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 Page 3
Israeli tech flies to sun
● Last month,
Israeli-engineered
sensors helped
NASA capture the
first image taken
within the sun’s
atmosphere.
The telescope on
the car-sized $1.5
billion Parker Solar
Probe was fitted
with sensors built by
Israel’s TowerJazz in
collaboration with
SRI International, an
independent non-
profit research cen-
ter, the NoCamels First image of the sun’s atmosphere
technology website from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission.

Biohacker injects DNA versions reported.

By coming closer to the sun than any spacecraft in history, the

of Bible, Quran verses into his body
● A French high school student in Grenoble
converted passages from the Bible and Quran
into DNA sequences and then injected them
into his legs as part of a so-called biohack.
Biohacking is the practice of trying to im-
prove the practitioner’s own body by enhanc-
ing it through the introduction of chemicals or
devices.
“I did this experiment for the symbol of
peace between religions and science,” the stu-
dent, Adrien Locatelli, told Live Science. “I think
that for a religious person it can be good to
inject himself with his religious text,” he said.
Locatelli’s leg was swollen for a few days af-
ter he administered the injection, in an allergic
reaction. Experts warned that the effects could
have been far more serious, perhaps even
deadly.
DNA is composed of four units, each of
which is assigned a letter. Locatelli assigned
one of those four letters to every character in
the religious tracts he selected. (Because he
encoded all the Hebrew and Arabic characters
as being represented by one of only those four
units, it would not be possible to work back-
ward and decode the original sacred texts from
the DNA.)
Next, Locatelli bought the DNA from Proteo-
genix, a French company that produces DNA
sequences to order. It was mailed to him as a
powder. He mixed it into a liquid medium and
injected it.
The DNA sequences were Hebrew passages
from Genesis 1:1 to 11:9, excluding 2:10 to 2:14,
5, and 7:1 to 7:5 because they were “controver-
sial,” the Daily Mail reported. (It is not imme-
diately clear to us what makes those verses
objectionable.)
Locatelli also converted Arabic passages
from Surah Ar-Ra’d, the 13th chapter of the
Quran.
“Recent studies have reported that it is pos-
sible to convert any type of information into
DNA for the purpose of storage,” Locatelli
wrote in a paper for a biohacking website.
“Since it is possible to convert digital infor-
mation into DNA, I wondered whether it would
be possible to convert a religious text into DNA
and to inject it in a living being.”
He learned that yes, it is possible to do so; it
also is possible to be allergic to it.
TIMES OF ISRAEL & LARRY YUDELSON
unmanned probe’s main goal is to unveil the secrets of the co-
rona, the atmosphere that surrounds the sun.
“TowerJazz has been working with SRI for several years to
develop custom technology to support U.S. government imaging
applications,” the Israeli technology company noted in an Octo-
ber statement. “We are very pleased to see our teamwork take
flight in this exciting endeavor by NASA.”
Not only is the corona about 300 times hotter than the sun’s
surface, but it also hurls powerful plasma and energetic particles
that can unleash geomagnetic space storms, wreaking havoc on
Earth by disrupting the power grid.
But these solar outbursts are poorly understood, and know-
ing more about the solar wind and space storms will help protect
future deep space explorers as they journey toward the moon or
Mars.
The probe is protected by an ultra-powerful heat shield that
is just 4.5 inches thick. The shield is built to withstand radiation
equivalent to up to about 500 times the sun’s radiation on Earth.
Even though temperatures in the sun’s corona can reach more
than a million degrees Fahrenheit, the sunlight is expected to heat
the shield to just around 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.
The goal for the Parker Solar Probe is to make 24 passes
through the corona during its seven-year mission. It is expected
to make its final close approach — coming just 3.83 million miles
from the sun’s surface — in 2024, NASA said.
Tools on board will measure high-energy particles associated
with flares and coronal mass ejections, as well as the changing
magnetic field around the sun. TIMES OF ISRAEL

PUBLISHER’S STATEMENT: (USPS 275-700 ISN 0021-6747) is pub-

Who poisoned the kugel?
● Leaders at a synagogue in the
Beitar Illit settlement accused
young local settlers of spraying their
kiddush kugel with insecticide. The
accusation came after a number of
worshipers got sick after they ate
the kugel at the kiddush following
Saturday morning services.
Officials at the synagogue, Darchei
Hayim, told an ultra-Orthodox news
site, Kikar Hashabbat, that after
they noticed that the kugel smelled
foul, people at the Kiddush walked
into the kitchen and found a can of
K-300 insecticide lying on the floor.
The synagogue officials said
they have no known enemies and
the growing assumption is that the
kugel-tampering was carried out as
a prank by bored local teens.
The officials were considering fil-
ing a police complaint but, as of Sun-
day evening, they had not done so.
The report did not specify how
many people got sick from eating
the kugel, and synagogue officials
could not be reached for comment.
JACOB MAGID/TIMES OF ISRAEL
CONTENTS
NOSHES .......................................................4
BRIEFLY LOCAL ...................................... 14
ROCKLAND ...............................................15
COVER STORY ......................................... 18
JEWISH WORLD .....................................22
OPINION ....................................................26
CALENDAR .............................................. 30
THE FRAZZLED HOUSEWIFE ............32
CROSSWORD PUZZLE .........................32
OBITUARIES .............................................33
CLASSIFIEDS .......................................... 34
REAL ESTATE...........................................37
D’VAR TORAH .........................................38
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JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018 3

Noshes
“Having someone there as a rabbi could make
it more beneficial because you could get more
technically real.”
— Rabbi Mark Getman, the real-life Brooklyn-based rabbi who occasionally
plays a rabbi on “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” as reported in Kveller.

GINSBERG GALAXY:

‘Basis of Sex’
follows ‘RBG’
“On the Basis of subscriber.
Sex” is a biopic “Basis” was directed
about Justice by MIMI LEDER, 68.
RUTH BADER Leder has had an up-
GINSBURG, 85, and her and-down career. She
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Mimi Leder
late husband, attorney began in TV in 1978, first
MARTIN GINSBURG as a scriptwriter and
(1932-2010). The film then as a TV episode
shows how they fully and TV movie director.
supported each other in Finally, in 1997, STEVEN
their home and in their SPIELBERG picked her
careers. For example, to direct the action flick
Ruth saw her husband “Peacemaker,” starring
through a battle with George Clooney. Leder
cancer when he was in followed “Peacemaker”
law school. Martin shared with the sci-fi action Lillian and Harold Michelson
the childcare and film “Deep Impact.” Re-
housework, and cooked views were mixed, but
most of the family’s it made a lot of money.
meals. Justice Ginsburg
often has said her
Then “Pay It Forward,”
another Leder-directed
Steven Spielberg Kim Schrier Hollywood power couple
husband was not the film, opened in 2000. It Also worth the Nazis; they got to ● Netflix just added the documentary “Harold and
typical 1950s man — he got mostly tepid reviews America in 1941, with just
watching Lillian: A Love Story” (2017). HAROLD and LILLIAN
saw no reason why and lost a little money. one thing of value — the
women shouldn’t be What happened next “Monkey Busi- MICHELSON were a legendary Hollywood couple.
manuscript of the first
treated equally, and he is probably an example ness: The “George” book. The film Harold was a top storyboard creator and often verged
fully supported his wife’s of Hollywood sex dis- Curious Adven- masterfully interweaves into being a major film’s unsung director. Lillian ran the
legal career. The film’s crimination that may be tures of the Creators of interviews, photos, home best film research library in Hollywood. They went to
climax comes when the worth its own movie. George’s Creators” movies, and George-like Hollywood just after World War II with nothing, but they
couple team up in 1972 Leder essentially was (2017) is a wonderfully animation segments to held it together in the face of many personal and career
to argue, and win, a blackballed — she got no made documentary that tell their story. (Free for obstacles. Like the Ginsburgs, a key to their success was
landmark sex-discrimina- more jobs directing fea- tells the story of HANS Hulu subscribers.
tion case. Felicity Jones their unflinching support of each other.
ture films until “On the REY (1898-1977) and his Pay-per-view on many
plays Ruth and Armie – N.B.
Basis of Sex.” Yes, “Pay wife, MARGARET other services.)
Hammer plays Martin. It Forward” was a flop, WALDSTEIN RAY
(The gorgeous Hammer but many directors have (1906-1996). The Reys A Jewish doctor the second Jew who be the territorial gover-
is not absurd as Martin. a flop and quickly go on both were born into in the House practiced medicine to be nor of Alaska during
Mr. Ginsburg was a very to direct more movies. cultured, upper-middle- A question from elected to Congress. World War II and one of
handsome man.) “Basis” The evidence supports class German Jewish a reader who is a There is one footnote: Alaska’s first two sena-
opened in limited release Leder’s claim that her families. They became pediatrician ERNEST GRUENING tors when it became a
on December 25; it won’t gender was a huge fac- famous in the 1950s as prompted me to check. (1887-1974) was pres- state in 1958. A statue of
open in most cities until tor in causing her to be the creators — Hans as Dr. KIM SCHRIER, 50, a sured by his father, a him stands in the U.S.
January 4 or 11. By the blackballed. Unlike most illustrator, Margaret as newly elected congress- doctor, to go to medical Capitol Rotunda. Every
way, the excellent 2017 of her male counterparts, main writer — of best- woman from Washington school. But right after he state can place two
documentary on the one movie flop put her selling children’s books State, is the first female graduated from Harvard statues of notables there,
Justice, “RBG,” is avail- in what she calls “Holly- about the monkey called Jewish doctor elected to Medical School, he got a and Alaska picked
able (for a fee) on all wood jail.” She kept busy Curious George. A series Congress, the first summer job as a journal- Gruening. He’s the only
streaming services; it’s since 2000 directing TV of very unlikely events pediatrician in Congress, ist. He never practiced Jew so honored.
free if you’re a Hulu pilots and TV movies. allowed them to escape and — surprise — only medicine. He went on to –N.B.

