we would stop it to protect babies,” said Rabbi Tendler.
Parental Choice
Most hareidi leaders
have stressed that they have
no intention of stopping the
procedure, especially while
they are convinced there is
no medical danger, which is
why it is thought Dr. Friedan
might have better luck reaching out to parents through the
Open Letter and the flier.
In the Open Letter, he suggests that several days before
the bris, parents should ask the
mohel whether he intends to
perform metzitzah b’peh.
“This offers parents a
chance to weigh the risks of
metzitzah b’peh and choose
another option if they wish,”
said Dr. Friedan.
Doing Both
Rabbi Fischer said that
he was always prepared
to accommodate parents.
Those who asked for metzitzah b’peh could have it, and
those who requested a sterile
tube had it done that way.
The fact DoH’s sheet is
available online in English
at http://www.nyc.gov/html/
doh/html/std/std-bris.shtml.
It will shortly be available in Hebrew and Yiddish.
“While some medical
professionals and others in the
Jewish community have called
on the Department to completely ban metzitzah b’peh
at this time, it is our opinion
that educating the community through public health information and warnings is a
more realistic approach,” said
Dr. Friedan
S.L.R.
Tevet 5766
Page - 11
Page - 12
January 2006
Before the Bris: How to Protect Your Infant against Herpes Virus
Infection Caused by Metzitzah B’peh
A
n Open Letter to the Jewish Community from the New York City Health
Commissioner Communicable Disease
Circumcision has health benefits. Recently, however, the Health Department
has documented several cases of herpes
infection in newborns after circumcisions
that included metzitzah b’peh.
Metzitzah b’peh is a religious practice
performed by some mohelim (religious circumcisers) in the Jewish community. Some of
these infants became seriously ill. One baby
died, and another suffered brain damage.
Because there is no proven way to reduce the risk of herpes infection posed by
metzitzah b’peh, the Health Department
recommends that infants being circumcised not undergo metzitzah b’peh.
To help you protect your baby, we
want to make sure that parents understand the risk of metzitzah b’peh before
the day of the bris, while there is time to
explore other options.
How Metzitzah B’peh Spreads Herpes
In metzitzah b’peh, the mohel places
his mouth on the freshly circumcised genetalia to draw blood away from the cut.
If the mohel is infected with oral herpes
(as most adults are), metzitzah b’peh can
expose the infant to the herpes virus.
While severe illness associated with
this practice may be rare, there is a definite risk of infection.
Oral herpes spreads easily through saliva,
especially when saliva touches a cut or break
in the skin, such as during metzitzah b’peh.
Most people with oral herpes don’t
know they are infected and don’t have
symptoms. Even without symptoms,
however, people can spread the infection.
Poor Immune System
Because the immune system of newborns is not developed enough to fight
serious infection, herpes infections pose
grave risks to infants.
There is no proven way to reduce
the risk of metzitzah b’peh
Although a mohel may use oral rinses
or sip wine before metzitzah b’peh, there
is no evidence that these actions reduce
the spread of herpes. A mohel who takes
antiviral medication may reduce the risk
of spreading herpes virus during metzitzah b’peh, but there is no evidence that
taking medication eliminates this risk.
Alternatives
Many mohelim do not practice metzitzah b’peh
While some religious authorities consider metzitzah b’peh the only acceptable way to
draw blood away from the circumcision cut,
others use different means. For example, some
mohelim use a glass tube—or a glass tube attached to a rubber bulb—to suction blood in a
way that does not include contact between the
mohel’s mouth and the baby’s cut.
Others use a sponge or sterile gauze
pad to wipe blood away.
Unlike metzitzah b’peh, there is
no evidence that any of these practices
causes infection.
Ask Before
Ask about metzitzah b’peh before
the day of the bris
Some parents whose infants had
metzitzah b’peh say they did not know
the mohel would perform it.
The Health Department recommends that parents ask the mohel several
days before the bris if he practices metzitzah b’peh. This will give time to talk to
your doctor and consider other options
for circumcision.
For more information on circumcision,
talk to your family doctor or pediatrician. Y
Tevet 5766
Page - 13
Israel’s Image Isn’t So Terrible:
Ordinary Americans Are Standing up for Her
By Eytan Schwartz, winner of the Israeli reality TV Show, “The Ambassador”
L
et’s begin with a warning: This column is not recommended reading
for people who love to whine about how
bad Israel’s image is, about how much
the rest of the world hates us, and about
Israel’s terrible PR.
I have two upbeat stories for you.
The heroes of the stories are not polished
diplomats or experienced spokesmen, but
just plain old good Middle Americans,
lovers of Zion who encountered anti-Israel sentiment and decided to fight it.
I meet people like this almost every
day—ordinary folks who love Israel and
who fight to defend its honor. It’s great to
hear these stories, and it’s great to share
them with others.
Want to Study
One of the issues that is very troubling to the pro-Israel community in the
US is that too many Americans are prevented from studying in Israel. In the US,
many college students spend a semester
or two abroad, and until the intifada broke
out, Israel was the preferred destination
for many of the Jewish students.
But then the violence began, the
State Department placed Israel on a list
of dangerous countries, and many universities, including very prestigious
ones, stopped allowing their students to
study in Israel.
This was, first and foremost, catastrophic for Israel’s image, since the State
Department placed Israel on a list that included Libya, Iran, Iraq, and the Sudan.
In addition, we lost some of our best
“ambassadors.” Studies show that people who spend time in Israel as students
tend to be involved in pro-Israel activities even as adults. But these potential
ambassadors have been spending their
semesters abroad in Florence, Rio, or
London instead of Israel.
Terrible Verdict
Syracuse University, located in upstate New York, suspended its Israel program not because of antisemitism or because of malice, but apparently simply to
be on the safe side. Most Syracuse students accepted the verdict, but one especially stubborn undergraduate, Carly
Mangel, decided to fight it.
Ms. Mangel is a pro-Israeli activist
on campus, and since she first visited Israel and fell in love with the culture and
the idea of a Jewish state, she has wanted
to study there.
Together with friends, Ms. Mangel
wrote to the university administration, sent
emotional letters from students who wanted to study in Israel, and kept an entire file
of documents, reports, and recommendations from various people who called upon
the university to change its policy.
It Worked
Wonder of wonders, this worked.
Three weeks ago Syracuse University
decided that it isn’t actually so dangerous to study in Israel, and that its students could once again study there.
Remembering the moment when
she heard the news, Ms. Mangel says it
was a wonderful feeling to discover that
one person can change things.
Nevertheless, Ms. Mangel, who was
elected head of the Jewish student organization at Syracuse, must stay on campus, and cannot take advantage of the
newly-won permission to study in Israel.
But there are another 3,000 Jews there,
and even if only one of them goes to Israel, it will have been worth it.
Fighting Media Bias
And another story, this time from
Florida. Not long ago I spent some time
in a tranquil city in the Sunshine State
with a small but active Jewish community. Several years ago, at some point near
the beginning of the intifada, members
of the community noticed that the local
paper’s coverage of Israel had a decidedly pro-Palestinian slant.
They began to clip articles, count
news reports, assess headlines, and check
photos. They found that the statistics confirmed their gut feeling that the paper had
a pro-Palestinian slant: for every pro-Israel article, the paper had four or five that
showed Israel in a negative light.
I should mention that in the US, an
enormous country, there are thousands
of local papers. In Israel, we are mainly
familiar with the most important American papers such as the New York Times,
but many Americans get their news almost exclusively from local papers.
Once in a while an item about a faraway country—Israel, for example—
makes its way into a local paper, and
those few items provide the local papers’
readers all they know about what is going on in the world. Or to put differently,
Page - 14
Israel’s Image
what is written about Israel in
local newspapers is very important.
Back to Florida
But back to Florida: The
most prominent publication in
the city I mentioned is a local
paper that reaches hundreds
of thousands of people. For
most of them, it is the only
source of news about Israel.
This means that what they
were reading was especially
January 2006
one-sided. Israelis were always the aggressors; Palestinians always the victims.
If the paper had photos
of funerals, they were always
Palestinian funerals. The paper’s editors loved to include
photos of orphaned children
and weeping women, but not
when the victims were Israeli.
In one instance, after a
terrorist attack led to an Israeli military operation, the
headline screamed, “Israelis
kill Palestinians.” There were
many other similar instances.
Uniting
Members of the local
Jewish community got together and decided to act.
One person suggested Jewish
businesses cease to advertise
in the paper, while another
raised the possibility of mass
cancellation of subscriptions.
Ultimately a much less
forceful and a much simpler method was chosen: The
group asked to meet with
the editors, and the editors
agreed.
They met in the paper’s
offices, and the Jewish community members presented the
articles that had appeared in
the paper, and asked for fairer coverage. One activist told
me they never asked the paper
to become pro-Israel, only to
present the issues fairly.
They showed the editors
statistics about terrorism,
presented the Israeli point of
view, and tried to explain the
complexity of the situation.
Becoming Fairer
Wonder of wonders, not
only did the editors promise to be more careful, but,
in fact, gradually, over the
course of months, community members began to see a
change:
Articles became more
balanced, the headlines were
more reserved, and the entire
coverage of the conflict became fairer.
The same activist told me
that they no longer are afraid
that they will open the paper
and read about what terrible
people the Israelis are. They
have realized that if no one
will defend Israel, they have
to do it themselves.
Y
Tevet 5766
Page - 15
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January 2006
At ZOA Dinner, John Bolton and Caroline Glick Tackle Separating
Truth from Fantasy at the UN and in Middle East
A
merican Ambassador
to the UN John Bolton
looked as if something had
just gone down the wrong
pipe. It was not the food at
the ZOA dinner last month, it
was the memory of an event
that had taken place barely three weeks earlier when,
on Nov. 29, the anniversary
of the 1947 UN vote recommending the partition of the
British Mandate creating the
State of Israel, the UN sponsored its annual official Day
of Solidarity with the Palestinian people.
The event featured three
UN officials—Secretary General Kofi Anan and the presidents of the General Assembly and the Security Council—sitting on a stage against
the backdrop of a map of the
Middle East in which Israel
had disappeared and was re-
placed by a country called
Palestine.
According to Mr. Bolton,
not one of the UN leaders, or
any other participant for that
matter, protested. Instead,
when the master of ceremonies
said, “I invite everyone present
to rise and observe a minute of
silence in memory of all those
who have given their lives for
the cause of the Palestinian
people,” they stood.
“We need to use this example, this piece of evidence
about a fundamental flaw
within the UN itself. This is
not simply a mistake that the
three dignitaries made by going and not speaking about
the map. They didn’t speak
about the map because they
didn’t see anything unusual,
and in fact there isn’t anything unusual when it’s in the
context of the UN. We need
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to take this instance and go
beyond what our normal reaction might be—to slam the
people involved for not criticizing the map, for not walking out,” said Mr. Bolton.
“Pivotal Point”
Calling the UN—and his
experience in Turtle Bay—
“the good, the bad, and the
ugly,” he said the “Day of
Solidarity” was a “pivotal
point” clarifying for him that
is was time to begin changing
the culture at the UN.
ZOA president Mort
Klein credited Anne Bayefsky, a law professor at York
University in Canada and a
fellow at the Hudson Institute, for reporting on the Day
of Solidarity for the organization Eye on the UN.
According to Ms. Bayefsky, the wording during the
ceremony was geared to honor those Palestinian terrorists
who had murdered Jews.
“It was a moment crafted to include the commemoration of suicide bombers,”
said Ms. Bayefsky, who noted that the Palestinian map
devoid of Israel predated the
Iranian president’s call to
wipe Israel off he map.
“Outrageous”
In a letter to Mr. Annan,
Mr. Klein and his fellow officers of the ZOA said they failed
to understand how it was possible for UN officials to attend
an event in which a “Map of
Palestine” was displayed and
Israel’s presence expunged.
The ZOA officers urged
the UN officials “to make an
immediate explanation to Israel and the Jewish community for this inappropriate action” and also “to publicly
criticize” the Palestinian Arabs for displaying such a map
which is devoid of Israel.
Mr. Klein called the exhibit “outrageous” as well as
the six anti-Israel resolutions
which the UN had just passed.
Who Gave Approval?
His talk prompted Jerusalem Post columnist and
Deputy Managing Editor
Caroline Glick, who attended the dinner as the recipient of the ZOA’s Ben Hecht
Award for Outstanding Journalism on the Middle East, to
call Mr. Bolton very possibly
“Israel’s greatest friend in the
US government.”
Mr. Bolton said that in
his role as American Ambassador, he was determined to
discover who the highest UN
official was that gave the approval for the map, under
what authority the official
made that decision, and who
else was aware that the map
was being prepared.
It turned out the map was
the property of the UN’s Division for Palestinian Rights.
US, Israeli, Canadian, and
Australian
representatives
don’t usually attend this particular event and so they did
not know that it goes on every year.
Americans’ 22 Percent
If the event was paid for
by the regular UN budget, it
would mean the American
taxpayer covered 22 percent
of the cost of the map.
Mr. Bolton recalled an
episode in which a UN-funded agency produced mugs
and t-shirts with the slogan:
“Today Gaza, Tomorrow Jerusalem.”
At the dinner, Mr. Bolton
vowed that “we are not finished with the issue.”
“We’re going to do
something about that. We are
setting a new standard for
honesty at the UN,” he said,
explaining that it would part
of something he called “management reform at the UN.”
“A lot of underlying attitudes—anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, antisemitic, and, let’s be
clear, anti-American—still
persist at the UN,” he said.
Chanukah and Hezbollah
Many ZOA members believed Mr. Bolton accepted
the invitation to deliver the
keynote address at the dinner
as a way of showing appreciation for the strong support the
organization and its president,
Morton Klein, had given his
appointment to the UN.
A few weeks later, the
Bush administration had the
opportunity to return the favor. Mr. Klein was one of the
few Jewish leaders who was
re-invited to the White House
Chanukah Party.
Although unsuccessful
in his struggle in the UN Security Council to have Syria
Tevet 5766
and Palestinian Islamic Jihad
condemned for their connection with the Dec. 5th terrorist attack against Israelis in Netanya, which killed
five and wounded more than
30, Mr. Bolton succeeded in
having the Islamist terrorist
group Hezbollah condemned
for its attack on northern Israel at the end of November.
It was the first time the UN
had ever condemned Lebanon-based, Iranian-supported
terrorist group
Algeria.
While several Security Council members raised
concerns about Mr. Bolton’s
language in the US-drafted
condemnation of the Arab
terrorist attack on Netanya,
Mr. Bolton blamed Algeria
for killing the measure with
its objections to a passage in
which Syria is urged to close
the offices of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. PIJ had
claimed responsibility for the
attack in Netanya.
Page - 17
“Other governments had
questions about particular
language. We were perfectly
prepared to engage in discussions about constructive suggestions, but Algeria categorically refused to name Syria
and the PIJ,” he said.
When the measure failed
in the Security Council, Mr.
Bolton took the unusual step
of reading the text of his statement to reporters. Then he
lashed out at the Council for
“failing to speak the truth.”
“You have to speak up
in response to these terrorist attacks,” he told the press.
“It’s a great shame that the
Security Council couldn’t
speak to this terrorist attack
in Netanya, but if the Council won’t speak, the United
States will.”
Naming Names
At the ZOA dinner, he insisted the US would not back
down and that continuing to
name terrorists “is something
Page - 18
ZOA
we plan to do in the future.”
“Let’s be clear—for it to
be said that Israel is being treated as a normal nation at the UN
is fantasy,” said Mr. Bolton.
He stressed that Iran’s
public threat to wipe Israel
off the map was “no mere
flight of rhetoric when it
comes from a state that has
been pursuing weapons of
mass destruction.”
Starting from Scratch
Referring to economist
Paul Volcker, who in the
course of researching possible corruption in the Iraqi
Oil for Food program, said
there was a need to “fix the
culture of inaction” at the
UN, Mr. Bolton said, it was
necessary to remove from
the world body “the sclerotic decision-making process
and the unresponsive unaccountable actions of the UN
bureaucracy,” which, he said,
January 2006
was something all member
governments should strive
for, not just the US.
“We want to abolish the
UN Human Rights Commission and replace it with something that actually defends human rights and doesn’t have
Libya as its chairman,” he
said, adding that he would prefer a council that doesn’t consist of members such as Cuba,
Zimbabwe, Burma, Iran, and
others which he sarcastically
referred to as human rights
“stellar performers.”
He did not deny that the
Syrian people deserve democracy, but his first goal, he
said, was to stop the Assad
government from facilitating
the flow of terrorism, funds,
and weapons to Iraq, where it
is being used to kill American
and other coalition soldiers.
“We have to be unrelenting in our pressure on Syria.
Unrelenting,” he said.
Appalling Inaction
He allowed that there had
been some progress at the UN.
He called the election of Israel’s Ambassador to the UN,
Danny Gillerman, to the post
of one of the 14 vice presidents
of the General Assembly and
the passage of Israel’s resolution to establish an official UN
Holocaust Memorial Day (despite Palestinian objections)
“positive steps.”
But at the same time, he
said, it was disgraceful and
unacceptable that Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s call to wipe Israel
off the map drew “almost no
attention at the UN.”
This inaction, he said,
was even more appalling given Iran’s non-stop quest to
acquire nuclear weapons.
Mr. Bolton stressed that
the Iranian nuclear program
threatens not only Israel, but
also all nations of the region
and eventually probably the
US itself.
Praising Crumbs
Before delivering her
speech, Ms. Glick made clear
she was not as positive as
was Mr. Bolton about Mr.
Gillerman’s position or the
Official UN Holocaust Memorial Day.
She said it seemed as if
Mr. Gillerman was spending
“an ordinate amount of time
praising Kofi Anan for the
crumbs he throws in Israel’s
direction whenever he comes
under pressure from the US
Congress to reform the endemically corrupt UN.”
Further, she said, it was
hard to get excited about the
Holocaust Memorial Day
when “every day the UN busies itself facilitating a second
Tevet 5766
Page - 19
Page - 20
January 2006
ZOA
Holocaust by advancing its
agenda of delegitimizing Israel’s right to exist in every
UN body except the Security
Council where Israel is protected by the US veto.”
Teaching Israel
Mr. Bolton concluded his
address with a discussion of
the uniqueness of American
foreign policy, which, he said,
is not run by an elite group
that sits in its foreign ministry
and dictates policy without
regard to what the voters and
what our legislature things.”
“The
overwhelming
characteristic of our foreign
policy,” he said, “is that it is
ultimately determined by our
citizens.”
Having made aliyah in
1991 after graduating first
from Columbia and then earning a master’s in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy
School of Government, Ms.
Glick said that, as an Israeli,
she believed Mr. Bolton’s description of US foreign policy
“was yet another example of
the lessons we can learn from
our American friends.”
Fantasy and Reality
For her part, Ms. Glick
gave an emotional speech
in which she said she first
learned how difficult it was
for Israeli leaders to separate reality from fantasy
soon after she made aliyah
and joined the army. Working with the coordinator of
negotiations with the PLO in
the Ministry of Defense, she
said she saw “on a daily basis what life looks like in the
world of fantasy.”
But that did not prepare
her for her experience on
July 18, 1995, the day two Israeli hikers, Ori Shachor, 18,
and Ohad Bachrach, 19, were
brutally murdered by Palestinians in Wadi Kelt.
Two days later, Ms. Glick
recalled a getting caught in
a “creative demonstration,”
staged by opponents of Oslo,
in which a convoy of cars,
buses, and trucks drove up
the highway at 20 miles an
hour with signs reading:
“Rabin, Peres, go slow.”
Gratitude and Chutzpah
Deeply moved, Ms.
Glick said she cried all the
way to a meeting she was
scheduled to attend at a hotel
in Zichron Yaakov with the
heads of the Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams.
“I was grateful to the protesters—who made me arrive
an hour late at the talks. I was
grateful to them for taking
the time to show their loyalty
to the memory of the young
men—for maintaining the
honor of our dead,” she said.
But when she reached
the hotel, she found the heads
of the Israeli delegation “livid at what they considered
the chutzpah of the demonstrators for making us start
our negotiations late.”
Embarrassing to Recall
She said she still blushes
for shame at the memory of
Uri Savir, then director-general of the Foreign Ministry and
head of the Israeli delegation,
as well as several “politicized
IDF generals” apologizing to
the Palestinians for the “inconvenience caused them by
the demonstrators.”
“They apologized even
as the murderers of Shachor and Bachrach had in
the space of 36 hours been
arrested and released by the
Palestinian security forces.
And they apologized even as
their Palestinian counterparts
were the commanders of the
security services that released
the young men’s killers,” she
said. “For these Israeli lead-
ers, the fantasy of the peace
process was impervious to
the screams of our murdered
youths. For these so-called
peacemakers, their murder—
at the hands of the so-called
“enemies of peace”—was a
simple inconvenience.”
Several years later, she
said, she recalled hearing Mr.
Shachor’s mother, Yehudit,
telling reporters that when she
tried to talk to Foreign Minister Shimon Peres about the fact
that her son’s murderers were
walking free, he told her there
was nothing he could do “because he was in the business of
signing peace treaties.”
He suggested she try to
arrange an interview with PA
leader Yasir Arafat.
Fantasy of Oslo
“The fantasy of Oslo was
that the Arabs want peace
with Israel,” she said, noting
that the fantasy “was laid to
rest five years ago when the
Palestinians began their terror war against Israel in ear-
nest—with the support of the
entire Arab world and Iran.”
Unfortunately, she said,
just as “the fantasy of Oslo was
disintegrating against the overwhelming power of the reality
of war, it was replaced not with
a strategy for victory based on
reality, but by a new strategy
based on a new fantasy.”
The new fantasy, she
said, is Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon’s policy of “disengagement.”
“According to this fantasy, while it is true that the
Arab world in general and
the Palestinians in particular have no interest in living
at peace with Israel, Israel
can deal with their hatred
by unilaterally disengaging
from the Middle East. We
can hold up behind walls and
barricades, turn on the Internet and become immediately
transported to a world where
we will be safe,” she said.
Even More Dangerous
But this fantasy, she said,
Tevet 5766
is, in many ways, even more
dangerous than the fantasy of
Oslo, which empowered the
Palestinian terrorist groups
and gave them safe bases of
operations against the Jewish
state in Judea, Samaria, and
Gaza. Oslo also sent “a clear
message” to the entire Arab
and Muslim world that Israel can be defeated through a
strategy of attrition based on
terrorism, she said.
The “disengagement fantasy,” she said, does all that,
but, in addition it “involves
Israelis directly in the brutalization of other Israelis.”
In evacuating Gush Katif in Gaza and expelling the
10,000 Jewish residents, Mr.
Sharon and his Defense Minister, Shaul Mofaz, “made Israel
the first country to ethnically
cleanse land from Jews simply
because they are Jews since
the Holocaust,” she said.
Subverting the Justice System
Further, she said, the Israeli justice system was then
Page - 21
“subverted to ensure the accomplishment of the goal of
making Gaza and northern
Samaria judenrein.”
“People were denied
permits to protest. People’s
freedom of movement was
restricted as policemen intercepted buses transporting lawful protesters to legal
demonstrations. Thousands
of people were arrested en
masse and kept behind bars
for weeks and months without trial or indictment for the
‘crime’ of opposing their government’s policies,” she said.
Among these Jewish
“political prisoners,” she
said, were “hundreds of minor children.”
Civil War
Ms. Glick accused Mr.
Sharon and his political consultants of harboring the hope
that his policies would prompt
those favoring the expulsion
and those opposed to it to view
each other as enemies “and to
Page - 22
January 2006
ZOA
Tevet 5766
Page - 23
act that way.” They were pushing for civil war, she said.
“Sharon’s aim was to
force a violent clash between
the IDF and the opponents
of the expulsions in order to
delegitimize the supporters
of the Jewish communities in
Judea, Samaria and Gaza in
order to prepare the groundwork for mass expulsions
from Judea and Samaria. He
failed,” she said, insisting that
the hundreds of thousands of
protesters understood “that
one man and one man alone
was responsible for this moral outrage—Ariel Sharon.”
According to Ms. Glick,
as soon as the general elections are complete, Mr. Sharon
and his associates are planning to expel approximately
50,000 Jews from their homes
in Judea and Samaria.
“Indeed, the coming
elections will answer only
one question,” she said: “Will
Sharon continue the policy of
ethnically cleansing the Land
of Israel of Jews and transfer
95 percent of Judea and Samaria to our enemies—even
before he begins negotiating
Jerusalem, the immigration of
foreign Arabs to the Land of
Israel, and Israel’s security arrangements with anyone?”
“Will Israel expand its
vulnerability to national de-
struction
at
the hands of
our enemies
and continue
to turn Jew
against Jew in
the hopes of
inciting a civil war? Will
Israel, at the
same time as
the Iranians
with the silent
support of the
Arab world
call for the
eradication
of the Jewish
state, continue Honorees and Speakers at the ZOA Annual National Dinner, December 11,
to cling to the 2005: (L to R) Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld (Distinguished Leadership Award),
Caroline Glick Deputy Managing Editor for The Jerusalem Post and Syndicatfantasy that ed Columnist (Ben Hecht Award for Outstanding Journalism on the Mideast)
we can live in Eli E. Hertz (Justice Louis D. Brandeis Award) Ambassador John R. Bolton,
our land and US Ambassador to the United Nations (Defender of Israel Award) Morton A.
pretend that Klein, President of the ZOA.
we are not
part of our neighganization’s members and their
voice of truth even as the
borhood?” she said.
leadership have been willing to
power rests in the hands of
Choosing Reality
speak the truth about the Midthose who base their policies
Mr. Sharon’s re-election,
dle East even when others are
on denying truth,” she said.
she said, would represent
reluctant to do so.
Getting Worse
choosing fantasy over realMs. Glick noted that,
Mr. Klein did not disity and the result would be
should Mr. Sharon win reagree with either of the eve“the murder of thousands of
election in March, “the role
ning’s speakers. “Ever since
real people,” the “tragic toll”
of the ZOA and its members
the unilateral withdrawal
exacted on the lives of thouwill become both more diffifrom Gaza and northern Sasands of Israelis and their alcult and more important.”
maria, instead of things getlies throughout the world..
“Just as it has done since
ting better, things have been
At the dinner, Mr. Bolton
Israel first chose fantasy over
getting worse,” he said.
and Ms. Glick praised the
reality 12 years ago, the ZOA
He noted that hundreds
ZOA. Mr. Bolton said the orwill be forced to remain a
Page - 24
ZOA
of missiles have been fired at
Israel from Gaza, thousands
of weapons have been smuggled into Gaza, and dozens
have terrorists have entered
Gaza from Egypt.
On a positive note, Mr.
Klein cited numerous polls
which show that Americans
support Israel over the Palestinians, and that, with the
help of ZOA, strong ties have
been forged between Jewish
and Christians supporters of
the Jewish state.
Achievements
If the only reason members of the ZOA had come to
the dinner was to celebrate
their own achievements, the
event last month would have
been a jolly affair. The efforts
of Mr. Klein and his staff have
secured for the organization a
Division of Government Relations on Capitol Hill, the
New York-based ZOA Center for Law and Justice, and
January 2006
the traveling ZOA College
Activist Group.
Criminal attorney Benjamin Brafman served as master of ceremonies, telling the
ZOA dinner guests that unless they were expecting a
call from G-d, they should
turn off their cell phones.
As he does almost every
year, Rep Anthony Wiener
(D-NY) came to the platform
to speak briefly and offer
congratulations to Mr. Klein
and the ZOA.
Saudi School Money
Afterwards,
however,
Mr. Wiener, who was at that
point still a Democratic candidate for mayor of New York,
discussed the letter he had
sent to presidents of Harvard
and Georgetown, urging them
to emulate former New York
Mayor Rudy Giuliani and return the $20 million in donations they have received from
a member of the Saudi royal
family, Prince Alwaleed bin
Talal bin Abdulaziz Alsaud.
According to Mr. Wiener, in taking the money, the
schools are “accepting gifts
from a family that bankrolls
terrorist organizations.”
Shortly after 9-11, Prince
Alwaleed offered New York
City $10 million in disaster
relief, but the mayor handed
him back the check when the
prince suggested that the US
become more even-handed in
its relations with Israel and
the Palestinians.
The checks to the
schools will hardly put a dent
in Prince Alwaleed’s pocketbook. He is said to be worth
almost $30 billion.
Hoping to Cleanse
Most observers said it
is highly unlikely that the
schools will turn Prince Alwaleed down even though in
2004, Harvard officials returned a $2.5 million gift from
the now deceased president
of the United Arab Emirates,
Sheikh Zayed. Harvard acted
after the school was besieged
with complaints about the
Arab ruler’s association with
a think-tank that promoted
Holocaust denial theories.
Mr. Wiener urged the
schools to recognize that “the
duplicity of the Saudi royal
family is something that we
should be constantly calling
attention to.”
“They are trying to
cleanse their bloody hands by
taking contributions to institutions like Georgetown and
Harvard,” he said.
Last year, Mr. Wiener
confronted Columbia University and demanded that
the school fire an assistant
professor, Joseph Massad,
after Jewish students complained about his allegedly
hostile behavior in the classroom.
S.L.R.
Tevet 5766
Page - 25
Page - 26
F
January 2006
NCSY Invites Alumni to President’s Weekend
Retreat to Relive the Past and Plan for the Future
or the first time in the more
than 50 years since it was
founded, the National Council
of Synagogue Youth, the Orthodox Union’s famed youth
movement, will bring its alumni
together for a gala Shabbatonretreat to be held President’s
Weekend, Friday, Feb. 17-Sun.,
Feb 19, 2006 at the Holiday Inn
Plaza Hotel in Edison, NJ.
The hotel, located 15
minutes from Newark Liberty
Airport and less than an hour
from NYC, is convenient for
alumni from the New York
area as well as for those coming from across North America and even Israel.
One of the purposes
of the event is to launch an
NCSY Alumni Program that
will allow former NCSYers
to ensure that their experiences with the organization
will be repeated for a new
generation of Jewish teens.
Major Influence
NCSY has influenced the
lives of many thousands of
young men and women who
have gone on to lead lives of
Torah Jews as adults, raised
their children to follow in their
traditions, and assumed leadership in the Jewish community.
Some of these alumni
came from Orthodox homes
and attended yeshivoth and
day schools; others were
from more assimilated homes
and attended public schools.
As a result of their experiences with NCSY, many of
the public school teens are,
today, part of the Orthodox
community.
The upcoming weekend
will be replete with special
events and great food, along
with classes and workshops led
by OU executive vice-president
Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb and
NCSY alumni. Participants will
relive the classic NCSY “Shabbat Ebbs Away” and havdalah
experiences.
Sharing the Magic
NCSY alumna Deborah
Lewitter of Highland Park, a
member of the Reunion Committee organizing the event,
admits that she took the youth
group for granted when she
was a teen, but now, in retrospect, appreciates it.
She sees the weekend as
a rare opportunity for NCSY
alumni to reconnect with “old
friends and cherished memories.”
“We are invited to again
share the magic of an NCSY
Shabbat, but now with our
children alongside. I relish
the opportunity to renew old
friendships and to create new
ones with other alumni who
share my passion for Torah.
This will be an unforgettable
experience for all,” she said.
“Signature Program”
OU president Stephen J.
Savitsky is not surprised that
NCSY alumni feel close to
what he called “the OU’s signature program.”
“Certainly, it has done
more than any outreach effort,
anywhere, to reinforce the
Torah lifestyle in teens from
yeshiva backgrounds, and to
open the world of Torah and
Shabbat to teens from public school backgrounds, who
ever since have lived with
their families as observant
Jews. Now, these former NCSYers can be part of launching the much-needed NCSY
Alumni Program,” he said.
OU Youth Commission
chairman, Martin Nachimson, of Valley Village (Los
Angeles) CA, envisions
NCSY alumni working
alongside the current generation of NCSY leaders on behalf of today’s Jewish teens.
“For years we have inspired teens who, as adults,
have become leaders in our
Jewish communities. It is
now time to take the amazing
and untapped energies and
talents of NCSY alumni to
create a force to bring NCSY
magic to the Jewish teens
of this generation who need
NCSY even more than their
predecessors did,” he said.
The Fourth Son
He likened many of today’s Jewish teenagers to the
fourth son at the Passover
seder, so far removed from
their tradition that they do not
even know how or what to ask
about living Jewish lives.
“That will be the role of
the NCSY alumni—to help
spread the word to Jewish
teens everywhere about what
Dor Yeshorim to Conduct
Testing for Genetic Diseases
O
n Sunday, January 15, Dor
Yeshorim, the Committee
for Prevention of Jewish Genetic Diseases, will hold a testing program at Congregation
Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck.
The fee for the testing
is $150, which covers only
a fraction of the cost. These
same tests, when administered
by outside providers, generally cost upwards of $800.
At Bnai Yeshurun, Dor
Yeshorim will run tests for nine
diseases. The program is open
to the entire community, including current high school and
college students and singles.
Girls will be tested from
9:30-10:30am and boys will
be seen from 11am-noon.
Those being tested should
come knowing whether their
heritage is Ashkenazic, Sephardic, a combination, or if
they are of non-Jewish descent. They also should know
NCSY Alumni
NCSY can do for them,” said
Mr. Nachimson.
NCSY national director
Rabbi Steve Burg pointed out
that NCSY, through its public school clubs and chapters,
is uniquely positioned for
its kiruv role. He insisted its
capabilities should be reinforced in order “to take those
teens to the next level.”
“NCSY alumni can be the
experienced battle tested army
to rally the support our teens so
desperately need,” he said.
Designed to Inspire
NCSY and OU officials
are hoping the weekend in
Edison, which is designed
to recapture many of the features which made NCSY’s
atmosphere so inspirational,
will inspire the alumni to become involved again.
The weekend will feature
the countries of origin of their
maternal and paternal grandparents. This information is
extremely important and will
help determine the type of testing that will be necessary.
Further, those being tested will need their correct date
of birth. The Hebrew date is
acceptable. It is also advisable
for those being tested to submit their Social Security numbers. If the identification number given by Dor Yeshorim is
misplaced, a Social Security
number could help retrieve it.
Reservations
should
be
made
by
email
(doryeshorim@optonline.net)
as soon as possible so that Dor
Yeshorim can reserve the proper number of technicians.
For more information,
contact Chaya Goldsmith either at that email address or by
calling the Dor Yeshorim hotline at 718-384-6060. Y
use of the hotel’s newly renovated rooms; gourmet glatt
kosher cuisine by Menagerie in Englewood, including a
welcome buffet, lavish Viennese table, and 24-hour tea
room. For the children, there
will be “Club NCSY” children’s camp, baby sitting, and
a teen program. On Saturday
night, there will be a motzeiShabbat carnival for all ages
as well as a kumsitz featuring
an alumni all-star band.
For information on
costs, including an early-bird
discount and special fees for
children, contact Rabbi Dave
Felsenthal, NCSY Director
of Development, at 212-6138153, or rabbidave@ou.org.
“The needs are urgent
and the time is now. If you
are an NCSY alumni, get involved,” he said.
Y
Tevet 5766
Page - 27
Page - 28
January 2006
Tevet 5766
Page - 29
Remembering Rabbi Shelly Miller, z”l: Finding Jobs, Rebuilding Lives
P
erhaps one of the greatest
tributes that can be paid
to Rabbi Sheldon Miller, z”l,
who died suddenly on December 23, is the recognition
that ParnossahWorks, the
program he directed, just a
few weeks earlier successfully placed its 200th applicant in
a job. By the time the Teaneck resident died, that number had increased to 215.
A joint program of the
Orthodox Union and the
FEGS Health and Human
Services System, ParnossahWorks was established to
find gainful employment for
out-of-work members of the
Jewish community.
Rabbi Miller, 55, was the
OU director of the program
and was recognized as the individual most responsible for
its success. The program was
initiated two years ago, but, according to OU executive vice
president Rabbi Tzvi Hersh
Weinreb, it made little progress until Rabbi Miller became
director one year ago.
“With the sudden tragic
passing of Shelly Miller, the
OU national staff has lost a
mensch and a professional,”
said Rabbi Weinreb. “As a
mensch, Shelly exemplified all
that is treasured in a friend—
warmth, humor, empathy,
menschlichkeit, wisdom. As a
professional, he was diligent,
reliable, creative, and a team
player. Most of all, he was
successful at the most sacred
of all charitable tasks, finding
employment for over 200 individuals, and providing encouragement, succor, and hope for
many hundreds more.”
White-Collar Positions
According to Rabbi Weinreb, Rabbi Miller’s efforts resulted in the gainful employment of 215 more Jews in the
metropolitan area in whitecollar positions ranging from
computer work to retail sales.
ParnossahWorks has held
many workshops throughout
the area to help those search-
ing for jobs improve their résumés and general, chances of
finding suitable employment.
Although these could be expected to be dour sessions,
those who have attended said
Rabbi Miller and his staff
worked to make them up-beat,
enthusiastic, and hopeful.
Several months ago, one
of those workshops was held
at Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck, which Rabbi
Miller served as vice-president. More than 50 people
participated in the program.
FEGS, partnering with the
OU, has offered well-attended
job-training seminars at OU
headquarters in Manhattan as
well as at synagogues throughout the area. The most recent
of these sessions was held on
Dec. 14 at the Lincoln Square
Synagogue in Manhattan, with
an audience of almost 100.
Many Programs
Established in 1934 by the
Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of NY to find jobs for
unemployed men and women, the Federation Employment and Guidance Service
(FEGS) is now the largest and
most diversified private, notfor-profit health-related and
human service organization in
the US. It offers programs in
the fields of employment and
training; education and youth;
career development; behavioral health; developmental
disabilities; residential, rehabilitation, and family services; and homecare.
ParnossahWorks operates through contacts made
with the unemployed or “under-employed” (those working in positions for which
they are over-qualified)
through the network of Orthodox synagogues in the
Tri-State area. Job seekers are
encouraged to search the ParnossahWorks.org website for
the wide variety of positions
which are listed. Candidates
are encouraged to apply on line
Page - 30
Rabbi Shelly Miller
to those for which they consider themselves qualified.
At that point, the FEGS
staff of experts takes over,
providing job training if necessary to prepare candidates
to improve their search.
Sacred Work
According to Al Miller, chief executive officer
of FEGS (and no relation to
Rabbi Miller), Rabbi Miller was particularly proud of
these job-training efforts.
“Unlike other employment websites, with ParnossahWorks, there are always
human beings behind the
website and human contact
with those seeking work and
seeking to improve their job
search skills,” he said.
Mr. Miller remembered
Rabbi Miller as “a family man
who not only cared deeply for
his own family, but saw the entire community as his family.”
January 2006
Rabbi Shelly Miller
“Shelly’s work with ParnossahWorks was the fulfillment of the commandment
to help each person achieve
all he can to remain independent. He worked tirelessly
toward that end. He will be
sorely missed.”
More Than a Good Deed
Like Rabbi Weinreb, Mr.
Miller sees the efforts behind
ParnossahWorks as “not only
good deeds in accord with our
Jewish traditions, they are part
of our responsibility.”
“ParnossahWorks.org,
which started as a good deed,
has helped to improve the
lives of so many in our community. We are proud that,
in partnership with the OU,
we have been able to harness
technology for the benefit of
our people,” he said.
In congratulating Rabbi
Miller earlier in the month
upon reaching the 200-jobs
milestone, Rabbi Weinreb
wrote that he and the OU
were “excited in the knowledge that we at the OU are
instrumental in this unbelievably great mitzvah.”
“The biggest mitzvah
possible is to help put people
on their feet. Multiply that
by family size, and there are
more than 1,000 people that
Rabbi Miller closely impacted,” said Rabbi Weinreb.
30 Years in Teaneck
A graduate of Yeshiva
University, from which he
earned his bachelor’s degree as
well as rabbinic ordination and
Master’s in history, Rabbi Miller served as an adjunct assistant professor at YU’s Sy Syms
School of Business. He earned
an MBA and a master’s degree
in Public Affairs and Health
Administration from NYU.
He and his wife, Mara,
moved to Teaneck 30 years
ago. His funeral, held in Teaneck, was attended by an
enormous throng of admirers who shared the shock and
grief of the Miller family.
In addition to his wife, he
leaves three children, Rachel,
Daniel, and Elisheva, a sonin-law, Marc Hecht, and twin
grandsons.
“Those twin baby boys were
the most recent joys of his blessed
life,” said Mr. Miller. S..L.R.
O
Tevet 5766
Page - 31
NORPAC Hosts Christian-Zionist Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)
n January 10th, 2006,
at 7:30pm, NORPAC
will host an event for Senator
Rick Santorum (R-PA) at a
private home in Englewood.
Mr. Santorum, who is running for his third term in the
US Senate, is widely known
as an outspoken conservative.
What is less known is that he
is a staunch supporter of the
US-Israel relationship and is
comfortable with the label of
a Christian Zionist.
Currently, Mr. Santorum is the Conference Chair
of the US Senate. This is the
#3 position in the majority
party. According to NORPAC president, Dr. Ben Chouake, given the 2006 retirement of the current Majority Leader, Sen. Bill Frist
(R-TN), following scenario
can be expected if Mr. Santorum is reelected: Sen. Mitch
McConnell (R-KY) will be-
Senator Rick Santorum
come the Majority leader and
Mr. Santorum will become
the Senate Majority Whip, #2
in the leadership.
“Go-To Person”
“It is difficult to overemphasize how important it is to
have someone in the leadership who will go to bat for
you to get legislation passed.
It was Santorum who introduced the Syria Accountability Act into the Senate
and who negotiated with the
Bush administration to ensure its support and passage,”
said Dr. Chouake.
He stressed that Mr.
Santorum “is more than just
someone we have been able
to count on for a vote.”
“As a member of the
Senate leadership, he is a
‘go-to person’ for key legislation critical to the survival
of Israel,” said Dr. Chouake.
Fight of His Political Life
It is no secret that Pennsylvanians usually elect Democrats,
and, for that reason, Mr. Santorum is considered to be facing
the fight of his political life next
fall. His Democratic opponent is
Bob Casey, the current state attorney general and the son of a
popular former governor.
To attend the NORPAC
event with Mr. Santorum or to
make a pledge, contact the organization at 201-788-5133,
or email Dr. Chouake directly
at bchouake@aol.com
“Rick Santorum has asked
for our help and clearly deserves
it,” said Dr. Chouake.
Y
Page - 32
A
January 2006
Expert Debunks “Housing Bubble” Fears
ttention
Homebuyers--there is no housing bubble. This is the word
from Staten Island mortgage
expert, Dovid Winiarz, president and chief mortgage
manger of Gefen Financial
Corp.
“By paying attention to
the indicators that move markets, we can get a clearer picture of where home prices
are going,” says Mr. Winiarz,
who says people will stop
considering buying homes
when they are worrying about
keeping their jobs.
“But nationwide, unemployment is at approximately 5 percent. This means
that 95 percent of the people
who want to work are working and are candidates to purchase real estate,” he says.
Just Hype
What is going to prevent
these working people from
buying a home?
“If you believe the media hype about rising interest
rates, you are buying into the
fear that the media is trying
to sow, to get you to buy the
next day’s newspaper or to
‘tune in at 11’ to follow the
hype,” says Mr. Winiarz.
A high-ranked New York
mortgage broker, Mr. Winiarz
offers the reminder that interest rates have been in double
digits.
“People over age 38 remember the excitement of refinancing into an adjustable
interest rate at 14 percent.
Let’s assume a scenario where
rates jump one and a half percent in 2006. On a $450,000
mortgage, the monthly payment would go up, post taxdeduction, less than $9 a day.
Is $9 a day going to stand in
the way of a hard working
family achieving the American dream?” he says
Like Art
According to Mr. Winiarz,
financial gurus have compared
the housing situation to the
stock market and have prophesized that “just like the stock
market could burst so could
the housing market.”
He points out that stock
prices have risen dramatically over the past several years
without bursting. Home prices have risen as well.
“Real Estate is like art—
it is worth what people are
willing to pay for it. If you
look around and see more
homes than 50 years ago; remember, however, that the
population has grown since
then as well,” he says.
Basing himself on information gleaned from team
members, Mr. Winiarz comments further: “Another factor
to consider is that when people
sell a stock, they do not have
to buy another one. When a
person sells one home, he or
she will almost always purchase another one.”
Putting Away Fears
While home prices may
be undergoing a correction in
certain markets—this is not a
bursting bubble, he says.
“Even if homes appreciate at half the anticipated
growth in 2006, we are looking at 5-6 percent appreciation. If you are the person
who has been renting for the
past five years because of
fears of a burst bubble—now
is the time to put those fears
behind you,” he says.
Since 1987, Gefen Financial Corp has taken as its mission helping people manage
their mortgage portfolio and
debt through equity financing.
Mr. Winiarz invites the public
to call on his years of expertise
and providing advice by calling
973-MORTGAGE or 718-9839272. He can be emailed at
dovid@gefenfinancial.com Y
J
ust after the High Holidays
last fall, Gail Hochman of
Fair Lawn decided to establish a new Shidduch group so
that members of the greater
Jewish community who have
a name and information about
someone searching for a mate
will have a place to share.