Want to read more noshes? Visit facebook.com/jewishstandard California-based Nate Bloom can be reached at
Middleoftheroad1@aol.com

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4 JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018

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JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018 5
Local
Giving students spiritual wings
Rabbi Kenneth Brander describes his challenging new job at the head of Ohr Torah Stone
JOANNE PALMER
W
hat exactly is Ohr
Torah Stone?
The name is
opaque — three
nouns in a line. Ohr is Hebrew; it
means light. Stone is English; we’ll
come back to what it means. And
Torah is Torah in both languages.
Stone, as it turns out, is the name
of the family that has endowed the
institution (as well as the Artscroll
Stone Tanach and the Teltz-Stone
Yeshiva); it’s also a word that
implies strength, stability, and
beauty. It’s the material that Jerusa-
lem is built of.
Ohr Torah Stone is an interna-
tional Israeli-based educational
institution, a modern Orthodox
network of 27 entities, including
but not limited to schools, cutting-
edge programs for women, lead-
ership initiatives, and outreach to
Jews around the world. Its goal is
“transforming Jewish life, learning, Rabbi Kenneth Brander teaches at Ohr Torah Stone’s Moreshet Lindenbaum, one of its 27 institutions.
and leadership worldwide.
It’s huge, and it’s growing.
It was founded by Rabbi Dr. Shlomo
Riskin, the Brooklyn-born Orthodox rabbi
who founded the Lincoln Square Synagogue
in Manhattan, made aliyah, and became
chief rabbi of Efrat. The list of his accom-
plishments is jaw-dropping. Like any giant
(of the metaphoric variety), he must be a
hard, intimidating act to follow.
But his hand-picked successor, Rabbi Dr.
Kenneth Brander, who was installed as rosh
yeshiva and president of Ohr Torah Stone
in November, is excited and confident as he
talks about the institution, his plans, and the Ohr Torah Stone has about 14,600 alumni,
future he foresees.
Rabbi Brander, his wife, Ruchie, and their
youngest son, Yitzchak, made aliyah this
summer; Rabbi Brander carried the bat-
tered suitcase that his father, Rabbi Aaron
Brander, had lugged with him as he left a
European DP camp for American after
World War II. Remember, Kenneth Brander
said then, that now, possibly for the first
time in Jewish history, this suitcase was not
an accessory to escape, but to a chosen jour-
ney from very good to even better. America
is a wonderful home, Rabbi Brander said.
Rabbi Brander made aliyah from
Teaneck; he had lived there for many years,
commuting over the George Washington
Bridge to his job as Yeshiva University’s vice
president for university and community
life. Before that, he’d been the senior rabbi
of the Boca Raton Synagogue in Florida. So
he went to his new job thoroughly versed
6 JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018
in the way that American Jewish organiza-
tional leadership works, both from the pul-
pit and in the institutional world.
His new job involves a great deal of travel; Teaneck and Ben Porat Yosef.
Rabbi Brander will spend much time in the
United States, recruiting, fund-raising, and
generally overseeing the programs here.
On a recent visit, he talked about Ohr
Torah Stone.
“We are an international institution deal-
ing with the contemporary challenges and
opportunities that face the Jewish commu-
nity,” he said. He reeled off some numbers;
and 3,500 students enrolled in one of its
institutions now.
Amiel, a program that is funded by two
Bergen County families, the Berens and
the Strauses, has “151 families in the field,” then watching as trees grow and blossom.”
Rabbi Brander said; that field includes 31
countries, ranging from the obvious ones,
like the United States, Britain, Canada, and
Australia, to the Philippines, China, and
Turkey. The program sends emissaries to
small Jewish communities. “Globally, on the
macro level, we are an international educa-
tional institution,” he said. But on the micro grow is up to them.”
level, where the emissary families and the
teams that visit them live and do their work,
“we are trying to share with Jews in Tblisi
or Teaneck that Judaism is dealing with
contemporary issues in a sweet way. That
Torah is sweet and engaging.” He mentions
Teaneck because Ohr Torah Stone has two
emissary families in Bergen County; one
lives in Englewood and works and teaches
at the East Hill Synagogue and Yeshivat
He’Atid and the other at Young Israel of
Ohr Torah Stone’s Yachad program
does outreach in Israel; it’s reached about
305,000 people between August 2017 and
August 2018, it estimates, and 145,000 peo-
ple participated in its programming during
the High Holy Days this year.
“We are educating, not indoctrinat-
ing,” Rabbi Brander said. “We have no
interest in whether they become ritually
observant or not. Our interest is in giv-
ing them spiritual wings, so they can land
wherever they want to.
“We are not sculptors. We are gardeners.
“Imagine a gardener, planting seeds and
That’s not a cliché for him, Rabbi Brander high honor, and confers at least temporary
added; it’s a deeply resonant image.
“Remember that I lived in Boca for 14 years. side of the road, and said ‘You have to give
Tree sculpting there is a major profession,
but trees and flowers grow in different ways.
We are not sculptors in God’s fields. We are religious community can do is be wel-
gardeners. We plant seeds. The way they
Why are they not more doctrinaire?
For many reasons, Rabbi Brander said,
including because his mentor, Rabbi
Soloveitchik, taught that it is better not
to be. “Our goal is to treat people with
respect. And the way to treat people with
respect is to give them dignity. To allow
them to make their own decisions. Our
goal is to give them the
options.
“I think that Torah and
Judaism can sell them-
selves. I do not think I
need to force them to look
at it in a specific way.”
Israel is full of non-
observant Jews, Rabbi
Brander said, but when
you look at them more
carefully, you see a spiri-
tuality that’s close to the
surface. “Every time I am
in a cab or in other situa-
tions in Israel when I am
speaking to people who
are not observant in a for-
COURTESY OHR TORAH STONE
mal sense, I am inspired
by what I hear,” he said.
He talked about the
kabbalat Shabbat services
held at the port of Tel
Aviv and at the old train
station in Jerusalem. “In
Tel Aviv, at 2 in the after-
noon there will be 1,000
people there for kabbalat
Shabbat,” he said. “Is it my kind of kabba-
lat Shabbat service? No. Do they keep Shab-
bat for 25 hours? Probably not. But there
are 1,000 people there, and maybe they go
home to have a Shabbat meal, and they all
are inspired to keep Shabbat in some way.
“I am inspired by that.”
He told a story. “More than a year ago, I
was in a cab, coming home from my grand-
son’s brit in Jerusalem,” he said. (This per-
haps is a good time to say that Kenneth and
Ruchie Brander have three children and one
grandchild in Israel and two children in the
United States.) “I was being driven by a cab
driver who has multiple tattoos. He asked
me where I was coming from and I said from
a brit, and he asked me who was the sandek
and I said I was.” (The sandek holds the baby
while the circumcision is performed. It’s a
sanctity.) “So he pulls the cab over to the
me a blessing.’ That’s the way it goes there.”
One of the most important things a
coming, Rabbi Brander said. It shows in
small things. For example, he said, every
congregation should have a box with kip-
pot in its lobby, even though its members
would never not come wearing their own.
Say a guest wanders in, maybe someone
who is searching. The box of kippot would
be a potent symbol that even kippah-less
questioners are welcome. “Even if that
box is used five times a year, it makes the
 Local