The group has already
met three times and is actively
planning a February meeting,
but the date has not yet been
set. According to Ms. Hochman, “Everyone is welcome.”
“If you would like to present someone, please have bio
information handy,” she says.
Involved Mothers
Ms. Hochman became
interested in shidduchim
about seven years ago, when
her niece came of age. Ms.
Hochman was determined
to help her sister find a shidduch for her daughter.
The process involved
ejecting more than a few
modern aphorisms, especially the dictum that parents
should not become too involved and that, in matters of
the heart, youngsters should
be left to their own devices.
“I became very educated
in the system. Like it or not,
the mothers had to become
very involved,” she says.
By the time her own
daughter was ready, Ms. Hochman felt much more savvy
about the whole system. “I
learned about networking to
help her and her friends begin
the dating process,” she says.
Three Notches
The major difficulty for
young people today, she says,
is that singles do not have the
opportunity to meet in the
“regular and ordinary ways
that we did back in the ‘70’s.”
“This is very sad, and it
means all of us must become
involved,” she says.
Tevet 5766
New Shidduch Group in Fair Lawn
To date, Ms. Hochman
has three notches on her
belt—three matches that she
effected on her own.
“Although that is small
in number, the feelings of
satisfaction and happiness far
outweighs that. When I see
‘my’ couples and their children, I know if it were not
for my input and persistence,
they wouldn’t be where they
are today,” she says.
Thanking G-d
The new Shidduch
Group was born of her desire
to thank G-d for the fact that
her own daughter last year
married “a fabulous boy” and
her son was happily married
this past December.
“I want to give back to
those who need a little coaching. I want people to network
Page - 33
as much as possible, as they
would for someone looking
for a job perhaps,” she says.
Those interested in
joining the group can call
Ms. Hochman at 201791-9024, or email her at
stenlady@gmail.com
“If we can help just one
couple, all our efforts will be
worth it,” she says. S.L.R.
Page - 34
January 2006
A
Tevet 5766
The Write Impression and Sheitels by Flora Together
in Teaneck under One Cozy Roof
t first glance, a retail
business offering a vast
selection of invitations, stationery, gifts, and place cards
would not seem a match for
one offering sheitels, but for
Simone Wruble of the Write
Impression and Flora Shepelsky of Sheitels by Flora,
the one-roof arrangement at
141 Ayers Court in Teaneck
seems perfect.
In business for more than
10 years, Ms. Wruble offer
items at price ranges to suit
every budget. With a wide
selection of over 60 books to
choose from, customers can
always find that special item
for that perfect day.
The Write Impression
also offers custom onsite
printing and envelope addressing with a fast turnaround time. Service is unparalleled as Ms. Wruble offers her expertise and advice
to make that special invitation worth talking about for
years to come.
“Sheitel Capital of the World”
Ms. Shepelsky, whose
wig studio is now adjacent to
The Write Impression, spent
the last 20 years working for
Jacquelyn in Studio LeSalon
in Boro Park, the “Sheitel
Capital of the World.”
She has coordinated fashion shows, charity events, and
assorted benefits, and her work
has been featured in numerous
national magazines, newspapers
and television. She taught wig
courses and, with Jacquelyn,
she worked with Chai lifeline to
provide cancer patients—men,
women and children—with
much-needed wigs.
Ms. Shepelsky’s experience in the wig industry
brings broad knowledge of
all hair types and textures,
plus the ability to help clients
choose the best style for their
needs and appearance.
Her new sheitel studio in
Teaneck is intimate, private,
and very personal. There, she
provides the kind of personal
attention customers can’t get
anywhere else. In the shop,
she carries European custom
wigs, ready to wear Eurowigs, multi-tops, falls, all
lengths, textures, and colors.
Ms. Shepelsky offers
same-day wash and set service. She can hand-size and
revitalize an older wig with a
new cut, color, or highlights.
Satisfied Customer
A recent customer described a very positive experience at the cozy place shared
by the two women. In preparation for an upcoming simcha,
she paid a visit to The Write
Impression to find the perfect
invitation for her son’s bar
mitzvah. She was greeted by
Ms. Wruble, a warm and outgoing woman who proved to
be extremely knowledgeable
about the current trends in the
invitation industry. Ms. Wruble was able to offer a wide
variety of choices and, more
importantly, was able to offer
valuable guidance so that the
process was not so daunting.
Ms. Wruble was also
able to provide input on the
entire planning process with
many great organizational
suggestions that usually are
not even considered when
undertaking such events.
The customer was delighted to find that she could
order so many other special party items through The
Write Impression and was
able to leave the store with
fabulous ideas for the party
favors needed for her event.
Enhanced Appearance
At the same time, Ms.
Wruble introduced the customer to Ms. Shepelsky
who was able to show the
woman that her appearance
Page - 35
could be enhanced by changing the length of her current
style. Ms. Shepelsky pointed
out that a little difference in
length can make a big difference in shaping a face.
The customer was so impressed with Ms. Shepelsky’s
advice and styling ability that
she returned the next day for
a more formal appointment.
At this time, she was able to
purchase a beautiful wig from
Ms. Shepelsky’s in-stock selection and had it styled the
same day at a very reasonable price. The atmosphere
was pleasant and private.
Ms. Wruble can be reached
at 201-692-8886. Ms. Shepelsky can be reached at 201-8334060 or 646-327-3335
The setting of the Write
Impression and Sheitels by
Flora is warm, comfortable
and inviting and the service
customers receive is expert
and thorough.
Y
Page - 36
G
January 2006
Gateways Offers Cuisine and Spectacular Classes
and Children’s Program for Pesach in Connecticut
ateways, an independent,
not-for-profit Jewish educational organization, is committed to creating forums in
which Jews of all ages and backgrounds have the opportunity to
access their rich heritage. The
organization’s Passover Retreat,
held this year at the Westin Hotel in Stamford, CT, is designed
to do just that while offering a
genuine festival.
Each year, the program,
which is meticulously planned
and prepared down to the last
detail, attracts more than 1500
Jews who are looking for a diversified and dynamic learning
experience in which all questions are encouraged and addressed by a faculty of internationally acclaimed educators, renowned for excellence
in classic Jewish scholarship
and academic achievement.
Gateways’ goal is to deliver information in “a relevant, challenging, and entertaining way,
enabling listeners to make informed choices about Judaism,
Jewish identity, Israel, and
their own spirituality.”
The program offers a
communal seder as well as
private seder rooms for large
and small groups. More than
120 classes (including two
daily Daf Yomi shiurim) are
scheduled over the course of
the holiday. There is an extensive day camp for children, a
teen program, and sports and
recreational facilities for all
ages. All meals, a 24-hour tearoom (lavishly stocked with
healthy snacks and fruits as
well as frozen delicacies and
sweets), and entertainment
are part of the package.
Strict Kashrus
The Gateways cuisine
will serve only glatt kosher,
cholov Yisrael, chassidishe
shechita, shmura matza, and
non-gebrokts. Plenty of fresh
fruits and vegetables will be
offered at every meal. All dinners will be fleishig, but vegetarian and fish entrees will
also be available. The program will make every effort
to accommodate special dietary requests, including diabetic, low sodium, and nongluten. Birthday and anniversary cakes will be available.
There will be a Chinese
Night, a Mexican Night, “midnight chocolate madness,” and
Gateways’ famous “Prime
Events Viennese Table.”
The kashrus is under the
supervision of HaRav Nesanel Sommer, a rebbe in the
Mir Yeshiva in Brooklyn and
a resident of Monsey.
Education and Entertainment
Speakers at the program
will include many rabbis on
Gateways own staff, including
Mordechai Becher, Jonathan
Rietti, Mordechai Suchard,
David Ordman, and Jonathan
Shippel. They will be joined
by Rabbi Dr. Akiva Tatz of
Ohr Somayach in London.
The program will also offer Continuing Medical Education (CME) through the
AAFP and Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credits.
Registrants for these lectures
can deduct the cost of those
sessions as permitted by law.
Nightly
entertainment
will include singer Yaakov
Shewecky, accompanied by Yochi Briskman and the Neginah
Orchestra, and Shloimi Daskal, as well as Lipa Schmeltzer.
There will be a special women’s-only concert by Israeli singer and songwriter Chanale.
Children and Teens
A skilled and dedicated
staff of counselors and camp
directors will offer children
2-13 years (divided into six
age-appropriate groups) an
exciting, safe, and fun-filled
day camp, including educational activities, games, and
off-site trips to places such
as 6 Flags Great Adventure, Ringling Bros Circus,
and Ring Homestead Rope
Climbing and Paint Balling.
Uncle Moishy has come every year thus far to Gateways
Passover Program.
The program will also feature a massive carnival filled
with huge inflatable rides, 35foot-high slides, virtual reality games, and an arcade room
open 24 hours a day.
Gateways does not fit
teenagers into this program;
it creates programs especially
for teens. Directed by Shlomo
Horwitz, whose “Crossroads”
program has successfully impacted thousands of teenagers
throughout the US since 1993,
the Gateways Teen Program
is designed to guide youngsters to explore and discover
the beauty of Judaism while
offering them a new body of
knowledge that helps solidify their Jewish identity. They
interact with characters from
Jewish history, and in a unique
encounter with a “Palestinian”
or “Messianic Jew,” they learn
to advocate intelligently for
the Torah point of view.
Daycare for children under two years of age will be
offered as well. Camp activities have been timed to coincide with lectures, allowing
parents to enjoy the classes,
shows, and hotel amenities.
Private babysitting is available from 8pm to midnight.
Easy Commute
Within easy commuting
of New York, the Westin Hotel
offers high-speed Internet access in all guest and meeting
rooms; a full gym; tennis, basketball, and volleyball courts;
and “Westin’s Heavenly Bed
and Shower/Bath.” Westin is
100 percent smoke-free in all
guestrooms and public areas.
Rates vary from $2200 to
$2600 per person, double occupancy, for a full stay from
April 12-21. There are many
options for partial stays as
well as daily packages. Children’s rates are also available.
For more information,
contact Gateways at 845352-0393 or 800-722-3191.
The fax number is 845-3520394, and the email address is
Passover@gatewaysonline.com.
Visit the website at www.
gateswaysonline.com
Y
Tevet 5766
Page - 37
Is Medicare’s new prescription drug plan
becoming a blur?
We’ll help make it all clear.
Everyone’s talking about Medicare Part D, the new prescription drug coverage. It can be
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seat by calling 1-800-586-0768 (TDD: 1-800-201-4874) between
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Learn about the prescription drug plan, Medicare Part D, at these upcoming seminars.
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Bergen - Fort Lee
Bergen - Hackensack
Bergen - Fair Lawn
Bergen - Hackensack
Essex - Maplewood
Essex - Irvington
Essex - West Orange
Ocean - Lakehurst
Ocean - Lakehurst
Rockland - Blauvelt
Rockland - Blauvelt
Union - Cranford
January 11, 9:00 AM
The Plaza Diner
2045 Lemoine Ave.
Cross St./Main St.
January 10, 9:00 AM
Maplewood Diner
1473 Springfield Ave.
Cross St./Chancellor Ave.
January 19, 5:30 PM
Lakehurst Diner
401 Route 70 West
Circle for Route 70 West
January 18, 5:30 PM
The Arena Diner
250 Essex St.
Cross St./Polifly Rd.
January 17, 5:30 PM
Don’s Diner
666 Nye Ave.
Cross St./Union St.
January 12, 9:00 AM
Blauvelt Diner
40 Route 303
Cross St./Erie St. East
January 20, 9:00 AM
Land & Sea Diner
20-12 Fair Lawn Ave.
Cross St./Pollitt Dr.
January 24, 9:00 AM
West Orange Diner
270 Main St.
Cross St./King St.
January 24, 5:30 PM
Blauvelt Diner
40 Route 303
Cross St./Erie St. East
January 25, 9:00 AM
Coach House Diner
55 Route 4 East
Cross St./Hackensack Ave.
January 13, 9:00 AM
Lakehurst Diner
401 Route 70 West
Circle for Route 70 West
January 12, 9:00 AM
Rustic Mill Diner
109 North Ave.
Cross St./Garden State Pkwy.
Oxford Health Plans (NY), Inc. and Oxford Health Plans (NJ), Inc. are licensed HMOs operating
under Medicare Advantage contracts. © 2005 Oxford Health Plans LLC. MS-05-971
Page - 38
January 2006
Frisch Wrestling Team Wrestles with Plight of Needy Jewish-Ukrainian Children
The Frisch Yeshiva High
School Wrestling Team, which
has taken first place in the yeshiva wrestling tournament for
the past three years, has committed itself to raising funds
for an organization that cares
for homeless, abandoned, and
abused Jewish children in
Odessa, in the Ukraine.
Tikva, which began in
1993 when Rabbi Shlomo
Baksht arrived in Odessa and
initiated the Ohr Dessa Project, is part of the revival of
the Jewish community of
Odessa through community
outreach, education, and programs focusing on religious
and cultural identity.
One of Rabbi Baksht’s
foremost accomplishments
was the restoration and return
of the city’s Great Choral Synagogue to the Jewish community in 1997. For 50 years, the
synagogue had been used by
the city as a sports hall.
“But in the course of
working to reach that goal,
Rabbi Baksht faced an unforeseen challenge: the plight of
hundreds of Jewish children
who were living in unsanitary
and inhumane state orphanages, who suffered abuse and
neglect at home, or who had
no home and were living on
the street,” said Emily Lehrman, director of Tikva’s strategic development and operations in the US.
1,000 Jewish Children
Unable to ignore their
pressing needs, Rabbi Baksht
turned his attention toward
rescuing the Jewish children
of Odessa. In 1996, he established the Children’s Home
as an affiliated program under his Ohr Dessa Project.
Ms. Lehrman estimates
that Tikva has saved over
1,000 Jewish children from
life on the streets.
More than 600 additional
children have benefited from
Ohr Dessa’s schools, cultural
activities, and social services.
The school system, which includes a grade school and boys
and girls high schools, supports
780 children and young adults,
providing them with two hot
meals a day in addition to a
well-rounded education. Approximately 30 percent of the
student body resides in Tikva
Children’s Homes.
This number includes
several newborn Jewish babies who were taken in by
Tikva last summer, plus a
new class of university students who are living in the
home full-time, because, said
Ms. Lehrman, “they have nowhere else to go.”
“To our knowledge, ours
is the largest program of its
kind in the former Soviet
Union,” said Ms. Lehrman.
Relocating to Israel
When the children reach
the ages of 15-17, and are
deemed emotionally and educationally ready, they relocate
to Israel. More than 350 Tikva
graduates have already begun
new lives in the Jewish state,
where they are completing degrees, pursuing careers, serving in the military, and starting families of their own.
“We assist these young
adults in securing their needed visa or immigration documents, enrolling in educational programs, finding psychological and medical care,
accessing tutoring, applying
for university scholarships,
integrating into Israeli society, even organizing weddings and first apartments,”
said Ms. Lehrman.
Financial Challenges
This has not come without financial challenges.
“In order to care for increasing numbers of children,
address a desperate need for
additional space, and cope
with rising Ukrainian inflation, we are constantly searching for new and larger sources
of funding around the world,”
said Ms. Lehrman.
Each year, the organization must raise more than $3
million to support basic programming in Ukraine.
“And we have never adequately funded our programs
in Israel,” she added.
She expects the Odessa
operating budget for 2006
to total over $4 million.
“Planned construction projects that are vital to sustaining and growing our programs will require several
million additional dollars.
Thus, at the end of 2005, we
are at critical juncture where
the financial need is quickly
outstripping the available resources,” she said.
Win-a-Thon
For Ms. Lehrman, the
Frisch fundraiser undertaken
by the school’s wrestling team
could not have come at a better time. According to coach
David Siegel, a Teaneck resident who organized the fundraiser, the goal is to raise money as well an as awareness of
the plight of Ukrainian Jews
and Tikva’s work for Jewish
children in Odessa.
“The Jews of the former
Soviet Union have been overlooked since our protest days
with groups like the Student
Struggle for Soviet Jewry.
Sometimes, success can be a
bad thing. We felt we managed
to get so many out that those
who are still there are practically forgotten,” he said.
The Frisch program is
a “win-a-thon” in which the
wrestlers have pledged to
win 100 victories throughout
the season. Donors are asked
to pledge a set amount to Tikva for each individual win by
any and all teammates.
The yeshiva wrestling
season, which includes approximately 10 matches and
several tournaments, ends with
the Henry Wittenberg Tournament on President’s Weekend.
“To add to the excitement,
we expect the team to need
about 20-30 wins during the
tournament to reach its goal of
$50,000,” said Mr. Siegel.
Corporate Sponsors
To start the ball rolling
(or the muscles flexing), First
Financial Equities, an Englewood-based mortgage banker,
has already pledged $10 for
each win. The team is hoping this will encourage other
corporate sponsors from the
community to do likewise.
All corporate sponsors
who pledge $10 or more per
win, will be included on the
shirt the team intends to wear
at the final tournament.
Mr. Siegel has every reason to be optimistic. Members of the Frisch Wrestling
Team compete in statewide
tournaments with public and
private school wrestlers.
“Wrestling is the only yeshiva sport that competes with
non-yeshiva teams, and the
Frisch team has proven itself to
be very competitive,” he said.
In a recent tournament,
one of the Frisch wrestlers
took second place in his
weight class in a statewide
tournament.
Desperate Jewish Parents
Mr. Siegel said his team
at Frisch learned quite a bit
about Tikva and the situation in Odessa before becoming involved in the project.
“Thousands of Jewish boys
and girls, even those in family
settings, still go hungry every
day in Ukraine,” he said.
Ms. Lehrman’s figures
support that. The average
worker in Odessa earns barely $150 per month.
“Without the assistance
of extensive social safety nets
like those in North America,
Tevet 5766
many parents abandon their
children out of desperation.
Some children have been
separated from their siblings
for many years, while others
may not know the existence
of their relatives,” she said.
“Dozens of these children
have been reunited with their
siblings in our care.”
In addition to the Tikva efforts for children, Ohr
Dessa’s complementary projects in Odessa include a daily
“meals on wheels” program
for 200 elderly Jews, a daycare center for the children of
working parents, after-school
clubs, and university-affiliated adult leadership program
with courses in psychology, foreign languages, early
childhood education, business management, and Jewish
studies.
No Fundraising Overhead
Tikva operates as a nonprofit corporation, utilizing
a small office in New York.
According to Ms. Lehrman,
Page - 39
since 2001, Seth Gerszberg,
Marci Tapper, and Marc Ecko
of Marc Ecko Enterprises
have been underwriting all
the US-based personnel and
fundraising costs for Tikva,
“so that 100 percent of donations received go directly to
supporting our children.”
The organization also has
contacts in London and Montreal.
For more information
about Tikva or to make a donation, go to www.tikvaodessa.org or call Ms. Lehrman at
917-262-1119.
For more information about the Frisch Wrestling Team fundraiser, Mr.
Siegel can be reached at
DSiegel@niagroup.com or at
201-725-9527.
Mr. Siegel, however, encouraged would-be donors to
speak to Ms. Lehrman, who,
he said, “can make a much
stronger case for the charity.”
“As a wrestler, I am more
of a fighter than a talker,” he
said.
S.L.R.