statement that the synagogue is open to all Jews,”
Rabbi Brander said.
In Israel, Ohr Torah Stone offer programs to women
as well as to men.
Yad La’isha works to help agunot, women caught
in dead marriages who are chained to men who
refuse to let them go. “We have represented 155 agu-
not in rabbinical courts in Israel,” Rabbi Brande said.
“We advocate for agunot in court; we have hired pri-
vate detectives to find recalcitrant spouses who have
run away.”
Ohr Torah Stone also “has created the opportunity
for women wo want to serve in the IDF to have the
infrastructure to study for a year first, and then to go
into service with their friends,” Rabbi Brander said. It’s
called Hadas. “We meet with them every other week.
They go into one of four units — education; training,
where they train commandos in how to get back home
from the desert, with no external instruments; the Air
Force — I’m not at liberty to discuss what they do in
that unit — and an intelligence unit.
“Most of these women, when they finish their offi-
cers’ course, also will have a siyyum on the completion
of a tractate of Talmud at the same time. It is unbelievable.
“I was teaching in one of our schools in the north of Israel, fit into the pants pocket of an Army uniform,” he said. “For
and at the end of the course the women gave me a book,
a paperback. It was an odd size. I thought maybe they got
it secondhand.” But when he looked at it, he realized that
it was discussions of the parshat hashavuah — the weekly
Torah reading.
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, left, and Rabbi Kenneth Brander as Rabbi
Brander is inauguarated as Rabbi Riskin’s successor.
He asked about the odd size. “It’s because it’s designed to they wish to, they can use the title rabbanit.
2,000 years, the Jews have not made books that fit into uni-
form pants.” Now they do.
“When you train young people for life as well as for
their service in the army — when you train them about
context, and about how to look at other people — it shapes
their national service and their engagement with
others.
“We see that in the army and in life in general,
because their neighbor is the Other, and we want
them to treat the Other with respect.”
Ohr Torah Stone has hesder yeshivot for obser-
vant men in the IDF. “The end of Ramadan,” the
Muslim holy month that includes daytime fasting,
“is marked with a major meal, the iftar,” he said.
“Members of the hesder yeshiva participated in that
meal with Muslims from Gush Etzion.”
Another of Ohr Torah Stone’s programs is high-
level learning for women. Midreshet Lindenbaum
provides women with serious study; in its Susi
Bradfield Women’s Institute of Halakhic Leader-
ship, “women study for five years, at the highest
level, and they take the same tests men take for
ordination,” Rabbi Brander said. The program has
graduated just a few classes; now, “we are starting
to place them; women are leading seminaries and
answer halachic questions.” The women graduate
as certified spiritual leaders and morot hora’ah,
authorized to answer halachic questions. Should
“We want to take it to the next level,” Rabbi Brander said.
“We want to see if we can get women to serve as chaplains
in the IDF and in synagogues and in hospitals.
“In some ways, it is more important to have them in the
IDF and the police force than anyplace else, because the IDF
SEE OHR TORAH STONE PAGE 35

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8 JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018
JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018 9
Local
Early childhood center poised to reopen
Director says the JCC school will cultivate ‘independent thinkers’
Lois Goldrich
I
t’s taken some time for the JCC of
Northern New Jersey to complete
its search for a new director and
reopen its early childhood center,
but now the wait is over. The school will
reopen in September, Debra Frankel said.
Ms. Frankel will head the new childhood
center.
“The decision to reopen was made a
few years ago,” said Frankel. “It took some
time with respect to the director’s search.”
She noted that the JCC’s parenting center
is already up and running “in the brand
new facility, with a new space and new
coordinator, Erika Ehrlich.”
That new facility, Ms. Frankel said, actu-
ally is the site of the original JCC, now the
Bethany Community Center, at 605 Pas-
cack Road in Washington Township. “All
of the classroom spaces have been newly
renovated,” Ms. Frankel said. “There’s
brand new furniture, top of the line, and
a brand new revamped curriculum.” The
parenting center is for children from birth
until age 2. The early childhood center will
serve children from 2 through pre-K.
Ms. Frankel, who has a master’s degree
in early childhood and elementary educa-
tion from the Bank Street Graduate School
Should an entire board resign?
NJY Camps scandal makes the question unavoidable
Lois Goldrich
C
harges of sexual harass-
ment always are shocking
and sad, but never more
so than when they are
linked with a school or a camp — a
place parents chose to nurture and
inspire their children. A place par-
ents trust.
When that trust is violated, who
bears the responsibility?
That question is very much at Jason Shames
issue in the case of Leonard Robin-
son, the former executive director of the
New Jersey Y Camps, who was forced to
resign in April after allegations of sexual
misconduct surfaced. Although an inde-
pendent investigation into the allegations
was completed in September, its conclu-
sions became public only when the head
of the MetroWest federation read the
report and called on the entire board of
NJY Camps to resign.
The investigators’ report “is a shameful, Robinson “harassed, abused, mistreated,
damning, heart-breaking and miserable
10 Jewish Standard DECEMBER 28, 2018
of Education, spent many
years working as a teacher
and as the program director
in Franklin Lakes; in Bed-
ford and Larchmont in New
York’s Westchester County;
and then at the JCC in Man-
hattan. “I started at the JCC
as coordinator for music in
movement and left as asso-
ciate director,” she said.
She now lives in Croton-on-
Hudson in Westchester with Debra Frankel
her husband, Steven Daraio,
and a “blended family of four children,
ages 19 to 32.”
Ms. Frankel said that the new early child-
hood center was spurred in part by a fed-
eration assessment that determined that
“there was a need for more Jewish early
childhood education in Bergen County.”
She is working on a curriculum with the
JCC Association. “We are going to be a pro-
gressive nursery school, where children
are independent thinkers who cultivate
their own knowledge,” she said.
“The curriculum will be emergent, based
on the children’s interests. It will also have tify paths of wonder and learning; and
a social action component. Every month
there will be a different hands-on social
action project. It will be a collaborative
Jeremy Fingerman
study in leadership failure,” Dov Ben-Shi-
mon, the executive vice president and CEO
of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroW-
est, wrote in a letter to his leadership just saic counties, has mixed feelings about a
over a week ago. His letter was obtained by
the Jewish Week. NJY Camps is a partner
agency of the MetroWest federation, which
covers mainly Essex and Union counties.
According to Mr. Ben-Shimon’s letter,
the report unearthed 11 cases in which Mr.
intimidated and harmed women” during
effort between faculty, stu-
dents, and families.” Ms.
Frankel said she hopes
that “we will have a vibrant
parent association, where
we will have monthly PA
meetings and weekly meet-
ings with chairpeople. We
haven’t begun to formu-
late this yet, since enroll-
ment begins the first week
of January.”
The new school’s goal,
she said, “is to provide the
best-quality early childhood experience
for young Jewish families.”
The program is based on the Reggio
Emilia approach to educational philoso-
phy. For the Early Childhood Center, this
means that “children are active partici-
pants in their learning; children are pro-
vided with ample opportunity to touch,
move, listen, see, and hear as they explore
classroom materials; children are viewed
as competent thinkers, problem-solvers,
and builders of their own knowledge;
teachers and children collaborate to iden-
children are members of ever-widening
communities, including their own class-
room, the school, the JCC, and the world.”
his 25-year tenure as NJY’s top exec-
utive. Mr. Ben-Shimon also wrote,
citing the investigation, that Mr.
Robinson would use “NJY funds”
to “pay off victims.”
As a result, Peter Horowitz, who
now is the president of NJY Camps,
urged all 60 members of his board
to join him in resigning for allow-
ing Mr. Robinson “to operate for far
too long without any real oversight,
creating an environment in which
his abuse of others was allowed to
go unchecked.”
Jason Shames, the CEO of the Jewish
Federation of Northern New Jersey, which
covers Bergen, Hudson, and parts of Pas-
wholesale resignation. Clearly, he said,
“the people who knew should resign.”
Both those board members who did or
should have known what was going on and
Mr. Robinson “should be punished. What
Len did was horrific and inexcusable.”
And, without doubt, “the NJY board failed
in its obligation.”
The philosophy, she said, was created
after World War II in Reggio, Italy. “It’s
based on the understanding that there are
over 100 languages that children speak,”
for example, verbal or nonverbal, how
they see things, how they express them-
selves, what inspires them, and so on.
“Not everybody learns the same way,” she
said. “We will provide learning opportuni-
ties that speak to all kinds of learners.”
The hands-on learning will not be the
traditional “teacher-directed” model, but
“intentional-play based. This is very differ-
ent as compared to many other early child-
hood programs.” In preparing children for
kindergarten, “the pre-academic compo-
nents will be introduced in a way that is
The new Early Childhood Center at the
JCC of Northern New Jersey invites
parents to an open house on one of
the following dates:
January 3 at 7:30 p.m.
January 9 at 12:30 p.m.
January 11 at 9:30 a.m.
January 14 at 9:30 a.m.
January 16 at 7:30 p.m.
January 21 at 9:30 a.m.
January 23 at 7:30 p.m.
But, he said, what about “the legitimate
newer younger people on board who
walked into an existing culture?” That cul-
ture, he explained, was one where Mr. Rob-
inson “took advantage of the fact that the
board trusted him and gave him leeway.
“The camp was running well. It led to
a bit too much authority for professional
staff. Over time, there was a breakdown in
oversight.
“Every board has its own set of bylaws,”
Mr. Shames said, as well as the government
and IRS standards that they are legally obli-
gated to meet. But different boards operate
differently, and some concern themselves
mainly with fundraising, fiduciary mat-
ters, or organizational design. But no mat-
ter where their focus lay, he said, “the NJY
board failed in its obligation. The people
who knew should resign.”
It’s complicated, he acknowledged.
“These issues are more commonplace
now than even five years ago. Society is
becoming less tolerant of inequities. It’s
clear that people who 20 years ago would
[have dismissed any rumors] would not
 Local
Sandi M. Malkin, LL C
Interior Designer
(former interior designer of model
rooms for NY’s #1 Dept. Store)
age appropriate.”
Ms. Frankel said she is “passionate about early
childhood education and also working with families For a totally new look using
and faculty. That’s my skill set.” It doesn’t bother her
when parents hover, “because I truly believe that your furniture or starting anew.
when people send their children to nursery school,
they” — that’s the parents — “are learning how to sepa-
rate for the first time.
Staging also available
“It’s really scary. Building connections between
home and school is really important. To build a true
973-535-9192
partnership, the parents have to trust us first.”
Jewish material will be taught experientially, Ms.
Frankel said. For Chanukah, the JCC created an inter-
active “pop-up light museum, exploring Chanukah
through the miracle of light.”
She noted that both indoor and outdoor play are
integral parts of the curriculum. She pointed out that W I N T E R
W I N T E R
the new facility “offers a well-equipped outdoor play
space with a new mud kitchen, sand box, as well as
a soft blacktop area for outdoor games and exercise.
On rainy days, the school will utilize its newly refur-
bished indoor gym area to promote physical exercise
and cooperative play.”
Offerings include classes for 2-year-olds either three
or five days a week and classes for 3- and 4-year-olds
classes five days a week, with the option of before- and
after-school care. Spaces in these programs are lim-
ited. Classes begin on September 4, 2019. School regis-
tration opens on January 7. For further information or
OPEN JAN. 1st 10AM-6PM
to schedule a tour, call Debra Frankel at (201) 666-6610
or email debraf@jccnnj.org.

find that acceptable anymore.”

How, then, could such misconduct persist?
“Because over time there was general satisfaction with
how Len was functioning. He was doing a great job.
“The problem is with the board members who
heard rumors and didn’t do anything.”
Mr. Shames, whose organization provides funding

SALE ENDS JAN. 6th

that helps many children go to the NJY camps, also
said he feels strongly that the misbehavior of Robinson
and the board “has to be separated out from kids hav-
ing a positive Jewish experience in the summer.
“`The kids shouldn’t be penalized,” he said. MEN’S and BOY’S
“There’s no camp in New Jersey that attracts as many MEN’S‡and BOY’S
Dress Coats ‡ Car Coats ‡Parkas ‡ Suits ‡Sport Jackets
Jewish kids for positive Jewish experiences as they do. Dress Coats ‡ ‡
Car Coats Parkas ‡Suits ‡Sport Jackets
The board needs to be dealt with and Len needs to pay Pants ‡Shirts ‡Ties ‡Shoes ‡Accessories
a price. The kids do not.” Pants Shirts ‡Ties ‡Shoes ‡Accessories
Jeremy Fingerman of Englewood, the CEO of the
Foundation for Jewish Camp, said the FJC “is working

EMPORIO
collaboratively with Jewish Community Centers Asso-
ciation, the leadership of the local NJ Jewish Federa-

tions, and the board and staff of NJY Camps to assist in
the effective transition to an interim governing board.
“Together, we all share a commitment to ensuring
NJY Camps — the largest Jewish overnight camp — con-
tinue to provide high-quality, safe, and joy-filled Jewish
summers for the more than 6,000 campers they serve.”
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JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018 11