Page - 40
January 2006
The Log:
Fri., Jan 6
Scholar in Residence Rabbi Yehoshua Kohl, spons by
Gateways, Manalapan, through
Sat., Jan 7, 800-722-3191 or
845-352-0393
Carlebach Minyan, Cong
Rinat Yisrael, Teaneck, 4:30pm
“The Origins of the State
of Israel 1800-1948 Part I,”
Mitchell First, Cong Beth Aaron, Teaneck, 8pm
Sat., Jan 7
Cong Ahavat Achim Sisterhood Book Club: A Beggar
in Jerusalem by Elie Weisel,
reviewed by Melanie Kwestel, private home in Fair Lawn,
3:15pm, 201-797-0502
Motzei Shabbos Madness,
swim and gym; children under
8, supervised by parents; children 8-12, supervised by counselors; teens participate on their
own, YMHA, Clifton, 6:30pm
Camp Shalom Fine and
Performing Arts Camp for
Orthodox Girls Entering 4th7th Grades Melava Malka
and Reunion, YMHA, Clifton,
6:30pm
Film: “How We Survive,”
Cong Ahavath Torah, Englewood, 7pm
Film: “Hiding and Seeking” and Director and Star,
Menachem Daum, Cong Ohr
Torah, West Orange, 7pm
Art Auction and Dessert
Reception, Cong Israel, Springfield, preview 7pm, auction 8pm
Project Ezra Inaugural
Dinner, honoring Chani and
Len Grunstein; Aviva Grossman;
Rani, Paul, and Dina Lustiger;
Suri and Jan Meyer; and Laurence Schreiber, at Cong Keter
Torah, Teaneck, 8pm
“Chassidic Meaning and
Symbolism in Art: An Evening
with Chassidic Artist Michoel
Muchnik,” spons by EMUNAH, Cong Ahavas Achim,
Highland Park, 8pm
Mini Israeli Film Festival: Four Films by Graduates
of the Ma’ale School of Television, Film, and the Arts, spons
by Cong Ahawas Achim Bnai Jacob and David, private home in West Orange, 8pm, 973-736-1407
Jewish Talent Night of
Song and Dance for Women, spons by Neshcafe, JCC of
Spring Valley, NY, 8pm, 917629-0479
Cantor Moshe Tessone
and Ensemble in Concert, celebrating the 77th anniversary of
Cong Etz Ahaim, at Cong Etz
Ahaim, Highland Park, 8:30pm
Book Discussion: “Defying the Tide: An Account of
Authentic Compassion During
the Holocaust,” authors Reha
and Al Sokolow, Cong Adas Israel, Passaic, 8:30pm
“Controlling the Internet
before It Controls You: Internet Safety for Parents and Users,” Rockland County Sheriff
Phil Rosenthal, Cong Bais Torah, Suffern, 8:30pm
“The Lighter Side of Judaism,” Rabbi Mordechai
Becher, spons by Gateways,
private home in Manalapan,
8:30pm, 800-722-3191
Sun., Jan 8
Blood Drive, Cong Ahawas Achim Bnai Jacob and David, West Orange, 9am-1pm
Young Israel of Passaic
Feeds the Hungry, Eva’s Kitchen, leave Young Israel 10am
Yad Sarah: Volunteer
Group in Israel That Provides
Health, Home Care Services
for the Elderly, Homebound,
Terror Victims, Children with
Special Needs, spons by PNAI,
Parents of North American Israelis, private home in Linden,
10am, 908-352-3371
Chug Ivrit Intermediate/
Advanced Hebrew Speakers’
Club, spons by Hadassah, private home in Highland Park,
10:15am, 732-819-9298
Hebrew High: Discussions for Teens and Pizza for
Lunch, grades 8-10, spons by
the Union County Torah Center,
at Hillcrest Academy, Westfield,
10:30am
Photography
Exhibit:
“Jerusalem 2004,” Fred Cas-
den, YJCC, Washington Twnshp, artist’s reception, 11am1pm, on display through Sun.,
Feb 12
Open House at the Institute of Traditional Judaism:
Mechina, Master of Public Administration in Jewish Communal Service, and Smicha,
Teaneck, 11am-1pm
Uncle Moishy Concert,
Riverdale Jewish Center, 11am
Winning an Israeli National Competition to Become
Israel’s Diplomat-Cheerleader to the US, Eytan Schwartz,
winner of Israeli reality show
“The Diplomat,” spons by National Council of Jewish Women, honoring “Women Who
Dare to Make a Difference,” private home in Middlesex County,
11am, 732-422-0315
Defensive Driving for
Point/Insurance
Reduction,
Yehoshua Eidlitz, Young Israel
of Passaic/Clifton, Passaic, 125:30pm, 732-363-0410
Bar-Bat Mitzvah Showcase, Cong Sons of Israel,
Manalapan, 12-4pm
“How to Respond to
Anti-Israel
Propaganda,”
spons by AIPAC, private home
in West Orange, 1:30pm, 973736-1407
“Jewish Genealogy: Creating a Family History Book
Using New Technology,” JCC,
Tenafly, 2pm
Cultural Celebration of
Israel: Shuk, Entertainment,
Children’s Activities, JCC,
Whippany, 2pm
“Update on the Current
Political, Social, and Economic Situation in Israel,” Benji
Krasna, JCC, Whippany, 3pm
Youth Zone, for ages 412, decorate a pillow for hospitalized children and go to
SportsWorld for games, Chabad
Center, Woodcliff Lake, 3pm,
201-476-0157
Youth Zone: Israel Experience, for ages 5-10, Chabad
Jewish Enrichment Center,
Spring Valley, 3:30pm, 845356-6686
Reception for Sponsors
Tevet 5766
“Separate Yourself Not from the Community”
of Rabbi Dovid Goldwasser’s
Lecture, spons by Gesher/Torah Links, private home in Fair
Lawn, 6:30pm, 484-620-6187
Nefesh B’Nefesh Young
Couples Aliyah Workshop:
Pre-and Post-Aliyah Guidance
and Strategies, Employment
in Israel, Overview of Nefesh
B’Nefesh Services and Benefits, and General Questions
and Answers Regarding the
Aliyah Process, Ari Schuchman and Rachel Berger, private
home in Teaneck, 7:30pm, 201862-1290 or 866-4-ALIYAH
“A Mitzvah, a Mission,
A Masterpiece: How a Single
Mitzvah Can Change the Universe,” Rabbi Dovid Goldwasser, Cong Shomrei Torah, Fair
Lawn, 8pm
Essex County Mikveh
Meeting to Elect Officers, Cong
Ohr Torah, West Orange, 8pm
Film: “Inspired” for
Women, Cong Rinat Yisrael,
Teaneck, 8:30pm
Mon., Jan 9
“Life under Hitler—How
Youth Aliyah Saved My Life,”
Irene Block, Hadassah, Classic
Residence, Teaneck, 12:30pm
Point/Insurance
Reduction,
of Passaic/Clifton, Passaic, 7pm,
732-363-0410
“Gateway to Judaism,”
Rabbi Mordechai Becher, spons
by Gateways, private home in
Cherry Hill, 7pm, 800-722-3191
or 845-352-0393
“Raising Positive Children in a Challenging World,”
Rabbi Jonathan Rietti, spons
by Gateways, private home in
Manalapan, 7:30pm, 800-7223191 or 845-352-0393
Organizational
Choir
Meeting for Women-Only,
Cong Shaarei Tefillah, Teaneck,
7:30pm, 201-692-7790
“Peace, Peace to the Far
and Near: Shalom Bayit—
Peace in the Family: Genesis
and the First Jewish Family,”
Rabbi Jeffrey Fox, JCC, Tenafly,
8pm
Sharsheret:
Linking
Young Jewish Women in Their
Fight against Breast Cancer,
Rochelle Shoretz, private home
in Edison, 732-777-0462
Tues., Jan 10
Sen Rick Santorum (RPA), spons by NORPAC, private
home in Englewood, 7:30pm,
201-788-5133
“Torah for Tycoons,”
Rabbi Aryeh Lightstone, Cong
Ahawas Achim Bnai Jacob &
David, West Orange, 8pm
“Sephardic Issues” and
“Ask the Rabbi,” Rabbi Avidan
Elkin, private home in Bergenfield, 9pm, 201-385-3040
Wed., Jan 11
Jewish Enrichment Time
for Seniors: Project SHIN—
Choosing Happiness, Nurse
Karen Frank, JCC, Whippany,
11am
Point/Insurance
Reduction,
of Passaic/Clifton, Passaic, 7pm,
732-363-0410
Support Group for Caregivers, Vivian Green Korner,
JCC, Tenafly, 7:30pm
Book of Sh’mot, Rabbi
Neil Winkler, Young Israel of
Fort Lee, 7:45pm
“The ABCD of Judaism—A Kabbalistic Persepctive: Angels—Not Just Fluffy
Things with Wings,” Rabbi
Shlomo Yaffe, Teaneck Chabad
House, 8pm
Kosher Cooking Class:
Merav’s
Cuisine:
Mini
Meals—Treats for Kids, Merav
Dahan, private home in Teaneck,
8pm, 201-836-7085
Shuvu Parlor Meeting,
private home in Lakewood,
8pm, 732-364-5094 or 732-3645394
Thurs., Jan 12
“Aliyah, Communal Aliyah, Its Benefits, and Various
Long- and Short-Term Opportunities and Programs in Israel,” Michael Landsberg, United Jewish Communities of MetroWest, Whippany, 9am
Film: “Hiding and Seeking: Faith and Tolerance after
the Holocaust,” with director
Oren Rudavsky, YJCC, Washington Twnshp, 7:30pm
Talmud, Rabbi Neil Winkler, Young Israel of Fort Lee,
7:45pm
“Voices from the Holy
Land…And Not So Holy
Land,” written and performed
by Steve Greenstein, Garage
Theatre Group, Becton Theatre,
Fairleigh Dickinson University,
Teaneck, 8pm
Fri., Jan 13
Orthodox Singles under 30 Shabbaton, spons by
EndTheMadness, at Cong Tifereth Israel, Passaic, through
Sat., Jan 14, $25, contact Bella
at etmshabbatons@gmail.com
“A Minister’s Journey to
Judaism,” Gavriel Aryeh Sanders, former Protestant Evangelical minister, now an observant
Jew, Merkaz L’Torah Teaneck
Jewish Center Orthodox Minyan, 7:30pm
“Iggeres
HaRambam,”
Page - 41
Rabbi Larry Rothwachs, private
home in Teaneck, 7:30pm, 201836-6210
Sat., Jan 14
“Why Christians Become Jews and Jews Become
Christians” and “When the
Missionary Knocks,” Gavriel Aryeh Sanders, former Protestant Evangelical minister,
now an observant Jew, Merkaz
L’Torah Teaneck Jewish Center Orthodox Minyan, 11am and
2:45pm
A Cinema Lens on Jewish
Identity: Film: “Focus,” Dr.
Eric Goldman, Cong Davar, Teaneck, 8pm
“An Evening at the Backstage” for Orthodox Singles
25-35, spons by the Five Towns
Shidduch Club, Woodmere, NY,
8pm, 516-569-3324, 516-3742699, or 718-986-1302
Jewish Talent Night of
Song and Dance for Men,
spons by Neshcafe, JCC of
Spring Valley, NY, 8pm, 917-
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The Log
January 2006
629-0479
“The Life and Times of
the Neziv, a Lithuanian Lamdan,” Rabbi Gil Perl, Cong Bnai
Yeshurun, Teaneck, 8pm
“Mein Lilly,” written and
performed by Stacey Karpen,
Garage Theatre Group, Becton
Theatre, Fairleigh Dickinson
University, Teaneck, 8pm, also
Sun., Jan 15, 2pm
Shiur, Rabbi Dr. Yirmiyahu Luchins, K’hal Zichron Mordechai, Monsey, 9pm, 845-3567078
Sun., Jan 15
Camp Gan Israel of Central NJ Open House, for boys
and girls through 6th grade and
travel camp for girls entering
grades 4-8, at Raritan Valley
Academy, Piscataway, 10:30am
Screening for Genetic Diseases, Dor Yeshorim, high school
and college students and singles
welcome, Cong Bnai Yeshurun, Teaneck, for women 9:3010:30am, for men 11am-noon
“Make Meaning in Chal-
lenges,” Rabbi Jonathan Rietti, spons by Gateways, private
home in Lakewood, 12:30pm,
800-722-3191 or 845-352-0393
Israeli Program Fair for
Teens, JCC, Tenafly, 4-6pm
Rosenbaum Yeshiva of
North Jersey Dinner, honoring
Miriam and Allen Pfeiffer and
Estelle Alter, Cong Keter Torah,
Teaneck, 5:30pm
“Stories from the Skies:
Stargazing for Constellations
and Astronomical Myths and
Legends,” Grades 1 and up and
adults, Tenafly Nature Center,
6pm
Avoda as Tefillah: A Conversation with Artist Tobi
Kahn, Cong Ahawas Achim
Bnai Jacob & David, West Orange, 8pm
Mon., Jan. 16
“Balancing Your Relationship with Food: A Discussion about Emotional Eating,” Nancy Graham, LCSW,
spons by The Renfrew Center and Zeva Citronenbaum of
A.C.O.A.C.H. Counseling Services, private home in Monsey,
noon, 201-615-1475
and Near: Shalom Pnimi—
Peace with the Self,” Rabbi Jeffrey Fox, JCC, Tenafly, 8pm
day night oneg, catered Shabbat
lunch, through Sat., Jan 21, 856667-1013
“Iggeres
HaRambam,”
Rabbi Larry Rothwachs, private
home in Teaneck, 7:30pm, 201836-6210
“Torah for Tycoons,”
Rabbi Aryeh Lightstone, Cong
Ahawas Achim Bnai Jacob &
“Bet Din, Divorce/Gittin, and Jewish Medical Ethics and Law,” Rabbi Howard
Jachter, private home in Bergenfield, 9pm, 201-385-3040
Motzei Shabbos Madness,
swim and gym; children under
8, supervised by parents; children 8-12, supervised by counselors; teens participate on their
own, YMHA, Clifton, 6:30pm
Film: “Brownsville: Black
& White,” Highland Park Conservative Temple, 8pm
Hadassah Family Night
with the NJ Nets, Nets vs Boston Celtics, Continental Airlines,
E Rutherford, 8pm, $30 tickets,
973-472-1401
“Teenage Rebels in 19th
Century Lithuania,” Rabbi Gil
Perl, Cong Bnai Yeshurun, Teaneck, 8pm
Tues., Jan 17
Wed., Jan 18
“The Diary of Anne
Frank,” and Photo Exhibits:
“Anne Frank: A Private Photo Album” and “The Anne
Frank Story,” Paper Mill Playhouse, Millburn, exhibits open
one hour before performances, during intermission, and on
Fridays from noon-3pm; runs
through Sun., Feb 26; performances: Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs,
2 and 7:30pm; Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2
and 7:30pm
“The ABCD of Judaism—A Kabbalistic Persepctive: Blessings—How To Get
and Give Them,” Rabbi Shlomo Yaffe, Teaneck Chabad
House, 8pm
“Breaking Ground: Adventures in Life and Architecture,” Daniel Libeskind, JCC,
Tenafly, 8pm
Kosher Cooking Class:
Merav’s Cuisine—Sephardic
Flair, Merav Dahan, private
home in Teaneck, 8pm, 201836-7085
Thurs., Jan 19
“Aliyah, Communal Aliyah, Its Benefits, and Various
Long- and Short-Term Opportunities and Programs in Israel,” Michael Landsberg, UJA,
River Edge, 9am
Sephardic Culture Club,
Enrique Levy, JCC, Tenafly,
7:30pm
Fri., Jan 20
Cherry Hill, NJ, Young
Families Community Shabbaton, home hospitality, Fri-
Sat., Jan 21
Mon., Jan 23
Mitzvah of Writing a Letter in a Sefer Torah, Cong Bnai
Yeshurun, Teaneck, 7pm
“Cultivating
Meaningful Relationships with Your
Child,” Rabbi Jonathan Rietti, spons by Gateways, private
home in Manalapan, 7:30pm,
800-722-3191 or 845-352-0393
and Near: Peace with the Environment and Our Surroundings,” Rabbi Jeffrey Fox, JCC,
Tenafly, 8pm
Tues., Jan 24
Book Chat: “Girl in Hyacinth Blue” by Susan Vreeland, led by Ruthann Eckstein,
JCC, Tenafly, 10am
Wed., Jan 25
Jewish Enrichment Time
for Seniors: “Issues of Racism and Antisemitism in Our
Schools,” Ilana Cooper, ADL,
JCC, Whippany, 11am
“The ABCD of Judaism—
A Kabbalistic Persepctive: Coincidences—Never Accidental,
Always Meaningful,” Rabbi
Shlomo Yaffe, Teaneck Chabad
House, 8pm
Thurs., Jan 26
Cong Beth Aaron Theatre
Party to Disney on Ice: Princess Classics,
Continental Airlines Arena, E Rutherford,
10:30am
Support Group for Caregivers, Vivian
Green Korner, JCC, Tenafly, 11am
Fri., Jan 27
Eretz Yisrael Shabbat in NJ, spons by
National Council of Young Israel and Touro
College, featuring Rabbis Hershel Schachter,
Meir Goldwicht, and Eliyahu Soloveichik,
entertainment by Ohad Moskowitz, Marriott Hotel, Somerset, NJ, through Sat., Jan 28,
718-755-9864
Jewish Learning Institute Shabbat
Dinner, Rabbi Efraim Mintz, West Orange
Lubavitch Center, 4:51pm
“The Origins of the State of Israel 1800-1948 Part II, Mitchell First, Cong
Beth Aaron, Teaneck, 8pm
Sun., Jan 29
Kurt Gallagher’s Songs for Playful
Children, JCC, Paramus, 2:15pm
Mon., Jan 30
“Peace, Peace to the Far and Near: War
and Peace—A Jewish War Ethic,” Rabbi Jeffrey Fox, JCC, Tenafly, 8pm
Tues., Jan 31
Last day for lower price to register
for Yavneh Little League 2006 session,
boys and girls in grades 1-8, www.yavnehlittleleague.com
“The Book of Kings II,” Rabbi Neil
Winkler, Young Israel of Fort Lee, 7:45pm
Wed. Feb 1
“American Jewish Women and the
Zionist Enterprise,” Shulamit Reinharz,
JCC, Tenafly, 8pm
Book Review and Discussion: “The Kite
Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, led by Gillian
Steinberg, Young Israel of Teaneck, 8pm
“The ABCD of Judaism—A Kabbalistic Persepctive: Dreams—What Is the
Meaning of My Dreaming?” Rabbi Shlomo
Yaffe, Teaneck Chabad House, 8pm
Fri., Feb 3
Scholar-in-Residence, Rabbi Aaron
Rakeffet, Cong Beth Abraham, Bergenfield,
through Sat., Feb 4
“Iggeres HaRambam,” Rabbi Larry Rothwachs, private home in Teaneck,
7:30pm, 201-836-6210
Sat., Feb 4
Motzei Shabbos Madness, swim and
gym; children under 8, supervised by parents; children 8-12, supervised by counselors; teens participate on their own, YMHA,
Clifton, 6:30pm
Adult Bowling, spons by Cong Netivot Shalom, Teaneck, at Brunswick Fair Lawn
Lanes, 7-9pm
Cong Shaare Tefillah of Teaneck Dinner, honoring Mendy and Nomi Schwartz
Tevet 5766
Page - 43
and celebrating the shul’s siyumim on Mishnayos Seder Zeraim and Chumash Sefer
Bereishis, at Cong Bnai Yeshurun, Teaneck,
8pm
Yeshivat Ohr Yerushalayim Dinner,
honoring Mayer Sabo and Aryeh Sheinbein,
Cong Keter Torah, Teaneck, 8pm
Film: “Watermarks,” JCC, Tenafly,
8pm
Film: “Company Jasmine,” Highland
Park Conservative Temple, 8pm
“Life as a Lithuanian Jewish Woman,” Rabbi Gil Perl, Cong Bnai Yeshurun,
Teaneck, 8pm
11am-3pm
Super Bowl Party for Jewish Singles
30-57, JCC, Tenafly, 5:30pm
Camp Fair, spons by Paramus-Bat Sheva Hadassah, Marriott Hotel, Saddle Brook,
NCSY Yachad Shabbaton, Cong Ahavat
Achim, Fair Lawn, through Sat., Feb 11
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Sun., Feb 5
Mon., Feb 6
“Peace, Peace to the Far and Near:
Peace at the End of Life—Euthanasia and
End-of-Life Issues,” Rabbi Jeffrey Fox,
JCC, Tenafly, 8pm
Tues., Feb 7
“The Book of Kings II,” Rabbi Neil
Winkler, Young Israel of Fort Lee, 7:45pm
The Woodstream Rod and Gun Club,
fishing club for Jewish men, Stelton Community Center, Edison, 8pm, 732-297-2098
Fri., Feb 10
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Sundays
January 2006
New Classes This Month
Philosophy of Rab Soloveitchik, z”l, Rabbi Shalom Baum,
Cong Keter Torah, Teaneck, 7:30am
“The Kosher Kitchen,” Rabbi Zvi Sobolofsky, Cong Beth
Abraham, 7:50am
Meleches Hatsa’ah, Rabbi Moshe Kahn, Cong Bnai Yeshurun,
Teaneck, 8:30am
Breakfast and Learn for Grades 5-8, Cong Keter Torah, Teaneck, 8:30am
Shiur for Women on Sefer Melachim, Rabbi Yaakov Neuburger, Cong Beth Abraham, Bergenfield, 9:30am
Hebrew Immersion Program for Children 4 and Older, includes Bar and Bat Mitzvah preparation, Rabbi David Bassous, Cong
Etz Ahaim, Highland Park, 9:30am
Radio: “The Israel Hour,” WRSU, 88.7FM, Rutgers University, 1-2pm
Father and Son Learning, Yeshiva Gedolah of Teaneck, 7-8pm
Gemara: Beitzah, Rabbi Love, private home in Passaic, 8:30pm,
973-778-7117
Introductory Approach to Hilchos Shabbos, Rabbi Yaakov
Neuburger, private home in Bergenfield, 8:45pm, 201-384-0434
Mondays
The Kollel of Bergen County for Ba’al HaBatim: “Mussar
(Orchot Tzadikim),” Gemara Ketubot, Hilchot Shabbat, and Parsha, Rabbi Gidon Lane, spons by Yeshiva Ohr Simcha of Englewood,
at Cong Beth Aaron, Teaneck, 8-10am
“Understanding the Hebrew of the Torah: The Book of Leviticus,” Etia Segall, JCC, Tenafly, 9:30am
“Mommy and Me with Jewish Themes and Songs,” 9-18
months, Nechamy Simon, Teaneck Chabad House, 9:45am
Chumash, Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, Cong Bnai Yeshurun, Teaneck, 11am
Advanced Intermediate Hebrew Reading, Etia Segall, JCC,
Tenafly, 11:30am
Overeaters Anonymous, Cong Beth Sholom, Teaneck, 1pm
Women’s Tehillim Group, Cong Ahawas Achim Bnai Jacob &
“English as a Second Language,” Linda Greenberg, Cong Poile
Zedek, New Brunswick, 7pm
Beginners’ Hebrew, Rochelle Silverstein, Cong Poile Zedek,
New Brunswick, 7:30pm
“The Kabbalah of Time: The Jewish Calendar through the
Mystical Lens of Kabbalah,” Rabbi Efraim Mintz, West Orange
Lubavitch Center, 7:30pm, begins Feb 6
Women’s Tehillim Group, Young Israel of Fort Lee, 8pm
“Siddur: Structure and Significance,” Rabbi Scot Berman,
Cong Ahawas Achim Bnai Jacob and David, West Orange, 8pm
Gemara Moed Koton, Rabbi Yaakov Neuburger, Cong Beth
Abraham, Bergenfield, 8pm
Navi, Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, Cong Bnai Yeshurun, Teaneck, 8:15pm
Gemara Mesechta Megillah, Moshe Plotkin, Yeshiva Katana
Boys School, Passaic, 8:20pm
Gemara, Rabbi Yaakov Glasser, private home in Passaic,
8:30pm, 973-778-7117
Weight Watchers, Cong Beth Aaron, Teaneck, 8:30pm
Tuesdays
“Eruvin,” Rabbi Yaakov Neuburger, Cong Beth Abraham, Bergenfield, 5:40am
Kollel Boker: Meseches Kiddushin, the Second Perek, Rabbi
Zvi Sobolofsky, Cong Bnai Yeshurun, Teaneck, 6:20am
Kabbalah for Women Only, Shimona Tzukernick, Teaneck
Chabad House, 9:30am
Women’s Tehillim Group for Cholei Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael,
private home in Teaneck, 9:30am, 201-837-9682
Chumash Class for Women, Rabbi Eliezer Zwickler, Cong Ahawas Achim Bnai Jacob & David, West Orange, 10am
“Talmud Mesechet Shabbat: Explorations into the Roots of
the Major Laws of Shabbat,” Rabbi Boruch Poupko, Cong Ahavath
Torah, Englewood, 10:30am
Women’s Tehillim Group, Cong Ahawas Achim Bnai Jacob and
David, West Orange, 11am
Sefer Shmuel, Rabbi Shalom Baum, Cong Keter Torah, Teaneck, 11am
“Insights into the Weekly Parsha,” Rabbi Boruch Poupko,
Cong Ahavath Torah, Englewood, 11:15am
Lunch and Learn: “The Tanya, User’s Manual for the Soul,”
Rabbi Ephraim Simon, spons by Friends of Lubavitch of Bergen
County, at the Pasta Factory, Teaneck, 1-2pm
Chess Club for Beginning Children, Yosef Sapezhansky,
YMHA, Clifton, 6:45pm, begins Jan 17
Chess Club for Children with Some Knowledge of the Game,
Yosef Sapezhansky, YMHA, Clifton, 7:45pm, begins Jan 17
“The Kabbalah of Time: The Jewish Calendar through the
Mystical Lens of Kabbalah,” Rabbi Ephraim Simon, Teaneck
Chabad House, 8pm, begins Feb 7
Advanced Talmud, Rabbi Tony Glickman, Cong Ahawas Achim
Bnai Jacob and David, West Orange, 8pm
“Introduction to Primary Sources,” Akiva Block, Cong Keter
Torah, Teaneck, 8pm
Jewish Philosophy for Young Adults: “Letters to a Buddhist
Jew” by Rabbi Akiva Tatz, Rabbi Ely Allen, spons by the Sephardic
Cong of Teaneck, private home in Bergenfield, 8pm, 201-385-3040
Gemara Chulim, Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, Cong Bnai Yeshurun,
Teaneck, 8:15pm
Parshat Hashavua, Rabbi Meir Goldvicht, Cong Bnai Yeshurun,
Teaneck, 8:30pm
“Tefillah,” Rabbi Yaakov Glasser, Young Israel of Passaic-Clifton, Passaic, 8:30pm
Igros Moshe Shiur, Rabbi Dr. M Zelefsky, Cong Bnai Yeshurun,
Teaneck, 9pm
Gemara Sukka, Rabbi Yosef Strassfeld, Yeshiva Ohr Simcha,
Englewood, ma’ariv 9:05pm, shiur 9:20pm
Orach Chaim, Rabbi Daniel Hartstein, Cong Beth Abraham,
Bergenfield, 9:15pm
Wednesdays
Kollel Boker: Meseches Kiddushin, the Second Perek, Rabbi
Zvi Sobolofsky, Cong Bnai Yeshurun, Teaneck, 6:20am
Music Together: For Adult and Child, Newborn-Age 4, Deena Yellin, Cong Beth Aaron, Teaneck, 9:30am and 10:30am, begins
Jan 18
“Mommy and Me with Jewish Themes and Songs,” 18
months-3 years, Nechamy Simon, Teaneck Chabad House, 9:45am
“Jewish Music through the Ages,” Cantor Eric Wasser, JCC,
Tenafly, 11am
Jewish Women’s University: “Kabbalah Goes Mainstream,”
Lubavitch Center, West Orange, 11:30am
Girls-Only Work-Out Program Promoting Self-Esteem and
Healthy Body Image, girls 8-13, YMHA, Clifton, 6pm
Training for Mentoring Moms, Judy Forman, Volunteer Center of
Bergen County, Hackensack, 7pm, begins Feb 1, 201-489-9454, ext 24
Bat Mitzvah Program, Cong Keter Torah, Teaneck, 7:15pm
“The Path of the Prophets,” Rabbi Ephraim Simon, Teaneck
Tevet 5766
Page - 45
Chabad House, 7:30pm
“Halachic Insights from the Parshat Hashavua,” Rabbi Adir
Posy, Cong Ahavath Torah, Englewood, 7:30pm
“Topics in Bereishit,” Yael Goldfischer, Cong Ahavath Torah,
Englewood, 7:30pm
Gemara: Meseches Shabbos, Rabbi Eliezer Zwickler, Cong
Ahawas Achim Bnai Jacob and David, West Orange, 8pm
Tanach: Book of Kings, Rabbi Eric Levy, Cong Ahawas Achim
Bnai Jacob and David, West Orange, 8pm
Parshat Hashavua, Rabbi Shalom Baum, Cong Keter Torah, Teaneck, 8pm
“18 Steps to Our Maker: An In-Depth Look into the Shemonah Esrai,” Rabbi David Goldfischer, Cong Ahavath Torah, Englewood, 8:15pm
Gemara Mesechta Megillah, Moshe Plotkin, Yeshiva Katana
Boys School, Passaic, 8:20pm
Shiur, Rabbi Yaakov and/or Rebbetzin Peshi Neuburger, Cong
Beth Abraham, Bergenfield, 8:30pm
Gemara Shiur: Masachet Moed Katan, Rabbi Shalom Baum,
Cong Keter Torah, Teaneck, 9pm
Hilchos Aveilus and Related Topics, Rabbi Zvi Sobolofsky,
Cong Bnai Yeshurun, Teaneck, 9:15pm
Thursdays
Beginners Hebrew Reading, Lucille Foster, JCC, Tenafly, 9:30am
Advanced Beginners Hebrew Reading, Dr. Thelma Borodkin,
JCC, Tenafly, 10:30am
“It’s All the Rage, but What Is It? An Introduction to Kabbalah from Its Sources,” Rabbi Michael Chernick, JCC, Tenafly,
10:30am, begins Jan 12
Bereavement Group, Jewish Family and Vocational Service of
Middlesex County, Edison, 11am
Jewish Story and Crafts Hour for Children 3-5, Rabbi Levi
Page - 46
New Classes
January 2006
Block, Union County Torah Center, Westfield, 12:30pm
Kabbalah with Klar, Rabbi Boruch Klar, West Orange
Lubavitch Center, 7:30pm
Meseches Brachos, Rabbi Elozor Preil, Cong Beth Abraham,
Bergenfield, 8pm
Nefesh ha-Chayim: The Classic Work of Rav Chaim Volozhiner, Rabbi Mayer Twerski, Cong Bnai Yeshurun, Teaneck, 8:15pm
Masechet Berakhot, Rabbi Mayer Twerski, Cong Bnai Yeshurun, Teaneck, 9pm
Study Buddies, Lubavitch Center, West Orange, 8:30pm
Chumash, Rabbi Roberts, Yeshiva Gedolah of Teaneck, 8:30pm
Parsha, Rabbi Ephraim Simon, Teaneck Chabad House, 8:45pm
Rabbi Yissocher Frand by Satellite, Cong Ohr Torah, West Orange; Cong Keter Torah, Teaneck, 9pm
Hilchos Bassar B’Chalav, Dr. Barry Finkelstein, Cong Beth
Abraham, Bergenfield, 9:15pm
Halacha in the Weekly Parsha, Rabbi Michael Taubes, Cong
Bnai Yeshurun, Teaneck, 10:10pm
Fridays
Kollel Boker: Hilchos Shabbos, Rabbi Zvi Sobolofsky, Cong
Bnai Yeshurun, Teaneck, 6:20am
“Add a Day for Shabbat and Play,” children 24 months old,
JCC, Tenafly, 9am
Parshat Hashavua, Rabbi Scot Berman, private home in West
Orange, 8pm, 973-736-1407
Shabbat
Shabbat Chumash Class, Jerry Halpern, Cong Ahavat Achim,
Fair Lawn, 8am
“Kingship, Leadership, and the Roles of Yehudah, Yosef,
and Moshe,” Rabbi Menachem Genack, based on his upcoming sefer,
Cong Shomrei Emunah, Englewood, 10am
Halacha Based on the Parshat, Rabbi Michael Taubes, Cong Zichron Mordechai, Teaneck, one hour after Shabbos
Parent-Child Learning, Cong Beth Abraham, Bergenfield, one
hour after Shabbos
Rabbi Yisroel Reisman by Satellite, Cong Ohr Torah, West Orange; Cong Keter Torah, Teaneck; Khal Zichron Mordechai, Monsey
(845-356-7078), 7:30pm
Specials
Kollel Boker, Cong Bnai Yeshurun, Teaneck, 5:30am
Rotating Magid Shiur: Amud Yomi (Kiddushin), Cong Beth
Abraham, Bergenfield, 6am (5:50 Mon and Thurs)
Kollel Boker and Shacharis Minyan, Bais Medrash of Clifton,
weekdays 6am, Sundays 7:15am, 917-698-9562
Mishna Yomit: Two Mishnayot a Day, Just 15 Minutes, Cong
Bnai Yeshurun, Teaneck, 7:45am daily, 8:15am Shabbat
New Mincha Minyan, Millburn, NJ, 973-379-3151
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Mazal Tov to the Bar Mitzvah Boys: Daniel Balk, Avi Baron,
The Log is a free service provided to the Jewish
community in northern and central New Jersey, Rockland
County and Riverdale. Events that we list include special and guest lectures, concerts, boutiques, dinners, open
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Announcements are requested by the 25th of the month
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susan@jewishvoiceandopinion.com.
Saving Mt. Zion
on Mt. Zion may lead to the
actual City of David where
not only the real tomb of
King David may yet be discovered, but also that of his
son, King Solomon.
The Upper Room
The fears of those who
warn that the Sharon government is preparing to allow the
Catholic Church to gain sovereignty over the space called
“The Last Supper Room”
(it’s also known as “The Upper Room,” the Cenacle, or,
in Latin, the Coenaculum),
located directly above the
site traditionally recognized
by Jews as the Tomb of King
David, are based neither on
thin air nor complicated conspiracy theories. In fact, since
the beginning of November,
reports of such a deal between
the Vatican and the State of
Israel have appeared in major
Tevet 5766
Page - 47
newspapers throughout the
world.
According to Christian
tradition, the Last Supper was
actually a Passover seder celebrated by Jesus and his disciples shortly before his death
by crucifixion at the hands of
the Romans. Many Christians
consider “The Last Supper
Room” their faith’s second or
third most holy site, just after
the Church of the Nativity in
Bethlehem and the Church of
Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem
where, according to Christian
tradition, Jesus was buried.
Many modern scholars
dispute the tradition that King
David is buried on Mt. Zion or
that the Last Supper was held
in the Upper Room. There is
evidence that King David was
actually buried elsewhere and
that the “Last Supper Room”
was not constructed until the
Mazal Tov
Romy Bareket, Alex Finkelstein, Gavriel Dov Hochsztein,
Eitan Itzkowitz, Allan Jay Miller, DJ Newman, Asher Nutovic, Nathaniel Ribner, and Joshua Eric Rosenberg; and
the Bat Mitzvah Girls: Michal Fromowitz, Sarit Greenwood,
Shoshana Leibowitz, Elana Staiman, and Emily and Jessica
Podhorcer
Mazal Tov to Yael and Alex Bailey on the birth of a son
Mazal Tov to Cong Ahawas Achim Bnai Jacob and David of West Orange on joining the “Partners Program for Gush
Katif” and adopting a Gush Katif family for the next 12 months
to help them financially in their transition to their new lives.
Mazal Tov to Yeshivat Netivot of Edison, for collecting
new and used baseball equipment for children in Israel. Call
732-985-4626 to donate
Mazal Tov to Rabbi Aryeh Lightstone and Esti Metzger
on their engagement
Mazal Tov to Ken Goffstein and Lena Lependorf on their
marriage
Mazal Tov Moishy Weiss and Aleena Zazzon on their
engagement. Moishy is the son of Rabbi Mordecai and Ellie
Weiss, formerly director of Friends of Lubavitch in Teaneck and
now of Mitzpeh Yericho. Miss Zazzon is from Monsey.
Mazal Tov to Dr. Alex and Marlene Grobman on the birth
of twin girls to son and daughter-in-law Ilan and Aviva Grobman in Israel.
Mazal Tov to Rabbi Ely Allen and the Teaneck Sephardic
Congregation on his becoming the new spiritual leader
Y
Byzantine period in the 6th or
7th century CE.
Nevertheless, the traditions remain. During the Jordanian occupation of Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967, many
Jews prayed at the traditional
site of David’s Tomb on Mt.
Zion, because, from there, they
could see the Kotel, which was
forbidden to them in those
years. Mt. Zion is less than 100
yards from the Old City and a
ten-minute walk to the Kotel.
For All Faiths
Christians of many different traditions frequently
use the Upper Room for services or private prayer that is
never denied to them. Twice
a year, on Christmas and Easter, the Catholic Church holds
masses there.
Muslims sometimes use
an adjoining site as a mosque,
but, from the 14th to 16th centuries, the entire so-called Chapel
of the Holy Supper was used
solely for Muslim worship.
Rabbi Avraham Goldstein, rosh yeshiva of the
Diaspora Yeshiva (Yeshiva
Toras Yisrael), which, since
1966, has utilized David’s
Tomb and the building complex on Mt. Zion for classes
and religious services, has
embarked on a full-press
campaign to keep the site
open to all faiths, but entirely
under Israeli sovereignty.
Jerusalem in Danger
Israel’s first ba’al teshuva yeshiva, the Diaspora
Yeshiva has won fame by attracting many talented individuals who have gone on to
become Torah scholars. The
Diaspora Yeshiva Band is
one of the school’s many vehicles used to promote kiruv.
Last month, Rabbi Goldstein, who also serves as the
chief Rabbi of the Old City of
Jerusalem, was in the US to
Page - 48
Saving Mt. Zion
January 2006
rally support for his cause.
“Jerusalem is in danger,” he said,
pointing out that the European Union has
joined the Palestinian Authority to insist
that Israel divide the Holy City and give
the eastern half to the Muslim Arabs. That
would place many Christian and Jewish
holy sites under full Muslim control, just
as they were before the 1967 Six-Day
War, when the Muslims made access to
those areas difficult for Christians and impossible for Jews.
In addition, he said, the Vatican
wants to convert the room above King
David’s Tomb into a Roman Catholic
Church for massive pilgrimage and exclusive Roman Catholic worship.
Blinded by Money
Rabbi Goldstein and his supporters,
which include all 14 rabbis in the Old
City, say the Vatican’s long-term goal is
to evict the yeshiva and Jewish presence
all together from the site.
But according to Rabbi Goldstein,
some Israeli officials see only the possibility of increased tourist dollars in such
a move, rather than the loss of Israeli
sovereignty.
“The Vatican wants to turn the yeshiva into a money-making tourist site,
and the Israeli Ministry of Tourism is being enticed by the prospects of millions
of Catholic tourists visiting Israel to see
the ‘Last Supper Room,’” he said.
Such a move, he argued, would seriously disrupt the status quo, an important Israeli designation.
“The changes would disrespect all
Jews and other denominations who now
freely worship at these holy sites,” he said.
Many Facilities
The highest spot in ancient Jerusalem, the Mount Zion complex consists of
three wings: South of the Old City lies
the Church of the Dormition and next to
it, Dormition Abbey where, according to
Christian tradition, Mary fell asleep for the
last time. Just outside Dormition Abbey,
which was built in the early 20th century by
Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, is a small
minaret which overlooks the building in
which the Upper Room is found.
The ground floor of the building
consists of a chapel or crypt. According
to some Christian traditions, it is where
Jesus washed his apostles’ feet and then
made an after-death appearance. The
Jews use that room now as a synagogue
because it is adjacent to the traditional
site of King David’s Tomb. During the
Middle Ages, it was used as a mosque.
The cloister leading to the second
floor, where the Upper Room is located,
serves as a museum, called a Chamber,
devoted to the Holocaust.
The complex also contains the David
Palombo Art Museum and the house in
which the turn-of-the-Common-Era High
Priest Caiaphas is said to have lived.
The entire area is used and overseen
by the Diaspora Yeshiva, which boasts
over 800 students, boys and girls, ranging from pre-school through Kollel.
A Jewish Catholic Knight
Gary Krupp, a wealthy Jewish medical-facilities developer from Long Beach,
New York, who has been “knighted” by the
Roman Catholic Church and wears the Vatican uniform of “the Pontifical Order of St.
Gregory the Great,” dismissed reports that
Israel and the Vatican were negotiating to
give the Church sovereignty over anything.
Mr. Krupp, who was awarded his
honor by Pope John Paul II for his “substantial contributions to the people of
Italy,” is the president and founder of
the Pave the Way Foundation, a group
described as a multi-faith alliance that
strives to improve relations between the
world’s major religions.
According to his website, Mr. Krupp
recruited medical companies to donate
$15 million worth of equipment to the
Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza Hospital in rural San Giovanni Rotondo. Mr.
Krupp is the seventh Jew in history to receive this papal honor.
Just Control
Mr. Krupp maintained that “all” the
Church wants right now is to be given
the right to control the Upper Room. The
Church wants the right to hold Masses
during daylight hours at the site and to
keep it closed at night, he said. Any other
Christian groups that might want to use
the site for prayers would have to gain
permission from the Catholics.
Mr. Krupp insisted other Christian
groups would have no problem securing
such permission, but when he was asked
how he could be certain, he simply said,
“Because they told me so.”
The Greek Orthodox Church, however, claims ownership of all of Mt.
Zion. When the rumors of the Catholic
Church take-over reached Greek Orthodox officials, they demanded an explanation from the Jerusalem municipality.
Mr. Krupp said that when he spoke to
Rabbi Goldstein, the rabbi said he had no
objections to the Catholics holding Masses
at the site whenever they wished. But Mr.
Krupp admitted he did not discuss with
the rabbi the fact that, under this plan, the
Church, rather than the Israeli government
or the yeshiva, would be the sole body responsible for the Upper Room.
Who Controls What?
There is still some dispute as to who
actually controls the site now. The yeshiva was recognized as the responsible
party until 1979, when several robberies
occurred there. A few Torah scrolls were
taken, as well as some silver Judaica and
Muslim rugs.
As a result, the government of Menachem Begin turned ownership of the
site over to the Ministry of Tourism,
which includes the Israel Lands Authority. The Department of Holy Sites took
control of King David’s Tomb, and the
Tevet 5766
Ministry of the Interior assumed ownership of non-Jewish sites, such as the Upper Room. The Jerusalem Municipality
controls the extensive network of courtyards, passageways, and open spaces.
According to Rabbi Goldstein, the
Church took advantage of the resulting
confusion to start pressing for control of
the site. Church officials were thwarted
by the fact that the yeshiva holds longterm leases for about 40 percent of “the
greater King David’s Tomb complex” as
well as numerous other buildings on Mt.
Zion adjacent to the tomb.
Historic Desire
But this was not the first time the
Church had broached the subject. As
Page - 49
early as 1920, the New York Times ran a
report concerning the joint efforts of the
Pope and the King of Italy to regain control of Mt. Zion.
Their efforts were opposed by the ruling British, who said any change in the status quo would provoke the Muslims and
Jews. The Italians accused the British of
refusing to allow any other European power to gain a foothold in the Holy Land.
According to Jewish and Christian
tradition, the building on Mt. Zion was
not destroyed during the fall of Jerusalem
in 70 CE or in any subsequent violence in
the city, including the early Crusades.
The Crusaders enlarged the building
Page - 50
January 2006
Saving Mt. Zion
and added decorations celebrating Christian themes.
The Guardians
When Jerusalem fell to
Saladin in 1187, the Muslim leader did not convert the
Upper Room into a mosque.
The Church of Zion, as it was
called, was allowed to function,
and, in 1333, it was bought by
the King of Naples who ceded it to the Franciscan Friars.
The Franciscans then became
known as “The Guardians of
the Holy Mount of Zion.”
According to some reports, the Jews then living in
the area were outraged. Many
petitioned their Muslim rulers
to retain custody of the structure. The Church reserved its
vengeance for the Jews of Italy,
who were subjected to severe
reprisals in an effort to force
them to induce their brethren
in the Holy Land to accept the
Franciscans’ ownership.
Although in the 15th century the Jews made efforts
to buy Mt Zion, in 1551, the
Muslims took possession of
the site outright, transformed
it into a mosque with prayer
niches which can still be
seen, and forbade all Christian worship there.
Like the Kotel
The Catholic Church has
been trying to reclaim that
property ever since, and now
Mr. Krupp seems determined
to get it for them. Jewish
forces captured the site in the
1948 War of Independence.
“Do you remember how
the Jews felt when they got
the Kotel back? That’s how it
is for the Catholics with the
Upper Room,” he said.
But when asked why
the Catholic Church, to this
day, has not endorsed Jew-
Mt. Zion
ish rights to the Jews’ holiest
site—the Temple Mount—
Mr. Krupp said, “Don’t let
history be your guide.”
No Disruption
According to Mr. Krupp,
the Catholics are not interested in disturbing King David’s Tomb, any of the museums on Mt. Zion, or the Diaspora Yeshiva. All they want,
he said, is to conduct Masses
during daylight hours in the
Upper Room.
Mr. Krupp said he has
spoken to Rabbi Goldstein
about this arrangement and
that the rosh yeshiva had no
objections. However when
asked if he had made it clear to
the rabbi that all other Christian denominations would
have to ask permission from
the Catholics before using
the room, Mr. Krupp said he
had not. Calling the question
“hostile and provocative,” he
objected to the prospect that a
reporter might ask the rabbi to
respond to that scenario.
In a letter to Mr. Sharon
on this issue, a representa-
tive of the Diaspora Yeshiva, Shmuel Berkovits said,
“Turning the Coenaculum
into an active church is a way
of desecrating the holiness
of the Tomb of David” and
would be offensive, therefore, to Jews.
An expert on holy places,
Mr. Berkovits said the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims
who could be expected to visit
the Upper Room should it become an active church would
make the lives of the yeshiva
students “intolerable.”
Rabbi Goldstein said the
yeshiva would be open to allowing the Catholic Church
to hold Masses in the Upper
Room, as long as control of the
site remained in Jewish hands.
Mr. Krupp said the
Church would find it “demeaning and an insult” to
have to ask Jewish authorities for the right to conduct
Mass, even in Israel.
Church Concessions
There have been indications that, in return for granting
Tevet 5766
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Page - 52
January 2006
Saving Mt. Zion
the Franciscans control of the
Upper Room, the Church may
be willing to make some concessions of its own. According
to many reports, the Church
was prepared to offer Israel a
500-year-old abandoned synagogue in Toledo, Spain.
Now called the Santa
Maria la Blanca Church, the
magnificent structure was
erected in the 12th-century
when Toledo had a thriving
Jewish community.
In 1355 and again in
1391, the community was
devastated by bloody riots
that preceded the Inquisition by more than a century.
Christians in Toledo murdered thousands of Jews, and
two dozen synagogues were
abandoned or destroyed. The
Santa Maria la Blanca has
been used for Catholic worship ever since.
Reporting the Swap
In early November, before Mr. Katsav’s meeting on
Nov. 17th with Pope Benedict XVI in Rome, the conservative Rome newspaper,
El Massaggero, which has
close ties to the Vatican, reported that the Israeli president was expected to formalize an agreement that would
give the Church control over
the Upper Room in exchange
for the Santa Maria la Blanca.
A draft of the proposed
agreement, which offered the
details of the swap, was made
public, and Cardinal Walter
Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council of Religious
Relations with the Jews, inferred to the Jerusalem Post
that while he would welcome
such a move, it had not progressed any further.
An article published last
summer by the Vatican report-
ed that the Israeli government
“arranged for the possession
of the cenacle to be transferred to the Catholic Church
in exchange for Santa Maria Blanca” after Pope John
Paul II visited Jerusalem and
celebrated Mass in the Upper
Room in March of 2000.