Local
Shekels and sense
Israel’s Paamonim organization helps families with their budgeting
Larry Yudelson
H
elping someone get on
his or her economic feet
is the sincerest form of
charity, to paraphrase
Maimonides. That includes giving
“guidance regarding budgeting,
financial planning, consolidation of
loans, and so forth,” at least accord-
ing to the book “The Challenge of
Wealth: A Jewish Perspective on
Earning and Spending Money” by
Dr. Meir Tamari.
Which means that Paamonim,
an Israeli nonprofit organization
that helps people get their finances
in order, would make Maimonides
happy.
The organization was founded
1997.
Now, Susan Alpert of Teaneck
wants to bring word of Paamonim
to New Jersey — and maybe some of Chaim Leichman
Paamonim’s projects as well.
Ms. Alpert heard about Paamonim from Chaim Leich-
man, who is a volunteer for the organization. Mr. Leich-
man lives in the town of Adam, a couple of miles outside
Jerusalem. (He is the son of Abigail Klein Leichman, who
writes for the Jewish Standard. His sister is married to
Ms. Alpert’s son, which makes them all somehow part of
the Jewish Standard family.)
By day, Chaim Leichman is a software developer. But
at night, as a Paamonim volunteer, he is a financial con-
sultant. “It’s a real calling, to help people get on their
feet financially,” he said.
Paamonim assigns Mr. Leichman a family to work
with. They meet every four or so weeks over the course
of several months. “We go through a structured process
together,” he said. “It’s a process of coaching, of really
empowering them to take control of their own finances.”
The process has three steps.
“First we do a very thorough analysis of everything
involving money,” Mr. Leichman said. “All their income,
all their expenses, all their debt. Typically families come
to Paamonim with debt, whether it’s a bank overdraft or
something more serious. We put everything on the table
to make sure we know what’s going on.”
The second step is to help the family work out a bal-
anced budget.
“It typically means they’ll have to take action in at
least one of three different ways,” Mr. Leichman said.
“It could be cutting expenses. That’s very common. It
could be increasing income. You can have families that
are living very modestly but are just not making enough.
The third part of the triangle is making sure they are
getting everything they are entitled to, whether it’s sub-
sidies from the government or whatever. We make sure
all their entitlements are being used.”
Once the family has a balanced budget in place, “we
deal with the debt,” he said.
That could mean refinancing and consolidating debt.
“If we see they have a killer loan with nine or 10 per-
cent interest, we’ll try to get them a better deal, with
four percent interest, for example,” he said. Or it could
mean bargaining with the creditors. “If the family has
12 Jewish Standard DECEMBER 28, 2018
Susan Alpert
a big debt to the electric company, well get the elec-
tric company to let them pay it off over the course of
a year or two.
“Our approach is that debt has to be paid, no matter
what, but if you have a few different creditors and a few
A couple I worked with
were both chain
smokers. They were
spending 2,000 shekels
a month on cigarettes
— more than $500.
They realized that was
ridiculous, but I
couldn’t say that. They
were the ones who
had to say that.
are really on your back and some are not, it’s okay to
prioritize. Okay to say, ‘I’ll deal with that debt later.’”
Working with families on their intimate financial lives
is a tricky business. Volunteers aren’t assigned families
they know — although Mr. Leichman did become friends
with a family he worked with. There is the training that
Paamonim provides the volunteers, the detailed plans,
the apps to help automate budgeting.
But sometimes that’s not enough.
“You have families that never even get started,” he
said. “Either they don’t manage to find the time, or
they’re not ready emotionally.
“You have cases where in the middle of the process
dramatic changes happen in their lives and everything
you’ve done is worth nothing.”
There are plenty of fami-
lies, however, where it all
works. “They really want to
make a change, they have a
positive attitude. There are
families that will decide
right away they don’t need
more. I had a family about
a year ago where working
on the debts was all they
needed. We identified the
problem very quickly. They
knew what they needed to
do. We literally met twice.”
So what’s the secret to
making a family budget?
“There’s no magic,” Mr.
Leichman said. “That’s
part of what I like about
Paamonim’s approach. It
involves commitment. It
involves work.
“If we see a family bring-
ing in 18,000 shekels a
month” — about $4,750 a
month — “we say, let’s make a budget with that. Almost
inevitably they will come to the conclusion they have to
cut something. Or more than just one thing.
“We don’t make decisions for the family. To take an
extreme example: You can have a family that spends
an extraordinary amount of money on cigarettes each
month. It’s up to the family to decide whether they want
to keep that and cut something else, or whether they
want to cut that. It’s not our place to make decisions
for them.
“A couple I worked with were both chain smokers.
They were spending 2,000 shekels a month on ciga-
rettes — more than $500. They realized that was ridicu-
lous, but I couldn’t say that. They were the ones who
had to say that.”
What to cut if you’re not smoking cigarettes?
“Food is a very big expense. A lot of families will live
more frugally with their food budget. Electricity can
be very high. There can be a conscious decision about
using less. Another thing could be going to restaurants
or going to movies.
“Even though the rent or mortgage is a very big line
item, most families are not willing to make any drastic
changes with that.
“One other big-ticket item is cars. I had this family that
was living very frugally aside from the fact that they had
two cars. As expensive as it is to maintain a car in the
States, it’s more expensive here. It was very difficult for
them, but they parted with one of their cars. It was a
huge savings.”
“The most frustrating cases are families that are
already trying to live frugally, just trying to make ends
meet. These are the most frustrating cases. There’s no
magic solution. It either means some dramatic change in
income — which is much easier said than done — or some
dramatic steps in cutting costs, that are very difficult.”
Mr. Leichman is one of 3,000 volunteer counselors
who deal with 20,000 Israeli families each year, Ms.
Alpert said. They work in 800 locations, from Eilat to
Kiryat Shmonah.
“Their success rate is a surprising 75 percent,” Ms.
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Alpert said. “Each family will save about $10,000 S U N DAY, D EC E M B E R 3 0 , 2 0 1 8
just in the first year. The savings grow.” 9 : 3 0 A M - 1 2 : 3 0 PM
Paamonim partners with the government to pro-
vide financial education for Israelis of all ages, from
school through retirement. KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY:
Ms. Alpert finds Paamonim an Israeli counterpart
to Bergen County’s Project Ezrah, the Teaneck-based RABBI DR. ARI BERMAN
organization that helps people find jobs. Ms. Alpert PRESIDENT OF YESHIVA UNIVERSITY
worked for Project Ezrah as a fundraiser for 16 years.
“I like the idea that people are taught to be respon-
sible on their own,” she said. “Paamonim is asking
for money not to support people, but to make more WHO IS MY ‘BROTHER’:
programs that will help them. It’s like the flu shot.
It’s preventing disasters from happening. I love that A HAL AKHIC LOOK AT
people work within their own resources to be suc-
cessful. The self-esteem it brings is unbelievable.”
A M E D I E VA L C H R I S T I A N D I L E M M A
Ms. Alpert is starting the American Friends of
Wi t h a d d i t i o n a l l e c t u re s b y m e m b e r s o f o u r
Paamonim. But she doesn’t want the relationship
between American Jews and Paamonim to be one-
d i s t i n g u i s h e d f a c u l t y, i n c l u d i n g :
way. She has ideas for ways to bring Paamonim Mrs. Tamar Appel, Walking on Their Heads, Mrs. Emma Horowitz, Innocent Until
over here. Writing with Their Hearts: American Jewish Proven Guilty? From Trial by Ordeal to Trial
One possibility is to have Paamonim counselors Immigration Stories by Twitter
work with people who want to make aliyah so they
Mrs. Dena Block, Taking Matters Into Your Dr. Sofya Nayer, The Mathematical Beauty
can have a realistic idea of what they would face
Own Hands: Lessons from the Gemara and of Creation
financially. The families would consult with counsel-
Martin Luther King, Jr.
ors “either through Facetime or email or a combina- Mrs. Esther Slomnicki, Age Reversal,
tion and work out a pro-forma budget with them so Mrs. Bailey Braun, The Sailor Cannot See Cancer Cures, and Winged Wolves:
they know what their life in Israel will cost.” the North: The Letters of Emily Dickinson Exploring the Possibilities of Gene Editing
She’s also considering importing some of Paamon- as an Invitation to Spiritual Exploration
Mrs. Gila Stein, When There's Smoke,
im’s physical products. Mrs. Gila Guzman, How Food has Shaped There's Fire: The Science Behind the
“They have a wonderful tzedakah box for children Humanity Dangers of Smoking and Vaping
that teaches financial literacy. I’d like to bring that
Mrs. Ariella Rosenbaum, Einstein's
here. They also have some wonderful games like
Relativity: Simplified... Relatively
financial chutes and ladders in Hebrew that would
teach children financial literacy and also help them Men & women in the community are welcome.
with their Hebrew. It would benefit Paamonim when
it sells and benefit our community with financial and This program is generously sponsored by the Brodsky Family in loving memory of
Hebrew education,” she said. Bernie and Bernice Kramer, grandparents of Molly Brodsky, Ma'ayanot class of 2013.
One thing she won’t do, however, is launch Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School for Girls
American Friends of Paamonim with a huge fund­
1650 Palisade Avenue | Teaneck, New Jersey | 07666 | www.maayanot.org
raising dinner.

JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018 13

Briefly Local

COURTESY AMERICAN RED CROSS

From left, John Winer, executive director of the Jewish Associa- Dr. Ari and Miriam Berger and family Elana and Benjy Burnat and family
tion for Developmental Disabilities, Kadolia Dolson, David Jacobs,
Yenis Mercedes, and Jocelyn Gilman, executive director of the
American Red Cross of Northern New Jersey.
Couples selected for awards
by Congregation Shaare Tefillah
Red Cross honors 2 lifesavers The 16th annual dinner to celebrate Shaare Tefillah of Teaneck will be held on Sat-
during ceremonies at J-ADD urday, January 5, at 8 p.m., at Factory 220 in Passaic. Elana and Benjy Burnat are
The American Red Cross presented Kad- medical services arrived and took over. Mr. the guests of honor and Miriam and Dr. Ari Berger will be honored with the New
olia Dolson and Yenis Mercedes with the Jacobs was taken to the hospital, where he Contributors award.
Certificate of Merit during a Jewish Asso- received medical care. He is alive today For more information, go to www.shaaretefillah.org.
ciation for Developmental Disabilities Cha- thanks in part to the two women’s quick
nukah gathering on December 5 at the JCC actions.
of Paramus/Congregation Beth Tikvah. Ms. Dolson and Ms. Mercedes were
Ms. Dolson and Ms. Mercedes, who both nominated by Cheryl Minkoff, J-ADD’s
are J-ADD employees, used their American director of training.
Red Cross CPR training to help save the “We congratulate Yenis and Kadolia on
life of David Jacobs of Paramus. They were this recognition and appreciate their life-
honored for their heroic actions. saving actions,” John Winer, J-ADD’s execu-
“We’re extremely proud to present a tive director, said. “As a result, David will
Certificate of Merit to Yenis and Kadolia,” tell you himself, ‘I’m not sick, I’m very
Jocelyn Gilman, the executive director of much alive!’”
the American Red Cross of Northern New Red Cross training gives people the
Jersey, said. “Their actions exemplify our knowledge and skills to act in an emer-
mission to help people prevent, prepare gency and save a life. A variety of online,
for, and respond to emergencies.” blended (online and in-person skills ses-
The Certificate of Merit is the Ameri- sion), and classroom courses are available
can Red Cross’s highest award. It is given at redcross.org/takeaclass.

COURTESY BRIS AVROHOM

to people who save or sustain a life using If you or someone you know has used
skills they learned in a Red Cross Training skills and knowledge learned in an Ameri-
Services course. can Red Cross Training Services course to
Last December, after they saw J-ADD help save or sustain a life, go to Lifesavin-
client David Jacobs collapse and become gAwards.org to nominate, recognize, or
unresponsive, Ms. Dolson and Ms. Mer- be inspired. For more information, go to
cedes performed CPR until emergency redcross.org.
Ken Sagrestano, the GWB’s general manager, joins Chanukah ceremonies
with the German and Gutkin families, who sponsored the bridge’s menorahs,
and Rabbi Mordechai and Shterney Kanelsky of Bris Avrohom.
Realtors address
NCJW luncheon Minding the menorahs … all 125
On December 13, members of the Jersey Hills Bris Avrohom successfully completed breakfast at her office sponsored by Bris
section of the National Council of Jewish Women Chanukah festivities as it oversaw 125 Avrohom. Ms. Oliver invited all the agen-
hosted a real estate event at Temple Beth Sho- menorahs in New Jersey. Bris Avrohom cies under her jurisdiction and 75 people
lom in Fair Lawn. The program was presented placed five menorahs at the George attended. Guests included Jared Maples,
by Maxine Harelick, a licensed realtor with Washington Bridge, including the upper the state’s Homeland Security director;
Prominent Properties-Sotheby’s International and lower levels, headquarters, the Pali- Lamont Repollet, commissioner of the
Realty in Ridgewood, and was sponsored by sades entrance, and the bus terminal. state’s education department; the state
Debbie Musco-Yeck and Ronald P. Laurent, The highlight of Chanukah at Bris Avro- treasurer, Elizabeth Maher Muoio, and
loan officers from the Montvale office of Cross- hom took place when Sheila Y. Oliver, Col. Patrick J. Callahan, acting superin-
Country Mortgage. Participants had lunch while New Jersey lieutenant governor, hosted a tendent of the state police.
COURTESY NCJW

learning tips on home maintenance, increas-

ing the value of a home, and preparing it for
sale. They also learned about financing options More than 411,000 likes
available if you want to use your home equity
to finance home renovation projects or to buy Ron Laurent with Debbie Musco- Like us on Facebook
another home. Yeck and Maxine Harelick. facebook.com/jewishstandard
14 JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018
 Rockland

Students and alumni of Hillel of Rockland light candles to commemorate each of the 11 victims killed
in the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue. NECHAMA K

28 organizations honor Pittsburgh victims

In a display of unity, more than 350 people representing
28 diverse organizations and congregations in the Rock-
land Jewish community gathered on the Rockland Jewish
Community Campus in West Nyack for “Night of Light”
organized by Hillel of Rockland. The evening commemo-
rated the shloshim of the 11 victims of the Pittsburgh syna-
gogue massacre. It included a candle-lighting ceremony,
student reflections, and a musical performance. Rabbi
Yosef Yitzchak (YY) Jacobson gave the keynote address.
Rabbi Dov Oliver, director of Hillel of Rockland,
announced the launch of the Tree of Life Scholarship
to assist young people in educational travel to Israel.
For more information, email doliver@sunyrockland.
edu or go to www.hillelrockland.org.

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apple bk - JEWISH STANDARD - TREASURY MM - 12-31-18.indd 1 JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28,11:40:40

11/30/2018 2018 AM 15
Rockland

Bielski descendants Orangetown Jewish Center

to speak at ceremony
marking the Holocaust
The Holocaust Museum & Center for Tolerance and Educa-
tion marks the International Holocaust Remembrance Day,
with a community-wide meeting on Wednesday, January 23,
at the New City Jewish Center at 7 p.m.
Brenda Weisman and Amy Edelstein, the daughter and
granddaughter of the youngest Bielski brother, present “Leg-
acies of Defiance.” They will discuss the Bielski partisans, as
portrayed in the film “Defiance.”
International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorates
conducts a Mitzvah Day
The Orangetown Jewish Center held its annual Mitzvah Day
last month. Organized entirely by volunteers, the day kicked
off with a group led by USYers heading to New York City to
give breakfast to 60 homeless people and distribute warm
coats and other winter necessities. During the day, the syna-
gogue activities included group arts and crafts projects for the
children, prayer book repairs, and a Zumba class that raised
money for the Masorti movement. (That’s the Conservative
movement outside North America.) Members of the congre-
gation fanned out across the area, visited seniors at the Espla-
nade, an assisted living facility, and did their part to clean up

the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 27. For more
information, call (845) 574-4099 or go to holocauststudies.org.
Photo provided
a local park. OJC’s Mitzvah Day was topped off by its Bowl-
a-Thon, led by Rabbi Ami Hersh and Sharon Rappaport for
JAWONIO. The organization provides treatment for children
and adults with physical and cognitive disabilities.
Children decorate doorknob hangers for
residents of the Esplanade.

WELCOME CENTER NOW OPEN

The Most Exciting

New Retirement Community

Photo provided
Is Coming to Rockland County.

Brightview is bringing
carefree, resort-style living –
with no large entrance fee –
to Rockland County.
Brightview Lake Tappan offers
access to tri-state shopping,
Rockland County legislators Aron Wieder, left, and Lon Hofstein flank Rabbi
Simcha Morgenstern, the director of outreach and education for Chabad
Call Cindy or Dorothy Lubavitch of Rockland, who helped organize the evening.
to schedule your visit. Chabad of Rockland participates
845.203.2338 in a holiday unifying ceremony
Chabad Of Rockland joined the Rock- “It was an amazing evening as two
land County Catholic Coalition for a religions shared each other’s joy of

L ’ Shana
culture, entertainment, and menorah-lighting ceremony and the the season” added County Executive

L ’ Shana
endless on-site opportunities blessing of the nativity creche in front Ed Day. “Our nation was founded on
for a rewarding retirement. of the Allison-Parris County office Judeo-Christian beliefs and many oth-
building in New City last month. ers have become part of this great

Tovah!
“It’s more important than ever that country since then. What better way

Tovah!
we come together as one Rockland to foster understanding of each other
Reserve your apartment community and share in each other’s than by all sharing the joy we feel at
traditions,” Rockland County Legis- this time of year knowing that joy is
now to enjoy exceptional 61 Hunt Road • Orangeburg, NY 10962 lature Chairman Toney L. Earl said. the same regardless of race, religion or
savings. On the Reservoir “Everyone was invited to attend these ethnicity. My gratitude to all who were
events, so that together we can send a a part of both events, as it showed all
Wishing you a sweetyou
Wishing newa sweet
year. new year. message of unity.” what Rockland is truly all about.”