No “Holy to Holy”
Rabbi Goldstein remembered that visit well. Church
officials, he said, offered the
yeshiva between $5 million
and $40 million to vacate its
space between the Dormition
Abbey and the Upper Room
so that the Pope could go from
“holy to holy” without walking through the yeshiva. Asked
about the offer, Rav Yosef Sholom Eliyashev, the recognized
leader of the Orthodox community in Israel, said no and,
therefore, the yeshiva turned
the Church down.
Instead, the Church built
a temporary elevator for the
Pope on yeshiva property, a
compromise which the yeshiva accepted “for good
relations.”
“We’re always prepared to improve relations,
but we’re not prepared to
give away the country’s
sovereignty,” said Rabbi
Goldstein.
They Faced Jerusalem
In light of the reports
indicating the imminent loss
of even part of Mt. Zion, the
Diaspora Yeshiva and its allies, most notably the International Society for Sephardic Progress (ISFSP) and
its Committee to Save Mt.
Zion, launched a campaign
to publicize and stop the proposed agreement between the
Israeli government and the
Vatican.
“When the Jews of Toledo prayed each morning,
they faced east towards Je-
rusalem. It was not Toledo that they desired, but the
Land of Israel, which was
still unobtainable. Now, we
have Jerusalem, we can go
to the holy sites, and we can
live in the land. If those who
built that synagogue knew
that this abandoned building
in Christian Spain was being traded for a piece of real
estate in the Land of Israel,
they would roll over in their
graves. Today, the Santa Maria Synagogue is nothing but
an empty shell, a tourist stop
in a city where no Jews remain,” said Shlomo Alfassa,
executive director of ISFSP.
Although Mr. Katsav’s
office and the Israeli Foreign
Ministry initially dismissed
the reports of the exchange as
“nonsense,” their denials did
nothing to assuage the fears
of those who were convinced
the Israeli government was
about to perpetrate another
“disengagement.”
Sources in Mr. Sharon’s
office said the reports of the
swaps were simply recycling
an old proposal that arose in
1993 during Israeli-Vatican
talks on bilateral ties. The
Israeli government sources
said an investigation showed
that the Vatican does not even
own the Toledo church.
Constant Issue
Sources in the Israeli Foreign Ministry told
Ha’aretz that Israel had rejected the Vatican’s proposal
in 2003 and that the issue had
not been raised since.
But that was not quite
true. Last September, during a visit to the Vatican, Shinui
MK Avraham Poraz said that
from Israel’s perspective, the exchange could take place “if the
relevant parties were to agree.”
National Union MK Rab-
Tevet 5766
Page - 53
Page - 54
January 2006
Saving Mt. Zion
bi Benny Elon, who served
twice as Minister of Tourism,
acknowledged that the Church
raised the issue with him several years ago. He said he
made it clear to the Pope’s representative that “we would allow them to use one room with
a side entrance that would not
bother the yeshiva.”
“But under no circumstances would we allow the
transfer of ownership. But they
said they want ownership, and
that the Pope sees this place
as the second-holiest, after the
Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
We have to be very strong and
not give in to the Vatican on
this,” he said.
Christian groups, he said,
were always welcome to come
and pray in the Upper Room,
“but the sovereignty is ours.”
Victory and Defeat
When Mr. Katsav’s office issued a full denial that
Israel had any intention of
turning anything over to the
Catholic Church, Mr. Krupp
denounced those, such as the
Diaspora Yeshiva and the ISFSP, who took credit for stymieing the Church’s—and
his—efforts.
“Two months earlier, I
told these people that when
the official denial comes,
they will take credit for it.
They used this only for fundraising purposes,” he said.
Tevet 5766
Page - 55
Nevertheless, Rabbi Elon
said Mr. Katsav’s denial was
“a major achievement, and
the result of public pressure.”
“What has to be done
trade,” he said, calling it “a bittersweet victory” because, he
said, he believes the plans for
Mt. Zion are still continuing.
Nevertheless, he thanked
Rabbi Katsav and the Pope
now is to try to involve the
Prime Minister, despite our
troubled relations with him.
He must intervene to ensure
that the Vatican not gain control over such a significant
site,” said Rabbi Elon.
Caught Off Guard
Mr. Alfassa agreed. “I
have significant reason to believe that our pressure helped
expose a potential and immediate handover that was likely part of the Vatican agenda
for the meeting with Katsav.
I am confident that we caught
both President Katsav and the
Church officials off guard, and
the public pressure we created
caused both parties to conclude
they better suspend their quiet
Mr. Katsav for allaying his
group’s fears that the land
would be handed over in the
short term.
According to Mr. Krupp,
the Church’s offer to give Israel control of the Santa Maria
la Blanca was independent of
whether or not Jerusalem forfeits
control of the Upper Room.
Jewish Manuscripts
Another Church concession, which Mr. Krupp said
he helped facilitate, was the
Vatican’s decision to loan, for
the first time, four illuminated
Hebrew manuscripts from its
collection to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. On display until the end of January
are a 15th-century manuscript
of Maimonides’ Mishne Torah, a 15th-centry manuscript
of Rabbi Jacob ben Asher’s
Arba’ah Turim, a 13th-century
manuscript of the Bible, and a
13th-century Book of Psalms.
The four pieces from the
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana are part of the series of
“Timeless Masterpieces” on
loan from sister institutions
in honor of the Israel Museum’s 40th anniversary. This
particular exhibit is entitled
“Rome to Jerusalem.”
The realistic depictions in
the two 15th-century North Italian manuscripts shed light on
Jewish customs at the time—
from rabbinic courts to wedding ceremonies and holiday
celebrations. The 13th-century
manuscripts were both produced in Rome and are among
the earliest of their kind in existence. They are decorated
with exquisite, colorful floral
and zoomorphic motifs and illuminated in gold.
Stolen Property
While many Jews were
thrilled finally to have the opportunity to see these masterpieces, the fact that they have
been kept from the Jewish
public for centuries and, even
now, were only loaned to the
Israel Museum for a short
time instead of given to the
Jewish State, did not prompt
Page - 56
Saving Mt. Zion
January 2006
cont. from page 55
many expressions of gratitude.
“The Vatican ‘graciously’ opened its
‘secret archives,’ which contain a large
amount of confiscated Jewish property.
The repository will ‘loan’ to Israel papers
of Maimonides, which they have held captive since the 12th century. For hundreds of
years, Jews have wanted these documents,
among other items, but the Vatican has denied access to them. If the Vatican was intrinsically good, if they really wanted to
make a gesture towards peace, they would
hand over all of their Jewish material to the
Jewish people. These games of ‘letting us
borrow’ our own materials is preposterous and juvenile,” said Mr. Alfassa.
He called it “ironic” that the Vatican
has accused Israel of refusing to return
the Upper Room, which it terms “seized
property.”
“This issue didn’t just pop up. It has
been an ongoing source of tension between the Church and Israel since the
founding of the state, The Church is essentially demanding that ‘stolen property’ be returned. Well, where is our ‘stolen
property?’” he said.
Equal Gestures
Mr. Krupp, who said he began the
process that led to the loan when his organization brought Jewish scholars to
the Vatican Library in Sept 2002 to view
the manuscripts, did not disagree.
“If the government of Israel were
to announce that to
show appreciation
for efforts towards
the Jewish people
and the State of Israel by Pope John
Paul II, it will return, to the Christian world after 453
years, the Cenacle
Shrine of the Upper
room, the interna- Gary Krupp with wife at side, holding hands with the (former) pope
tional image of Istion, Archbishop Sambi said the Church
rael and its relationship with 2.3 billion
would not be able to produce it.
Christians will have an enormous world“Only Voice”
wide impact. If the Vatican were to anNevertheless, Mr. Krupp insisted
nounce that it is returning to the Jewish
that the Catholic Church is the “only outpeople, in the care of the State of Israel,
spoken Christian voice to condemn antithe manuscripts of Maimonides, again,
semitism and outlaw proselytizing among
this would gain world attention and furJews.” The problem was defining antither cement relations,” he said. “With the
semitism. While Church documents have
continued growth of the relationship bedeclared antisemitism a sin, the Church is
tween the Holy See and Israel, we hope to
still considering beatifying Queen Isabelpossibly repatriate some of these writings
la of Spain, who initiated the Inquisition,
to the Jewish people worldwide.”
and Edith Stein, a Jew who was murdered
At the official opening of “Rome to Jeby the Nazis during the Holocaust despite
rusalem” at the Israel Museum, the flags of
her conversion to Catholicism.
the Jewish state and the Vatican were placed
Many Jewish observers see the Cathside by side, and the Vatican Ambassador,
olic glorification of Ms Stein as a way to
Archbishop Pietro Sambi, called the presenpromote conversion, despite Church poltation just one example of “cultural collaboicy to refrain from proselytizing.
ration between Israel and the Vatican that is
Although Mr. Krupp conceded that,
going on in many fields.”
as a group, Evangelical Christian lead803 Judaic Treasures
ers are more pro-Israel than are CathoHe noted that the Vatican is currently
lic clerics, he nevertheless indicated that
working on a catalogue documenting the
Evangelicals’ religious mandate to con803 other items in the Vatican’s Judaica
vert Jews was worse than the Catholics’
collection, an idea which was suggested
eagerness to see Jerusalem divided or
by Mr. Katsav at a meeting with Pope
internationalized and Israelis dispersed
John Paul II in Dec. 2002. Some scholfrom Judea and Samaria.
ars believe the Vatican continues to hold
Potentially Life-Saving
some of Jewish history’s greatest treaWhile many Israelis see Mr. Krupp’s
sures.
efforts as demeaning to the Jewish State,
One of these made its way to the Ishe sees them as potentially life-saving.
rael Museum during Sukkot 2003 when
He pointed out that billions of Catholics
the Vatican loaned the institution a 1,800around the world could stand as a bulyear-old Roman relic depicting a sukkah
wark against nations such as Iran whose
in the courtyard of the Temple.
leaders are prepared to annihilate the
At the opening of the current exJewish state.
hibit, when a European-Jewish journal“The worldwide Catholic Church
ist asked if the menorah looted by Titus
has been the only outspoken continuous
when the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE
voice to condemn antisemitism and longs
might be found in the Vatican’s collecfor a cordial, culturally benevolent rela-
tionship with Israel. This accomplishment
will benefit millions of Jewish, Catholic,
Israeli, and Palestinian lives,” he said.
Even if the Church is not the only such
voice and its efforts to win control of the
Upper Room are not realized, Mr. Krupp’s
relationship with Church officials seems to
be appreciated by Israeli leaders.
$5 Million a Year
Mr. Krupp, however, is not the only
Jew working to help the Catholic Church
regain a foothold on Mt. Zion. David
Bartholdy, an Israeli who was born Jewish but, according to some reports, subsequently converted to Catholicism, is
trying to win permission from the Israeli
government to turn the holy site into a
major tourist attraction, without Jews.
Mr. Bartholdy, who is now based in
Haifa, has presented the Israeli Ministry
of Tourism with the idea of establishing
a “Celestial Psalms Track” initiative on
Mt. Zion, to be headed by an organization called “Green Heritage,” which is
run by Mr. Bartholdy. He is reportedly
working with Keresz-Groag, an architectural firm that specializes in revitalizing historic urban sites, and the Israel
Lands Authority.
According to Arutz-7, Mr. Bartholdy, who is confident his plan will
earn some $5 million a year, plans to
purchase not only the public pathways,
but also a Muslim cemetery adjacent to
the complex,
“The Muslim cemetery will be desecrated to make an exclusive entrance to the
Last Supper Room,” said Rabbi Goldstein.
According to the rabbi, Mr. Bartholdy’s plan is to acquire private ownership of the Mt. Zion area, close it off,
and allow it to serve Catholic tourists. For
two hours in the early morning, it will
cost nothing to come to the site to pray.
For the rest of the day, there will be an entrance fee of $10. Non-Catholics will be
required to obtain prior written permission from the Custody of the Holy Land
to use buildings within the complex.
In a letter written last July to the
Tourism Ministry and obtained by Arutz7, Mr. Bartholdy said, “Some 500,000
foreign tourists visited in Jerusalem in
the top intifada year, 2001. If each one
of them feels the obligation to visit the
‘Last Supper Room’ and pays a $10 entrance fee, the income will reach a minimum of $5 million.”
Tevet 5766
Fronting for the Pope?
It is not clear whom Mr. Bartholdy
represents. Mr. Krupp insisted Mr. Bartholdy has nothing to do with the Vatican, the Church, or the Franciscans;
Rabbi Goldstein said Mr. Bartholdy is
fronting for Catholics.
“The Franciscans I spoke to said
they would have nothing to do with Bartholdy and were not even certain he was
rational,” said Mr. Krupp.
Rabbi Goldstein, however, called Mr.
Bartholdy, who, he said, was born David
Yakar, “the Pope’s local representative.”
Franciscan Friars provided Mr. Bartholdy with the funds to fuel a bid to turn
Page - 57
the Mt. Zion complex into a center of
Catholic Pilgrimage activity.
“We have lots of information that he
is in the pay f the local Franciscan Brothers, headed by Father Pierre Batista, and, as
far as we know, they’ve already paid him
$70,000, allowing him to go to various government offices, buying his way through the
bureaucracy,” said Rabbi Goldstein.
Deep Pockets
yeshiva has been approached by two
people who said they had been offered a
minimum of $300,000 by Mr. Bartholdy
if they were successful in persuading the
yeshiva to vacate its property so that the
Page - 58
January 2006
Tevet 5766
Page - 59
Getting More Than an Abandoned 800-Year-Old Shul
By Stewart Weiss, director of the Ohel Ari Jewish Outeach
Center in Ra’anana
on cell phone in rainstorm.”
he Internet is a great place
Then there are the conto visit, but I wouldn’t
spiracy theories which are
want to live there. Along with
spawned and spread on the
tons of useful information, the
Web: “Terrorist mad scienInternet can be an open sewtist invents hurricane-making
age line into our homes, spewmachine; sends Rita and Kaing forth all kinds of pornogratrina to destroy America,” or,
phy, hate and misinformation.
closer to home, “Yigal Amir
Much of that misinforsecret agent of the Mossad.”
mation takes the form of urNext thing you know
ban legends—the latest of
we’ll be reading “Shimon
which include: “Alligator
Peres hired by Likud to lose
eats head of Bungee jumper
every election and make Lain Australia” and “Man in Inbor look bad!” ( hmmm.....)
dia electrocuted while talking
T
Saving Mt. Zion
Church can take it over completely.
At the end of October, Mr.
Bartholdy wrote a rather threatening letter to Rabbi Goldstein in
which he warned him to accept
a large financial offer. Comparing himself to the rabbi in terms
of “strong resolution and conviction,” Mr. Bartholdy warned that
“Jerusalem can no longer tolerate
a ‘black hole’ on Mt. Zion.”
“Fighting me, under these
new circumstances, may prove
one battle too many,” he wrote,
telling the rabbi that he is “ready
to allay your fears and prepared
to take different financial sanctions upon myself accordingly.”
“I urge you to let your
wise lawyers hit me in my
pockets where it most hurts
and which is the sensible path
to follow now,” he said.
His letter to the Tourism
Ministry also emphasized
that he is “determined, and
my pockets are deep.”
While the Tourism Ministry seemed interested, the
Parks Authority was less so.
Jerusalem Region Director
Evyatar Cohen told Mr. Bartholdy that it was “incontrovertibly clear that such an
important site as Mt. Zion
should not be handed over to
private hands.”
Building Jewish Tourism
In response to Mr. Bar-
Swap Story
So it is understandable
that I had my doubts when I
began to get numerous e-mails
about a nefarious deal in the
works involving the Vatican,
the Israeli Foreign Ministry
and President Moshe Katsav.
As the story goes, the
Vatican is intent on gaining control over the Room of
the Last Supper (also known
as the Coenaculum) on Mt.
Zion. The holy site was built
in 1135 by the Franciscans,
appropriated in 1523 by the
Ottomans—who turned it into
a mosque—and eventually
captured by Jewish forces.
In exchange for the site,
we are told, Israel is to gain
control of the Santa Maria la
Blanca Church, a 12th-century
synagogue in Toledo, Spain,
which was converted into a
church 500 years ago, after the
Jews were massacred or expelled in the era of the Spanish Inquisition. Katsav and
Pope Benedict XVI, say the
reports—denied strenuously
by Beit Hanassi—were to announce the historic real estate
tholdy’s actions, the yeshiva
has retained legal counsel
and plans to pursue legal action of its own in the courts.
In addition, the Reishit
Yerushalayim organization in
the Old City as well as the yeshiva itself have joined forces
to increase tourism to the site.
Reishit will establish a Visitor’s Center, but the yeshiva has
more ambitious plans, which include renovating the yeshiva’s
exterior and establishing an ongoing archaeological exhibit
showing evidence of the word
“Zion” in antiquity, a soundand-light show entitled “Jerusalem for the Generations,” an exhibit featuring masterpieces of
classical art depicting King David and the Psalms, and an exhibit featuring the “Symbols of
King David,” such as slingshots
and harps.
There will also be children’s arts-and-crafts projects
geared to helping youngsters
appreciate and process the exhibits, and a “King David Tour,”
which will include visits to the
City of David, the Mount of Olives, the new Maaleh HaZeitim
neighborhood, and King David’s burial site on Mt. Zion.
Rabbi Goldstein has already met with rabbis in the
Old City and they are planning to hold monthly Rosh
Chodesh gatherings. S.L.R.
Page - 60
January 2006
Ess Gezint: Sugar Cookies
In case anyone was sitting in a cave in Afghanistan, there was a transit strike in NYC last month. A daughter-in-law, faced with the
prospect of two little girls forced to stay home from school in a small New York apartment, a housekeeper who had no way of making
the trek into Manhattan from Queens, and an infant who could not have cared less about the stress around him, decided to keep her children busy by cooking, or more precisely, baking. Her motto: When you cook, you get dinner; when you bake, you get cookies.” Y
Sugar Cookies
¾ cup margarine
2½ cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
Mix margarine, sugar, eggs, and vanilla thoroughly. Stir
flour, baking powder, and salt together and blend into the margarine mixture. Chill dough at least one hour. Preheat oven
to 400˚. Roll dough ⅛-inch thick on a lightly floured board.
Cut with floured cookie cutters. If you want to decorate with
colored sugar, first brush each cookie with a little beaten egg
white, then sprinkle with colored sugar before baking. Place on
ungreased baking sheet. Bake 6-8 minutes until cookies are a
delicate golden brown.
Sugar Cookie Icing
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
2 tsp light corn syrup
1 tsp non-dairy creamer ¼ tsp almond extract
or water
3 drops food coloring
In a small bowl, stir together the confectioner’s sugar and
creamer until smooth. Add corn syrup and almond extract, and
mix well. If icing is too thick, add more corn syrup. Divide into
separate bowls, depending on how many different colors you
want. Add food colorings to desired intensity. After cookies are
baked, dip them into the bowls or paint them with a brush.
Orange Shortbread Cookies
4 cups flour, sifted
1 cup light brown sugar,
¼ tsp salt
firmly packed
1Tbs finely grated orange peel
2 cups margarine
Mix flour, salt, sugar, and orange peel. Cut in margarine until mixture is crumbly. Work the dough with hands until it holds
together. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 350˚. Roll
dough ½-inch thick between sheets of wax paper. Cut out with
floured cutters. Place on ungreased cookie sheets and bake for
20 minutes. Drizzle with chocolate icing.
Chocolate Frosting
½ cup sugar
1½ Tbs cornstarch
1 oz unsweetened chocolate, grated (or 3 Tbs cocoa and 1 Tbs margarine)
Dash of salt
½ cup boiling water
1 ½ Tbs margarine
½ tsp vanilla extract
Mix sugar and cornstarch. Add chocolate and salt. Add water. Cook until mixture thickens. Remove from heat. Add margarine and vanilla. Spread on cookies while hot for a glossy
frosting.
Tevet 5766
Have a Sweet and Safe Winter!
Page - 61
Page - 62
Getting More
January 2006
cont. from page 59
deal during their November meeting in
Rome.
“Nonsense”
Weighing in on the fray are the Greek
Orthodox Church—which claims ownership of Mount Zion—and the Diaspora
Yeshiva, which uses several buildings on
Mount Zion for their classes.
The head of the yeshiva has vehemently protested the supposed deal, in
order to prevent the Tomb of David—
which is housed in the same complex—
from :falling into Christian hands,” as
well as avoiding the site from being
overwhelmed by hordes of Christian pilgrims, who would “distract the Yeshiva
boys” from their studies.
The Foreign Ministry has labeled the
story as “nonsense,” and Rabbi David
Rosen, head of interfaith relations for the
American Jewish Committee and arguably the best-informed Jew in the world on
Christian-Jewish matters, tells me the story
is “fabricated, a tempest in a teapot.”
Probably Not True
And I have no doubt that if the story is true, the Jewish world would shift
into 4th gear (we only go into overdrive
when Madonna visits the Western Wall
or Shimon Peres wins an election) and
create such a balagan that even the Vatican would back off.
But what I find so bizarre about the
whole episode is the notion that we would
trade a sought-after chunk of Jerusalem
for a shul-turned-church in Toledo.
As bad a bargainer as the Israeli government can be—after all, Ehud
Barak was willing to give away the Temple Mount and east Jerusalem for an autographed picture of Yasir Arafat and a
suite in the future Gaza Hilton—this
would set a new low. It would rank right
up there with the Indians selling Manhattan for $24 and some trinkets, or the Chicago Cubs trading future Hall of Famer
Lou Brock to St. Louis for the unknown
and soon-forgotten Ernie Broglio.
On the whole, I’d rather get a new
kosher deli in Toledo, Ohio, than an old
church in Toledo, Spain.
Fairer Exchange
But—if we were serious about doing a deal with the Church, then I do have
some suggestions for a fairer exchange.
How about if we swap the scene of the
Last Supper for some of the Temple artifacts and original Jewish manuscripts kept
in the Vatican’s subterranean storerooms?
How about if we get back the communities along the Rhine, ransacked and pillaged by Christian Crusaders on their way
to the Holy Land? How about if we trade
the bricks and stones of this thousandyear-old building for the tens of thousands
of Jewish children forcibly stripped from
their families over the centuries by “wellmeaning” Christians, who baptized them
and forcibly converted them to Christianity, so they could “save their souls.”
The State of Israel is admirably committed to protecting the holy places of
all religions, and guaranteeing the right
of worship for all faiths here. And we’ve
done a heck of a lot better job at it than our
religious counterparts around the world
did for us throughout the centuries.
So guys, go ahead and keep all the
old shuls and all the old Jewish schools
in all the decimated Jewish communities
of Europe, North Africa and Asia. But
keep your hands off Jerusalem—it’s not
for sale.
Y
Just a Coincidence?
ternates between calling the rabbi by his
name and referring to him sarcastically
as “Mordy.”
Among the accusations are that Rabbi Tendler has publicly hugged some male
congregants in shul and, at the same time,
kissed children. The packet condemns
these practices, saying Jews should adhere to the principle “that there is no love
greater than our love for Hashem.”
Perhaps most strange is the fact that letters sent by Rabbi Tendler’s wife, Michelle,
to the RCA while her husband’s case was
still being considered by the organization,
wound up in the Monsey packet.
Asked how the letters got there, a
high-placed representative of the RCA
had no comment.
“Bombs”
The lawsuit and the Internet and
packet smears against Rabbi Tendler
came within days of a threat issued
against him by a representative of the
RCA via the spokesman for the Jerusalem Beit Din (JBD) in Israel.
The spokesman, who has been empowered by the JBD to attempt to resolve the differences between the RCA
and Rabbi Tendler so that their issue can
be adjudicated by a proper, impartial rabbinic court, said he was warned by the
representative of the RCA that “bombs
would be thrown” if Rabbi Tendler did
not accede to the RCA’s position.
Beyond quietly accepting the RCA’s
decision to expel him, it is not clear what
the RCA was demanding of Rabbi Tendler.
“Many of us believe those ‘bombs’
are meant to divert attention away from
the fact that the RCA is not in compliance
with the only beit din that has, thus far,
heard both sides and decided that Rabbi
Tendler is entitled to a fair trial to adjudicate his case,” said the spokesman.
Named Defendants
In his suit, Rabbi Tendler has named
as defendants the RCA in general and
several of its officers and members who
presided over the Vaad Hakovod which
officially voted to expel him. He has also
named the RCA’s attorney, Mark Stern,
and Rabbi Yosef Blau, a member of the
RCA who serves as mashgiach ruchani
of Yeshiva University. Rabbi Tendler
has accused Rabbi Blau of circulating
Tevet 5766
Page - 63
slanderous material against him via The
Awareness Center, a notorious website
which Rabbi Blau served as assistant director at the time.
The other named defendants are
Rabbis Basil Herring, Heshie Billet,
Kenneth Auman, Mark Dratch, and
Gedalia Dov Schwartz.
After his expulsion, Rabbi Tendler
appealed to the JBD, claiming that the
RCA had expelled him without due process. It is a charge the RCA denies.
Zabla
Initially, the RCA, claiming the JBD
(which operates under the auspices of
the Chief Rabbinate of Israel) had no jurisdiction in the matter, refused even to
respond to the charges. When the JBD
ruled that the RCA must reinstate Rabbi
Tendler and cease all accusatory remarks
against him until the matter was adjudicated by a beit din, the RCA cried foul.
The rabbinic group then hired a
rabbinic lawyer to plead its case, insisting that the only beit din it would consider was the Monsey-based Machon
le’Hora’ah, which Rabbi Tendler found
unacceptable.
Just as the JBD did not allow Rabbi
Tendler to insist on the Jerusalem court
over the RCA’s objections, it did not allow the RCA to have its way over Rabbi
Tendler. Instead, the JBD ruled that the
parties would have to take their dispute
to a beit din established by means of a
zabla, a religious court consisting of a
rabbinic representative for each side and
a third judge chosen by the first two.
Seeking Fairness
The JBD then suggested that, after
Rabbi Tendler and the RCA each chooses their respective representative, Rav
Avraham Boruch Rosenberg, head of
Machon le’Hora’ah, be appointed as the
third judge in the zabla.
Rabbi Tendler objected to the suggestion, pointing out that, if Rabbi
Rosenberg were to serve, the RCA,
which wanted Rabbi Rosenberg in the
first place, would, in effect, have two
representatives on the zabla while he
Page - 64
Just a Coincidence?
(Rabbi Tendler) would have
only one.
In any case, last August,
the JBD gave the parties 15
days to submit the names of
their representatives. Rabbi
Tendler submitted his, but,
according to the JBD spokesman, the RCA did nothing.
Lo Tsayis L’din
After several weeks, Rabbi Tendler petitioned the JBD,
asking for official permission
(heter) to take the recalcitrant
RCA and the named defendants to civil court where he
intended to sue them for defamation of character.
At the end of November, the court gave its answer.
While it did not grant Rabbi
Tendler the heter, it found the
RCA and the named defendants in contempt of court,
Lo Tsayis L’din.
While all halachic authorities agree that Lo Tsayis
L’din is a serious matter, the
exact repercussions for the
January 2006
RCA are unclear.
According to some authorities, that status, bestowed
by a recognized beit din,
means the rabbis so named
cannot serve as spiritual leaders, perform marriages, supervise kashruth, or participate
on religious courts.
Other authorities said
the consequences of the ruling are less dire.
Financial Repercussions
In Chicago, there were
indications there might be financial repercussions.
Rabbi Schwartz, one of
the named defendants in Rabbi Tendler’s suit, is also the
head of both the RCA-affiliated Beit Din of America and
the beit din of the Chicago
Rabbinical Council (CRC).
As the CRC’s chief rav, he
is the rabbinic organization’s
major kashruth consultant.
According to the Brooklyn-based Jewish Press,
some Chicago-based compa-
nies, who use the services of
the CRC for kashruth supervision, became skittish, worrying that Rabbi Schwartz’s
being placed in contempt of
court by the JBD might impact on his kashruth rulings.
Half-Moon K
There were rumors that
some companies were considering switching to the California-based Half-Moon K,
which has reportedly greatly
improved its credibility and
is now operating in Chicago
with a full-time representative in charge of the area.
While Half-Moon K’s
rabbinic administrator, Rabbi
Tzvi Hollander, would not say
if any CRC-supervised companies had contacted his organization, he seemed clearly
aware of the situation.
“I hope the RCA and the
CRC take care of their problem with the Jerusalem Beit Din
quickly, because this could affect
many people. In the meantime,
people in Chicago know they can
always come to us for help in a
respectable way. We won’t leave
anyone hanging,” he said.
Rabbi Sholom Fishbein,
head of kashruth for the CRC,
denied that any companies
had as yet “jumped ship.”
Taking No Sides
In Chicago, a rabbi with
close ties to both the CRC
and the RCA, accused the
spokesman for the JBD of
siding with Rabbi Tendler
against the RCA and, to that
end, initiating the rumors that
companies were considering leaving the CRC for Half
Moon K. The spokesman adamantly denied both charges.
“I am not serving Rabbi
Tendler,” said the spokesman.
“I just feel he is entitled to a
fair trial and, thus far, he has
been denied that by the RCA.”
Although the spokesman
said he knew nothing about
companies seeking to switch
kashruth supervision, the
Chicago rabbi then reportedly made his threat about
“throwing bombs.”
First “Bomb?”
On December 20, less
than a week later, Adina
Marmelstein, 43, filed suit
in New York Supreme Court
in Manhattan, claiming
that, from November 2001
through May 2005, she had
an on-going sexual relationship with Rabbi Tendler, who
had presented himself to her
as “a counselor and advisor
with an expertise in women’s
issues.” She claims he represented himself as “an advisor,
a father figure, and a god.”
“He told her that she
was ‘closed to the possibility of finding a husband’ and
that, in her current state, she
would never find one,” said
her attorney, Lenore Kramer.
“He told her that if she were
to disclose information about
this sexual therapy to anyone,
he would have her placed in a
straight jacket or put in jail.”
In her suit, Ms. Marmelstein claims that Rabbi
Tendler advised her to permit him to have sexual relations with her so that her
“life would open up and men
would come” to her.
Ms. Marmelstein is also
suing Rabbi Tendler’s synagogue, Kehillat New Hempstead (KNH), charging that,
as an entity, the synagogue
knew or should have known
about Rabbi Tendler’s be-
havior, including, she claims,
using “his rabbinical study
at the synagogue to conduct
sexual therapy sessions with
congregation members.”
In the complaint, Ms.
Marmelstein charges that Rabbi
Tendler told her he talks to G-d
“all the time.” It was unclear
whether that referred to ordinary prayers or megalomania.
Peripheral
Ms. Marmelstein’s history in Monsey has many residents there shaking their heads
in dismay over this lawsuit.
“To call her peripheral would be a complement,”
said a woman who used to
belong to KNH, but has now
relocated to New Jersey for
work-related reasons. “She
was closer to a bag-lady.”
The woman, who asked to
have her name withheld for the
present although she is willing to testify in court on Rabbi Tendler’s behalf, said she
often met Ms. Marmelstein
in Rabbi Tendler’s home for
Friday night dinners or Shabbat lunches with the rabbi, his
wife, Michelle, their eight children, and other guests.
“The Tendlers always
have many people at their
Shabbos table,” said the
woman, acknowledging that,
as a divorced woman in the
community, she was often an
invited guest, too.
The woman, who said
she became friendly with the
Tevet 5766
Page - 65
Page - 66
January 2006
Just a Coincidence?
Tendlers while undergoing
her divorce, maintained that,
at no time, did the rabbi ever
treat her with anything but
respect and proper decorum.
According to the woman, Ms. Marmelstein always
came to the synagogue and
the rabbi’s home with Levi,
also known as Lawrence,
Boslow, with whom she resided. Although not married to
each other, Ms. Marmelstein
and Mr. Boslow were described
as constant companions. “They
behaved like a married couple,
even though everyone knew
they were not,” said the woman.
“Scary”
In her suit, Ms. Marmelstein charges that, in 1994,
she began consulting Rabbi
Tendler by telephone on “various personal issues.” In 1995,
she says, he began “to actively
recruit” her to join his congregation, which she did in 1996.
According to the woman who asked for anonymity, she never saw or heard
about Rabbi Tendler’s behaving improperly with Ms.
Marmelstein. However, she
said, there was a lot of discussion concerning the way
Ms. Marmelstein behaved towards the rabbi and the community in general.
“Adina was a scary person,” said the woman. “She
tended to monopolize conversations and behave in all
sorts of weird ways.”
The woman explained
that, during some of the rabbi’s classes, Ms. Marmelstein
would “push” those near her,
demanding that they move
away because they were “invading her private space.”
“She wanted to monopolize the rabbi’s time and
seemed to resent it when he
had no time for her,” said the
woman. “She is not a weak,
Tevet 5766
Page - 67
vulnerable woman whom
people could take advantage
of, but she is scary.”
Stalking
An officer of KNH said
that, eventually, Ms. Marmelstein’s behavior became
impossible to ignore. “She
began stalking the rabbi,
jumping out at him from behind bushes when he walked
to synagogue on the Sabbath,
and trying to jump into his car
when he left the synagogue
on weekdays,” he said.
In her suit, Ms. Marmelstein charges that Rabbi
Tendler threatened that, if
she told anyone about their
sexual liaison, he would have
her banned from the shul and
virtually excommunicated by
the community.
But, in fact, that seems to be
what happened in 2003, which,
according to the complaint, was
right in the middle of their threeand-a-half-year affair.
According to the KNH
officer, in 2003, Ms. Marmelstein was barred from coming to the shul. A police report was filed prohibiting her
from coming onto synagogue
property, he said.
Warning
The woman who asked
for anonymity said she
learned about the banning
from Ms. Marmelstein herself on a Shabbat morning on
the way to shul.
“I was walking to shul
and Adina was walking
away. I jokingly told her she
was going the wrong way,
and Adina launched into a
diatribe about how terrible
the shul had been to her. She
said the shul had accused her
of bad-mouthing the rabbi
and she swore she had been
falsely accused and that she
would never do that,” said
the woman.
According to the woman,
Ms. Marmelstein described
Rabbi and particularly Mrs.
Tendler as “my only family.”
“She said she loved them
and would never do anything
to hurt them. Then she warned
me that this is the way KNH
treats single women and I had
better be prepared because, as
a single woman, I was probably next,” said the woman.
Pacing
After Ms. Marmelstein
was prohibited from coming
to KNH, several community members said they found
her “walking the streets,”
haunting the sidewalks near
the synagogue and “pacing” the walkway near Rabbi
Tendler’s home.
According to those residents of Monsey who agreed
to be interviewed, neither
Ms. Marmelstein nor Mr. Boslow drive. Their apartment,
which serves also as Mr. Boslow’s accounting and bookkeeping office, is about a
mile from the nearest supermarket. They walk a lot.
Neither Ms. Marmelstein
nor Mr. Boslow responded
to messages left on their answering machine which announces Mr. Boslow’s office.
Who’s Paying?
The financial aspect of
Ms. Marmelstein’s suit is another issue which is perplexing some residents of Monsey. According to the KNH
officer, both before and after she was expelled from the
shul, she was the recipient of
tzedaka from the rabbi’s discretionary fund.
“She had no money, but
now she has a tony, highpriced lawyer. It just doesn’t
add up, literally,” said the
KNH officer.
Page - 68
Just a Coincidence?
She also evidently has two residences. While her neighbors in Monsey said
they saw her and Mr. Boslow there everyday, her lawsuit against Rabbi Tendler
was filed in Manhattan, where, according
to the complaint, she resides on Central
Park West.
Feminist Attorney
With offices in downtown Manhattan,
Lenore Kaplan and her law partner, Denise
M. Dunleavy, specialize in women’s issues. According to published reports, since
2002, it has evolved from a firm focused
mainly on representing sex-crime victims
suing for negligent security to one now
concentrating on medical cases.
Ms. Kaplan did not deny that Ms.
Marmelstein usually resides in Rockland
County. In fact, when the complaint was
officially filed, Ms. Marmelstein could
not sign it because she was not in Manhattan.
The complaint’s verification was
signed by Ms. Kaplan, a detail that several attorneys said was more than unusual. Ms. Kaplan, however, said it was not
unusual for her.
Signed Verification
January 2006
When a complaint is filed, the plaintiff
filing it usually swears, under penalty of perjury, that what he or she says in the complaint
is true. The court requires this verification as
a safeguard against false complaints.
Ms. Kaplan said she did not have
her client sign the verification because
she wanted it filed before she (Ms. Kaplan) went on vacation. Several attorneys, however, said it appeared Ms. Kaplan was trying to protect Ms. Marmelstein against possible later charges of
perjury.
“With charges this bazaar, the client should have signed the verification,”
said a Monsey-based attorney who may
be part of the legal team being assembled by the Tendlers.
In the verification, Ms. Kaplan
signed a statement in which she said she believed the contents of the complaint were true
based on conversations she had conducted
with her client and “a review of the file maintained at my offices on this matter.”
“If the material in the complaint is later found to be false, the attorney will not
be liable for charges of perjury because
she said the verification was based on con-
versations which she may or may not have
misunderstood. The plaintiff will not be
liable for charges of perjury because she
never signed the verification in the first
place,” said Rabbi Tendler’s attorney.
Lawyer’s Convenience
Asked why she chose to have the
case tried in Manhattan when both the
plaintiff and the defendant live in Monsey
and the synagogue, which is also being
sued, is located there, Ms. Kaplan said it
was a matter of her own convenience.
In addition, she said, she preferred
that the trial be held “away from the influence of the synagogue.”
“I have no doubt Tendler will be
able to round up his supporters and bring
them to Manhattan to testify,” she said.
Footing the Bill
When asked who was financing the suit,
Ms. Kaplan declined to respond, saying only
that the “financial arrangements have nothing to do with the merits of the case.”
If she has taken the case on contingency, meaning that the attorney will receive a percentage of the financial award
should her client win one, Ms. Kaplan
has until January 20, one month after the
case was filed, to inform the courts. She
said she would take a case on contingency only after careful screening “to make
sure I don’t waste time or energy.”
While she recognized that proving her client and the rabbi engaged in
a sexual relationship was the underlying
issue, she said sex was only one aspect
of the case. Several of the legal causes of
action in the complaint are more “subtle,” she said.
Ms. Marmelstein is suing Rabbi
Tendler for fraud, breach of fiduciary
responsibility, and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
KNH is being sued for negligently retaining Rabbi Tendler.
Next Shul
Ms. Marmelstein claims that as her
“counselor, advisor, and therapist,” Rabbi
Tendler “owed her a relationship of trust
and confidence.” But as a result of his “false
representations,” she says, she was “physically violated, had her reputation impugned,
was ostracized from her synagogue, and has
lost her standing in the community.”
The spiritual leader of the nearby
synagogue which Ms. Marmelstein and
Mr. Boslow began attending after her dismissal from KNH, said she had no reputation which could be impugned or standing
in the community which could be lost.
According to the rabbi, Ms. Marmelstein tried very hard to engage him in
conversations about Rabbi Tendler, but
he was not interested.
“In general, people tried to avoid
her,” said the rabbi, “but because of who
she was, not because of Rabbi Tendler.”
He explained that Ms. Marmelstein
was hardly typical of the women who attend his synagogue. Aside from the matter of her relationship with Mr. Boslow,
there was the issue of dress.
“She did not dress with tznius, modesty. The fact that she wore pants was
only the beginning. It was much worse
than that. She in no way dressed as befitting an Orthodox woman,” he said.
Paying for Postage
Just as it is not clear who is financing Ms. Marmelstein’s court case, it is unknown who paid for the extensive printing
and postage necessary to mail the packets
from The Committee for Rabbinic Integrity to thousands of residents in Monsey.
Those who were questioned said
Tevet 5766
they did not believe Rabbi Wosner,
whose psak is printed in the packet, or
the group of seven hareidi rabbis whose
letter follows the psak, were in a position
to underwrite a mailing whose cost may
have run to thousands of dollars.
Rabbi Wosner’s chief claim to fame
seems to be that his father, Rabbi Shmuel
Wosner of Bnei Brak, was the author of the
multi-volume responsa, Shevet Halevi.
Rabbi Benzion Wosner reportedly
won notoriety a few years ago by lending his name to the erection of an eruv
in Brooklyn which many scholars found
to be questionable. In his defense of the
eruv, he quoted liberally from Rabbi
Page - 69
Moshe Feinstein, z”l, the grandfather
of Rabbi Mordecai Tendler. Rabbi Feinstein’s son (and Rabbi Tendler’s uncle),
Rabbi Dovid Feinstein, severely criticized Rabbi Wosner for allegedly misquoting Rabbi Moshe Feinstein.
In 1997, the Baltimore Jewish Times
quoted Rabbi Benzion Wosner, who has
taught the laws for serving as a scribe, as
inferring that errors in writing marriage
contracts, ketuboth, could be responsible
for misfortunes such as infertility.
Asked about this directly, Rabbi Wosner
is quoted as saying: “It could be other things;
we never know.” He went on to note that
Page - 70
January 2006
Just a Coincidence?
“unfortunately, too many people who write the ketubah don’t
know the halachot.”
Nameless Rabbi
In his psak, which was
allegedly written four months
ago but not publicized until now when it was cited by
The Committee for Rabbinic
Integrity, Rabbi Wosner never mentions Rabbi Tendler
by name. The only indication
that he was, in fact, writing
about Rabbi Tendler is that he
mentions the rabbi’s grandfather, Rav Moshe Feinstein.
Rabbi Wosner declared
that although the rabbi in question maintained that he based
his halachic rulings on those
issued by his grandfather, this,
said Rabbi Wosner, was untrue.
“After having inquired
from Harav Feinstein’s own
children and students, we
found that this was a total
fabrication,” he said.
He did not explain to
whom “we” referred, and he did
not identify which of Rav Feinstein’s children and students
he contacted. In fact, Rabbi
Tendler’s uncles, Ravs Reuven
and Dovid Feinstein, the sons
of Rav Moshe Feinstein, have
indicated their full support for
their nephew, speaking out on
his behalf and saying nothing
about his rulings being at variance with their father’s.
Using Rumors
Tevet 5766
Page - 71
In his psak, Rabbi Wosner maintained that a community may terminate a rabbi’s tenure based simply on
unsubstantiated rumors.
“In a case where a rabbi has
a rumor that doesn’t stop…we
do not need any witnesses to remove him,” wrote Rabbi Wosner, adding that, in his opinion,
even when there are witnesses,
it is halachically acceptable for
them testify without the defendant’s being present.
Citing a ruling from Maimonides, he surmised that
“even in a case where we do
not have clear kosher witnesses, but where we have some
basis of fact and a rumor that
doesn’t stop that he has violated immoral prohibitions, one
has the obligation to humiliate
him in public. All this without
any witnesses testifying.”
Asked about this, Rabbi
Tendler rejected Rabbi Wosner’s psak out of hand and
accused him of misquoting
the Rambam.
“It’s halachically erroneous,” he said.
No Exoneration
Linked to Rabbi Wosner’s psak was a short letter
signed by seven hareidi rabbis in Monsey, which was apparently written last May to
clarify a statement made by
Rabbi Tendler during an emotional meeting with members
of KNH after his expulsion
from the RCA.
At the meeting, Rabbi
Tendler said the RCA had
concerned itself with the
same charges a panel of hareidi rabbis from Monsey had
heard at least two years earlier. Rabbi Tendler told his
congregation that the hareidi
rabbis had exonerated him.
In their letter, which was
included in the packet and on
the Internet, the rabbis said
Rabbi Tendler’s announcement was “an outright lie.”
The seven rabbis who
signed the letter were: Rabbis
Moshe Green, Yisroel Hager,
Chaim Halberstam, Chaim
Shnaybalg, Chaim Rottenberg, Sharaga Zimmerman,
and Mordechai Ohrbach.
Agunot
They, however, were not
the only rabbis present at the
meeting with Rabbi Tendler,
which took place sometime
in either 2002 or 2003.
According to a source
close to Rabbi Tendler, the
meeting was held after several
rabbis from Yeshiva University
expressed outrage at the way
Rabbi Tendler had adjudicated
an issue concerning an agunah,
a woman whose estranged husband was refusing to grant her
a get, a Jewish writ of divorce.
Without a get, the woman cannot remarry. Were she to do so
without a get, any children from
that second marriage would be
considered mamzerim, ritually
illegitimate, and unable to marry any other Jew except for another mamzer.
Using a method he said he
learned from his grandfather
and described in his grandfather’s book, Igros Moshe,
Rabbi Tendler has been known
to pore over the details of any
marriage in question to ascertain if some aspect could render it null and void. If it can be
decreed that kedushin, or sanctification, did not occur, then
the woman would no longer
need a get, because halachically, she was never married.
According to Rabbi
Tendler, in virtually all such
cases, once a detail is found
that could potentially free a
woman, the recalcitrant husband usually acquiesces and
grants her a get rather than
face public disclosure of the
flaw that might allow the
marriage to be nullified.