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16 Jewish Standard DECEMBER 28, 2018

BVK • SCI • #9a • JobBVK • SCI • #9a

No 025012 • JobHashanah
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Anti-bias and diversity training
Rockland’s Holocaust Museum &
Center for Tolerance and Education
joins the Jewish Federation of North-
ern New Jersey for “Open Heart and
Mind: Softening Bias and Racism in
Ourselves and Our Teaching,” an anti-
bias and diversity training session for
teachers and educators on Wednes-
day, February 6, from 4:30 to 6 p.m.,
at JFNNJ headquarters, 50 Eisenhower
PHOTO PROVIDED
Brunch and babka tips
Food blogger Naomi Elberg is the guest at “Brunch
and Babka,” sponsored by Rockland Jewish Family Ser-
vice on Sunday, December 30, at 11 a.m. Learn the art
of babka baking as Naomi shares her tips and tricks.
A VIP pass includes a 10:30 meet and greet with the
chef. The brunch is at a private home in Wesley Hills.
For information, call (845) 354-2121 or go to www.RJFS.
org. All proceeds support RJFS.
Reducing stress and anxiety
PHOTO PROVIDED
On the first Wednesday of each month,
Rockland Jewish Family Service offers
mindfulness and meditation and other
techniques that work to reduce stress
and anxiety. Experience deep relax-
ation and peace with music, mindful-
ness, and other simple tools you can
use in daily life. All levels are welcome.
Meditative practices have been
Beth Am Temple presents
‘Dancing With Our Stars’
Beth Am Temple in Pearl River hosts
“Dancing With Our Stars” on Satur-
day, February 2, from 7 to 11 p.m.
The friendly dance competition will
pair synagogue members with world-
renowned professionals from the Fred
Astaire Dance Studio of Bardonia, who
also will demonstrate their skills in a
special performance and lead a group
lesson. The 18-piece Reflections Jazz
More than 411,000 likes.
Like us on
Facebook
facebook.com/jewishstandard
Rockland
Drive, Paramus.
The interactive program, with hands-
on critical-thinking games and discus-
THINK
Schechter Westchester
sions, hopes to provide the benefits of
reducing unconscious bias, while pro- Please join us to learn more about
viding resources to help K-12 educators.
A light dinner will be served.
our school & community
ROCKLAND
For more information, email AriellaN@
jfnnj.org, go to jfnnj.org/training or call
(201) 820-3946.
COUNTY
PARLOR
MEETING
Monday, January 14, 2019 8:00pm
Naomi Elberg HOSTED AT A PRIVATE HOME IN NEW CITY
ADDRESS UPON RSVP
RSVP TO JACKIE GROSSER
swadmissions@schechterwestchester.org
deeply rooted in Judaism for thou-
sands of years. “Mindful Mornings”
takes place the first Wednesday of
every month at the Jewish Community
Campus. The next class is January 2 at
Schechter Westchester offers an
11 a.m. RJFS is at 450 West Nyack Road, enriching academic environment,
West Nyack. All proceeds support RJFS’
mission. Call (845) 354-2121, ext. 142.
nurturing Jewish community,
state-of-the-art engineering and
entrepreneurship programs, athletics
and arts activities, and outstanding
college placement. Our families living
in Rockland County take advantage
of our convenient bus service.
and Swing Orchestra featuring Tanya
Garzia will play a selection of swing,
Latin, and foxtrot tunes.
The evening includes social dancing,
a raffle, desserts, wine, and beverages.
For more information, call (845) 735-
5858, email office@bethamtemple.org,
or go to www.bethamtemple.org. The
snow date is Saturday, March 2.
“The Schechter education is a “The opportunities I have
priority for our family, even if been offered at Schechter
that means commuting out of Westchester have allowed me
Rockland for it.” to grow as a student and a
— BETH KAWEBLUM, PARENT person. Being from Rockland,
I find that Schechter is as much
a home for me as it is for my
friends from Westchester.”
— NAOMI, GRADE 11
www.schechterwestchester.org
AN INDEPENDENT K-12 COED JEWISH DAY SCHOOL
JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018 17
 COVER STORY

7 of the most
heartwarming
Jewish stories of
JOSEFIN DOLSTEN
2018
This year hasn’t been an easy one. From shootings that claimed many innocent lives, includ-
ing at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, to political turmoil in the United States and abroad, there
have been many moments of sorrow.
But there were bright spots too. As 2018 comes to a close, we look back at some of the
heartwarming stories we reported on this year, from a group of German volunteers who are
fixing Holocaust survivors’ houses to an Iranian refugee who raised money for Pittsburgh’s
Tree of Life synagogue.
Here are some of the highlights. JTA WIRE SERVICE

COURTESY OF GABBY DEUTCH

A 95-year-old Holocaust survivor
teaches summer campers Yiddish
There’s one teacher at Camp
Kinder Ring in Hopewell Junction,
N.Y., who always keeps kids capti- From left to right, Gabby, Cole and Serena Deutch are organizing
vated with his stories. That’s Mikhl an initiative to raise money to end gun violence by baking
Baran, a 95-year-old Holocaust hamentaschen.
survivor from Lithuania.
“I ask them to call me Mikhl,”
Baran said, noting that the name
A Florida congressman’s
is the Yiddish form of Michael. kids use hamantaschen
“That’s already, in a sense, imbu-
ing the idea that Yiddish is a great
to help end gun violence
Gabby, Serena and Cole Deutch the same and urged them to donate
national treasure of the Jewish
wanted to do something after the proceeds to groups fighting gun
people.”
17 people were killed at Marjory violence as well as to the families of
The Workmen’s Circle opened
Stoneman Douglas High School the Parkland victims.
SHARON STRONGIN/CAMP KINDER RING

Kinder Ring in 1927 as a Yiddish-

in Parkland, Florida, last Febru- Gabby Deutch, a student at Yale
language camp, but today the
ary. Since Purim was around the University, said she was happy to
mamaloshen isn’t heard quite as
corner, the siblings — who all are make a difference.
often. That’s why Baran’s lessons —
college-age, and whose father, “I was feeling disappointed by a
about both Yiddish and the world
Ted Deutch, is a Democratic con- lack of response, at least on Yale’s
in which it was spoken — hold a
gressman representing the district campus,” she said. “A lot of peo-
special significance.
where the shooting took place — ple since this has become public
“I worry a great deal because
came up with the idea of baking have come up to me and really
my generation is passing already,”
and selling the pastry associated expressed gratitude that some-
he said. “It’s almost gone. And we
with the holiday, hamantaschen. thing is happening about it, which
are the remnant. If we will not tell Mikhl Baran leads Jewish culture programming They started recruiting friends at makes me feel like there are people
the story, who will?” at Camp Kinder Ring. campuses around the country to do who care about this issue.”