The fact that Rabbi
Tendler said he learned this
from his grandfather fits with
the description of Rav Feinstein, from many sources, as
being extremely sensitive to
the agunah issue.
Rabbinic Disagreement
One Torah giant who
disagreed with Rav’s Fein-
Page - 72
Just a Coincidence?
stein’s “method” was Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, z”l, the father of Modern Orthodoxy who is known simply as “The
Rav” and is still the guiding rabbinical
force at YU.
According to reports, when Rabbi
Tendler met with an agunah at YU and
found the flaw that could, in his opinion,
potentially free her, there was an “explosion” at the school.
“Tendler was told in no uncertain
terms that if he ever made such a decision
again at YU, he would become persona
non grata on campus,” said a YU rabbi
January 2006
who asked for anonymity.
According to the YU rabbi, after the
“explosion,” a few of the school’s senior
rabbis contacted a group of hareidi rabbis
in the Monsey area and asked them to see
if Rabbi Tendler could be persuaded simply “to close up shop.”
Kangaroo Beit Din
According to the source close to Rabbi Tendler, the hareidi rabbis approached
Rabbi Tendler and told him there had been
complaints about “sexual misconduct.”
“Rabbi Tendler agreed to their beit
din, even though it was more of a kanga-
roo beit din,” said the source.
In the course of their interview with
Rabbi Tendler, the source said, about 90 percent of the rabbis’ questions involved agunot and other halachic issues, ten percent
were about alleged sexual improprieties.
After the meeting was adjourned,
neither Rabbi Tendler nor anyone in his
community ever heard another word
from the rabbis about the charges, until
now, more than two years later.
“We assumed they had agreed to disagree about the agunah issue, but that all
the sexual charges had been dismissed.
Perhaps we confused two years of silence
with exoneration,” said the source.
Other Rabbis
According to the letter included in the
packet, there was no dismissal. Regarding the halachic issues, the letter said that,
“after thoroughly investigating the matter
in [Rabbi Tendler’s] presence and after a
thorough examination of the issues, it is
our opinion that one must not seek any advice in any area of sholom bayis, and certainly not in any halachic matters pertaining to divorce, marriage, or conversions.”
One of their issues seems to be their
perception of Rabbi Tender’s credibility. For example, at the meeting two years
ago, the rabbis questioned a book, entitled
Pesach Made Easy, which, Rabbi Zimmerman said, had Rabbi Tendler’s name on it.
When the rabbis found a law with
which they disagreed, they asked Rabbi
Tendler about it and he told them that he
was not responsible because a student of
his had written and published it.
Author’s Responsibility
In fact, the author of the book, which
was published in 1999 in Tel Aviv, is listed as Moishe Siegel, a student of Rabbi
Tendler’s who received permission to
publish Pesach Made Easy based on a
taped shiur the Rabbi had given.
In the book, Mr. Siegel acknowledged that “certain phraseology may not
be precise” and, he said, he had taken the
liberty “to paraphrase in many places.”
In the book, Mr. Siegel tells readers to direct all questions and comments
about the book to him, and he listed his
telephone number in Tel Aviv.
Rabbi Tendler explained to the harei-
Tevet 5766
Index of Advertisers
Ads with Coupons
Dunkin’ Donuts...................................23
Edible Imprints....................................14
Majestic Kosher Caterers....................29
Rick’s Cleanouts.................................55
Auto Leasing/Sales
Anchor Auto Lease...............................5
Auto Repair
Eli Auto...............................................35
Burial Services
Kvura in Eretz Yisrael........................78
Wien & Wien.......................................78
Camps & Summer Programs
Bogota Racquet Club..........................45
Camp Shalom.....................................33
Chavayot for Girls...............................48
Gan Israel............................................62
Hotshots Sports Camp.........................18
IBA Camp...........................................39
Kollel Ohavei Torah.............................52
Magic, Strategy, Photography Camps..30
Regesh Day Camp...............................74
Selective Search..................................65
Sheitels by Flora.................................19
Home Repair/Maintenance
Shalom Plumbing................................75
Musicians
BaRock....................................18
Jeff Wilks............................................6
Shelly Lang........................................38
Symphonia.....................................35
Insurance
Oxford Medicare.................................37
Steve Kobrin.......................................67
Invitations/Stationery
Write Impression.................................19
FrumFun Stationery............................75
Kosher Food
Mattus Ice Cream................................61
Edible Imprints....................................14
Kosher Concessions............................17
Tasti D-Lite.........................................14
Kosher Groceries
Food Showcase...................................60
Caterers & Catering Halls
Majestic Kosher Caterers.....................29
Prestige Caterers.................................26
Pruszansky Caterers............................72
Charities
Umbrella Tzedaka Collection..............28
Legal Services
Elder Law, Benjamin Eckman, Esq......75
Cleaners/Cleaning
Handle With Care..................................3
Medical Services
Bergen Dental Arts..............................47
Efrat Meier-Ginsberg, OBGYN..........75
Home Health Carefinders....................75
Psychotherapy, Chana Simmonds.......75
Employment
Administrative at SINAI.....................71
Entertainment & Events
1/14 Beit Orot Dinner...........................11
1/16 Renfrew Center: Emotional Eating.42
1/17-29 Dis. on Ice: Princess Classics...28
1/27-28 NCYI Shabbat Weekend in NJ..49
1/29 Celebrate Party Showcase...........40
1/31-2/5 Cats at NJPAC....................43
2/9 Chabad Emissary:Spiritual Journey41
2/17-19 NCSY Alumni Weekend.......44
Financial Services
Gefen Financial Mortgages.................51
Graphic Artists
Make an Impact...................................21
Simcha Logos.....................................50
Page - 73
Home Furnishings
Starr Carpet.........................................18
Kosher Restaurant, Take-Out
Butterflake Bakery..............................10
Chopstix Superbowl............................59
Dougie’s Super Bowl...........................25
Dunkin’ Donuts.................................23.
Ma’adan........................................9
Levana..........................................24
Noah’s Ark Superbowl.........................69
Noah’s Ark Travel..............................12
Education
Learn Hebrew with Rabbi Orenstein..10
Miscellaneous
Ceramics By Design............................56
Commentaries........22,34,54,58,66,70
Disney on Ice Princess Tickets.............75
Jewish Whistle Blower Reward...........16
Partners in Care...................................36
Photography/Video
Charlie Aptowitzer..............................75
Judah Harris.........................................20
Hello Video & Photo Studio.................31
Real Estate
Englewood Apartments.....................79
Carol Weissmann................................79
Joan and Bob Oppenheimer...............79
JNF Blueprint Negev.............................7
Old City, Jerusalem House for Sale......79
Russo Real Estate...............................79
Susan Gerstman..................................79
Rubbish Removal
Rick’s Cleanouts.................................55
Telecommunications
Chaim Braum........................................4
Travel & Vacations
Afikoman Tours...................................57
Katz & Schick Passover........................68
Caribbean Jewish Singles Cruise.......71
Free Tickets to Israel...........................26
Gateways Pesach................................15
Homowack Resort...............................53
Hudson Valley Resort..........................16
KosherOrlando Winter Vacation.........13
KosherOrlando Passover....................64
Kosherica Cruises...............................63
Lasko Passover...................................80
Leisure Time Tours Passover.................2
Matzafun Passover..............................8
Presidential Passover Vacation...........46
Passover Resorts.................................27
Scandia\navia Trio Tours.....................65
Vim Holidays Pesach..........................32
Tell our advertisers:
“I saw your ad in
The Jewish Voice and Opinion”
To place your ad,
please call 201-569-2845
Page - 74
Just a Coincidence?
di rabbis that he permitted Mr.
Siegel to publish the material
because he wanted to give his
former student some extra income.
The hareidi rabbis were
unimpressed. “How can he
allow his name to be on a
book if he doesn’t agree with
everything in it,” said Rabbi Zimmerman, who said he
had contacted “many” congregants of KNH who, he
said, were very upset over
the issue.
The source close to Rabbi Tendler said he knew of no
congregants who were upset
by the issue of the book.
Other Voices
Although the hareidi
rabbis’ letter was written and
signed last May, it was not
publicized until the anonymous Committee for Rabbinic Integrity distributed it
at the end of December.
One of the problems is that
January 2006
there seems to be no way to verify the number of hareidi rabbis
who met with Rabbi Tendler at
the time. While minutes were
not taken, some members of the
community believe there were
as many as 20 rabbis present.
Rabbi Zimmerman said there
were only nine.
Thus far, at least three
rabbis who were present at the
meeting, but refused to sign
the letter, have been identified.
One of the rabbis has
since relocated to Israel and
reportedly no longer feels
sufficiently connected to
Monsey to get involved in
local politics. But two others still reside in the area.
One said he simply wanted
no part of the letter; the other
said he believed the premise
of the letter was false.
A fourth rabbi, who may
have been at the meeting for
a short time, told members of
the community he was pre-
pared to get a group of rabbis
to sign a letter contradicting
the hareidi rabbis.
Linkage
Although the hareidi rabbis’ letter does not mention
sexual misconduct, its linkage
with Rabbi Wosner’s psak and
the anonymous tirade of the
Committee for Rabbinic Integrity, both of which discuss sexual relationships extensively,
is not a problem for them, said
Rabbi Zimmerman.
“We’re comfortable with
that,” he said. “We do not believe Tendler is fit to be a rav.”
Citing the alleged existence of tapes and DNA evidence, Rabbi Zimmerman
maintained his belief that
Rabbi Tendler will be proven
guilty at his upcoming civil
and/or rabbinic trials.
Tapes and DNA
In his psak, Rabbi Wosner indicated the existence
of audio tapes in which the
rabbi in question “attempts to
seduce married (and unmarried) women.”
“On one particular tape,
one can clearly hear a married woman begging the rabbi
to leave her alone,” he said
According to an officer of
KNH, when questioned closely,
the hareidi rabbis admitted the
only copy of the alleged tape
had mysteriously disappeared.
The rumor of DNA evidence has been surfacing ever
since Rabbi Tendler was expelled. Rabbi Basil Herring,
the RCA’s executive director and a named defendant in
Rabbi Tendler’s suit, allegedly told several people that
while the RCA did not have
DNA evidence against Rabbi
Tendler, “we might get some.
Rabbi
Zimmerman
seemed convinced that such
evidence does indeed exist.
He had no explanation as to
Tevet 5766
“Honor the Professional According to Your Need”
Page - 75
Page - 76
January 2006
Faith That Halevy Is Wrong
Almost 70 people, many old friends and supporters of the
Jews of Gush Katif, came to a December 15th Root & Branch
Association-sponsored lecture, which feared displaced Jews
discussing their expulsion from Gush Katif and their current
lives since in the Jerusalem Gate Hotel.
After the talk, I invited the speakers, along with two colleagues, as my guests for dinner at Little Italy, a few minutes
walk from the Israel Center, where the event took place.
During dinner, one of the speakers referred to Susan Rosenbluth, editor of The Jewish Voice and Opinion, in New Jersey,
who, he said, published an opinion piece by an anonymous rabbi, urging us to conclude that Zionism has failed, the State of
Israel will fall, and Jews in America and abroad should now
prepare to receive the refugees from fallen Israel who would
soon be streaming to the US and other free countries.
The speaker said he agreed with the author of that piece.
Now let me tell you my own opinion.
If I did not believe what I believe, I would agree with the
author of the piece completely. In terms of what we see happening, Zionism has failed, and the State of Israel is falling.
Our prophets foresaw this as a stage in the Final Redemption:
1) The passing away of a secular Jewish state that could be
(and was) established after the return of the Jews from exile,
2) a possible fall of that secular Jewish state and temporary
foreign occupation,
3) followed by the re-establishment of the restored monarchy of the Kingdom of David and Solomon.
We are certainly at the point in the crossroads where stage one is
happening. What comes next, we should see in the very near future.
We will soon see whether your anonymous rabbi is right or
the prophets are right.
If I believed he were right, I would be leaving right now, I
would take my family back to New York.
But I do not believe that. I do believe the anonymous rabbi, Mrs. Rosenbluth, and all readers of The Jewish Voice will
soon be refugees here, should you survive the Gog and Magog
plagues of the Final Redemption.
Should my family and I survive over here (the prophets say
up to 80 percent of Am Yisrael may die during the Wars of Gog
and Magog, as happened to 80 percent of Am Yisrael in the 9th
plague of darkness in Egypt), we will welcome you as refugees.
We will all see soon enough what will happen.
Aryeh Gallin
Root & Branch Association
Jerusalem, Israel
The article in question, “Leaving Israel because I’m Disengaged,” appeared in our Sept 2005 issue. The author was S.A.
Halevy, a pseudonym used by a powerful, important rabbi in the
tri-state area who was a force in the national religious movement. Although you overstate his case—he did not say in so many
words that Israel would fall and that we in the US should get
ready to receive Jewish refugees—it is not a stretch to understand
how these conclusions could be drawn from the piece. Mr. Gallin
is the founder and president of the Root & Branch Association,
which can be found on-line at www.rb.org.il
Letters to the Editor
Should We Call It “The Halevy Chronicles?”
I wish The Jewish Voice and Opinion would expand its distribution. You are really very, very good, and I wish you could
reach more people.
Perhaps you could put together a little booklet entitled
“Disengagement/Surrender/Expulsion” comprised of the original article by “Rabbi S.A. Halevy” [“Leaving Israel because
I’m Disengaged,” Sept 2005] and all the responses you ran in
the subsequent October issue.
Last January, The Jewish Voice published an article about a
University of Haifa Prof, Steven Plaut, who is being sued by a
Tel Aviv University Prof, Neve Gordon. The basis of the suit is
that, in Prof Plaut’s opinion, Prof Gordon, a prolific and widely-published writer, promotes views that are anti-Israel and often antisemitic. Prof Gordon, who enjoys his own freedom of
speech, would like to deny that freedom to Prof Plaut. The Jewish Voice pointed out that a suit such as Prof Gordon’s against
Prof Plaut would never get to the first base in the US.
Has this case been resolved?
Jack Greenberg
SLR responds: Thank you so much for your kind words and interesting suggestion. The case against Prof Plaut is still pending.
Helping French Jews Who Choose Israel
Regarding the plight of French Jews [“The French-Jewish Exodus Is Underway: They’re Going to Israel, Miami, and Montreal,”
Dec. 2005], it is important to note that Boys Town Jerusalem currently has 68 French students as part of its five-year old Naaleh Zion
program, which provides educational living accommodations for
French 9th – 12th graders who come to Israel without their parents.
Should the volatile ethnic situation in France result in a surge
in immigration of French Jews to Israel, Boys Town Jerusalem is
prepared to immediately absorb them. A dormitory building is
currently being renovated to add space for more boys.
Naaleh Zion gives students a strong education in Jewish studies and in-depth familiarity with the land of Israel, while enabling
them to take Israeli matriculation exams in their native language.
There is even a special class of the prestigious CISCO computer
study program at Boys Town now being taught in French.
One of our Naaleh Zion students, Raphael Ouzan, won First Prize
this past spring in a national competition sponsored by the Ministry of
Education for projects in Comprehensive Interdisciplinary Technology.
Rabbi Ronald L. Gray
Executive Vice President
Boys Town Jerusalem
New York, NY
Remembering Chazzan Braun, z”l
The Jewish Voice and Opinion mourns the passing of Chazzan Eugene Braun, z”l, in Israel. Chazzan Braun served for many
years as the cantor of Congregation Ahavath Torah in Englewood
before making aliyah in 1980. He was gifted with a lovely voice
and a zeal for teaching, a tie to the past that we are not likely to
experience again. In Englewood and Jerusalem, he and his wife,
Ellie, established a home filled with warmth, hospitality, and
grace. We express our condolences to the entire family.
Tevet 5766
Page - 77
“Thought Is the World of Freedom” (R’ Dov Ber of Mazeritch)
Wondering about the Victims
I wonder if the people in Ashkelon, now targeted by rockets even more powerful than those which once fell on Gush
Katif are comfortable with the fact that they supported Disengagement.
I wonder if the soldiers who tore innocent people from
their homes are as unrepentant as Avi Beiber, who refused and
subsequently spent time in jail.
I wonder how many Disengagement victims had their old Chanukiyot and didn’t have to rely on somehow getting new ones.
I wonder if Daniel Pinner will get his life back. He has
been in jail since June.
I wonder how many others are still wearing orange bracelets. I am. And I have an orange ribbon on my front door and
tied to most of my “bags.”
I wonder how many young men will avoid doing army service or look for easy army jobs, rather than serve in the elite
units they had previously dreamt of.
I wonder how many families will disintegrate from the
stresses of “relocation.”
I wonder if the Gush Katif farmers will manage to resurrect
their businesses at the age others retire.
I wonder how many are losing their faith in G-d because
of the rabbis who promised: “It won’t happen, just be strong
and pray.”
I wonder how many of the Disengagement victims will
ever move out of “temporary housing.”
And even worse: I wonder who’s next.
Batya Cohen
Shiloh, Israel
Helping Gush Evacuees Get to Collefe
I received a call from a friend in Israel, Rose Sobel Levine,
expressing the dire need of the Jews of Gush Katif and other
former Gaza settlements. They live whole families to a room.
The government is providing the room and food, but nothing
else. Teenagers are roaming the streets and depression is becoming a major problem.
As you are aware, school tuition in Israel is free, but college
tuition is not. Rose and several others are collecting specifically
for those who wish to continue to institutions of higher learning
but whose dreams were curtailed by the evacuation. In general,
it looks like resettling these people will take much longer than
evacuating Gaza did.
They need our help. Israelis who support them have done so
again and again (as you can imagine, many others have labeled
them as extremists and evil and have turned their backs on them).
Regardless of your political affiliations, these are Jews
who, for reasons they did not sign up for were asked to leave
their homes, communities, lives, and planned futures.
I am collecting funds which will be sent directly to Rose
Levine who will make sure they are used exclusively to help the
children of evacuated Jews of Gaza re-establish their futures.
This can be done through the tax-deductible Central Fund for
Israel. If you would like more information please call 718-7930769 or email hlschlager@nyc.rr.com
Yael Ginsberg
West Hempstead, NY
Helping Bergenfield’s Fire Victims
The local fire on Elm Street in Bergenfield last month brought
loss and homelessness to 24 surviving families. The Mayor of Bergenfield has set up a relief fund to provide for the needs of these
families. Please contribute via Rabbi Yak Neuburger’s Discretionary Fund, noting in check’s memo line “Elm Street Fund.”
As we reach out to the families in great distress, we extend our
condolences to those who lost loved ones in the fire. We also salute
our own Dovid Lisker who coordinated much of the rescue work.
Congregation Beth Abraham, 396 New Bridge Road, Bergenfield, NJ 07621. The phone number is 201-384-0434.
Mendel Gottesman, President
Congregation Beth Abraham
Bergenfield, NJ
The Jewish Voice and Opinion welcomes letters, especially if they are typed, double-spaced, and legible. We reserve the
right to edit letters for length and style.
Please send all correspondence to POB 8097, Englewood,
NJ 07631.
The phone number is (201) 569-2845. The FAX number is
(201) 569-1739.
The email address is susan@jewishvoiceandopinion.com
Page - 78
Just a Coincidence?
why, if the RCA had access
to this evidence, it simply did
not present it to a beit din as
Rabbi Tendler had been demanding from the beginning.
“I’m not a member of the
RCA,” said Rabbi Zimmerman.
Advised Silence
According to the hareidi rabbis, their group never
published anything after their
meeting with Rabbi Tendler
because one of them, Rabbi
Ohrbach, consulted Rav Yosef
Sholom Eliyashev, the recognized leader of the Orthodox
community in Israel, who told
them not to do anything.
“He said it would not be
necessary for us to publish
anything because the rumors
were not dissipating and,
sooner or later, Rabbi Tendler
would have to go away,” said
Rabbi Zimmerman.
In Israel, the spokesman
for the JBD, who is also ex-
January 2006
tremely close to Rav Eliyashev, was asked how the revered
rabbi would comment about the
hareidi rabbis’ statement.
“Rav Eliyashev believes
every man is innocent until proven guilty. He believes
Rabbi Tendler is entitled to a
fair trial,” said the spokesman.
Procedural Errors
Rabbi Zimmerman did not
disagree, saying that no matter
how Ms. Marmelstein’s court
case concludes, the RCA will
still be at fault, at least procedurally, for not taking the case
to a beit din as Rabbi Tendler
desired from the beginning.
In fact, many observers
say Ms. Marmelstein’s lawsuit
will provide Rabbi Tendler
with the trial the RCA never
held. If he is found not guilty,
he will be exonerated and the
RCA will slide down another
notch. If the court accepts Ms.
Marmelstein’s assertion that
he engaged in sexual relations
with her, the RCA will be exonerated, even though may
observers believe they should
have handled things differently procedurally.
What remains unclear is
whether or not the RCA and
the named defendants ever
will submit to the ruling of the
JBD and proceed to a zabla.
Still Stalling
While the rabbinic leader in Chicago has made many
private statements that the
RCA is on the verge of accepting the ruling and has
recognized that the presence
of Rabbi Rosenberg on the
projected zabla is now moot,
a letter that went out to the
RCA’s membership from its
officers at the end of Decem-
ber seemed to negate the rabbi’s assurances.
According to the letter,
the RCA is once again insisting on the presence of Rabbi
Rosenberg on the zabla, in addition to the RCA’s other representative. Some observers
said the organization is doing
this simply because it knows
Rabbi Tendler will object.
Although, in the letter,
the RCA officers say that
they have formally submitted
to the JBD the name of their
representative, but Rabbi
Tendler has not, the spokesman for the JBD said the situation is exactly the opposite.
“We have heard nothing
whatsoever from the RCA,”
he said.
S.L.R.
Rabbis Reuven and Dovid
Feinstein Speak Out
We are astounded and
dismayed at the flagrant violations of Torah prohibitions of
loshon hara and rechilus that
have occurred in the Monsey,
NY community this month.
This attempt to embarrass a Talmud chochom by
crude, vicious rumors, in lieu
of following the derech haTorah and referring any charges to a reputable beit din can
only be because no credible
evidence exists to present to
a beit din.
We ask, in the name of Torah,
for all to disregard these rumors
and shun the rumor mongers.
Indeed halacha has been
violated, not by the accused,
but by the accusers who have
adopted the tactics of those
who have no allegiance to
Torah or Emunas Chazal.
L’maas Toraseinu, Toras Emes
Rav Reuven Feinstein
Rav Dovid Feinstein
Tevet 5766
Live Where You Can Walk to Shul
Page - 79
Page - 80
Jewish Voice and Opinion
PO Box 8097
Englewood, NJ 07631
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Address Correction Requested
January 2006
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