18 JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018

J.K. Rowling uses Twitter
to fight anti-Semitism
The creator of the Harry argument, so tell us,
Potter books has taken it do: were atheist Jews
upon herself to fight Jew exempted from wear-

JOHN PHILLIPS/GETTY IMAGES

hatred online. Amid debates ing the yellow star?
about anti-Semitism in Brit- #antisemitism,” Rowling
ish politics in April, J.K. continued.
Rowling, who is not Jewish, But she didn’t stop
used Twitter to define the there. In August, she
term for her more than 14 called out a fellow British
million Twitter followers. writer on Twitter over
“Most UK Jews in my his criticism of Jewish

J.K. Rowling
timeline are currently hav-
ing to field this kind of crap, so perhaps
some of us non-Jews should start shoul-
dering the burden,” she said in response
to a user who argued that “Judaism is a
religion not a race.”
“Antisemites think this is a clever
A German group renovates
Holocaust survivors’ homes for free
The Saxon Friends of Israel
brings volunteers from Ger-
many to Israel to fix the
houses of Holocaust sur-
ISRAEL BASEBALL
complaints about anti-
Semitism in the Labour Party. And her
latest book, “Lethal White,” which came
out in September, comments on the
dangers of anti-Semitism by including a These 10 Americans made aliyah to compete for positions on Israel’s 2020
character whose obsessive anti-Zionism Olympic baseball team.
morphs into anti-Jewish hatred.
10 American baseball players
become Israeli citizens to help
country make the Olympics
Ten American baseball players became “These players showed great enthu-
Israeli citizens so they could play on the siasm for working in Israel to reach the
country’s national team in international Olympics in particular and to develop
competitions leading up to the 2020 the game in Israel in general, and
Olympics. The Jewish athletes made the players who played in the World
COURTESY OF ZALMEN WISHEDSKI

vivors living there. The aliyah in October. They want to repre- Championship were exposed to Israel
group’s efforts drew public- sent Israel in Tokyo in 2020. Some of and saw how they can help the coun-
ity in October, when a rabbi the players also represented Israel in try become a force to be reckoned
met one of its volunteers on last year’s World Baseball Classic, where with in international baseball,” Israel
a flight and posted about Team Israel shocked followers by reach- Baseball Association President Peter
it on Facebook. Rabbi Zal- ing the quarterfinals. Kurz told Ynet.
men Wishedski described
his meeting with a 54-year-
old house builder named
Rabbi Zalmen Wishedski, right, wrote a
Roland, who had been trav-
Facebook post about his conversation with a
eling to the Jewish state twice
German man who travels to Israel to renovate
a year for about five years to
Holocaust survivors’ apartments.
help Holocaust survivors.
“I cannot change or repair
the whole world,” the rabbi recalled In a promotional video, one volun-
Roland telling him. “I cannot repair all teer explains that both of his parents
my people did 70 years ago. All I can do were avid Nazis and that he is the only
is painting. It’s what I’m doing, bringing one in his family who wants to “deal
a little bit of good to the world.” with the issue.”

An Iranian refugee raises

more than $1.2 million
for the Pittsburgh synagogue Rabbi saves 4 Torah scrolls
Khashayar “Shay” Khatiri, who is not Jewish, was from burning in California fires
moved to action shortly after hearing about the shoot- At 3 o’clock in the morning, a neighbor from dashing into the synagogue to
COURTESY OF KHASHAYAR KHATIRI

ing at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, which left 11 awakened Rabbi Barry Diamond to let save his congregation’s holiest objects.
people dead in October. So Khatiri, who was born in him know that their Southern California He ran in twice, grabbing four Torah
Iran and now lives in Washington D.C., started a fun- neighborhood was under a voluntary scrolls, one of which had survived the
draiser on GoFundMe. Donations poured in, quickly evacuation order becaue of the wildfires Holocaust, as well as the Book of Esther
reaching more than $1.2 million. that were ravaging the state that Novem- scroll traditionally read on Purim.
Khatiri, who is seeking political asylum because of ber. About 20 minutes later, the rabbi “I would say I was a cross between
his political activism against the Iranian government, arrived at Temple Adat Elohim, the nervous and determined to get these
says that he was happy to see people coming together Reform synagogue in Thousand Oaks out,” Diamond said. “Sometimes you
to aid the synagogue. where he works, to see fire surrounding just have to put your head down and
“It was nice to see that people really cared and Khashayar “Shay” the area by the building. do the work and worry about your
wanted to help the survivors,” he said. Khatiri But that didn’t deter Diamond, 56, feelings later.”

JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018 19

Cover Story

Some of the inspiring Jews we lost in 2018

GABE FRIEDMAN

The end of every year brings the grim task of rounding up the prominent Jews who died during those 12 months. But in doing so, we are able to pay tribute to their incredible
lives and accomplishments, and to revel once again in the talents and resilience of the Jewish community.
This year, we lost Pulitzer Prize winners, TV stars, scholars, Holocaust survivors, spiritual leaders, and many more. Here are just some of those who inspired us the most.
JTA WIRE SERVICE

Philip Roth Rona Ramon Stan Lee Anthony Bourdain

In the end, the giant of Jewish literature
never won a Nobel Prize. But his legend-
ary characters and stories, from “Portnoy’s
Complaint” to “American Pastoral” (which
helped him win many other prizes, includ-
ing a Pulitzer, the National Book Award, and
a Franz Kafka prize), will live on eternally in
the American Jewish psyche.
24-28 Fair Lawn Ave, Fair Lawn, NJ
201-475-0077
info@food-showcase.com
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After her husband, Ilan Ramon, the first and
only Israeli astronaut to make it to space, died
in the crash of the U.S. space shuttle Colum-
bia in 2003, she became a public figure and
started the Ramon Foundation, which pro-
moted academic and social leadership among
young Israelis. Her death of pancreatic cancer
this month, at 54, was especially heartbreak-
ing for many in Israel and around the world.
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ated with other artists are Spider-Man,
the Hulk, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four,
Iron Man, and Thor. He was born Stanley
Lieber in Manhattan to Romanian-Jewish
immigrants.
The renowned chef and daredevil travel
show host’s Jewish identity — his mother
was Jewish but he never was religiously
observant — was not widely known or
talked about until he made an episode of
his CNN series “Parts Unknown” about
Israel. While sampling cuisine from
Israel and Palestinian territories, Bour-
dain painted a nuanced portrait of the
country’s social and political structures
and his own conflicted identity. His sui-
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*In town only programs that addressed the spiritual
Our specialty is customer service Claude Lanzmann dimensions of serious illness, bringing
Specials are good until January 6th Lanzmann’s “Shoah” — a nine-hour doc-
No returns unseasonable items Jewish wisdom on wellness to a wide
umentary released in 1985 — changed audience.
public discourse and set the standard for
Holocaust filmmaking. “Holocaust films
of all genres changed after ‘Shoah,’” said
www.thejewishstandard.com Liat Benhabib, the visual director of Yad
Vashem, after Lanzmann’s death in July.

20 JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018


Shoshana Cardin
The iconic institutional leader broke
glass ceilings at several of the largest and
most powerful Jewish organizations —
from her local federation in her native
Baltimore to the Conference of Presi-
dents of Major American Jewish Orga-
nizations. (She also was president of the
Jewish Telegraphic Agency from 1999 to
2001.) She died in May at 91.
Evelyn Berezin
We can thank Berezin, a child of Jew-
ish immigrants from Russia, for the first
computerized word processor, which
she built and marketed in the late 1960s.
“Without Ms. Berezin there would be no
Bill Gates, no Steve Jobs, no internet, no
word processors,” British writer Gwyn
Headley said in 2010.
Mac Miller
Only 26 at the time of his death — the
result of a drug overdose — Miller was
somewhat of an unlikely star in the main-
stream hip-hop world. Born Malcolm
James McCormick to a Jewish mother
and an Irish father in Pittsburgh, Miller
at times referenced his Jewish identity in
public and in lyrics, and he had a Star of
David tattoo.
TALLESIM CLEANED • SPECIAL SHABBOS RUSH SERVICE
Cover Story
Connie Kurtz Charlotte Rae Clara Schwarz Kramer
The LGBTQ activist was best known for
The actress known for her popular role During the Holocaust, Kramer hid in an
her lawsuit against the New York City
on “The Facts of Life,” and whose perfor- underground crawl space in Poland for
Board of Education, which established
mances earned her Tony and Emmy nomi- nearly two years. Her diary from that time is
domestic partner benefits for all city
nations, was born Charlotte Rae Lubotsky held at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
employees in 1994. She married Ruthie
in Milwaukee to Russian Jewish immigrants. in Washington, D.C., and her memoir further
Berman (above, right), in a ceremony
recounts the harrowing experience. With a
officiated by noted LGBTQ Rabbi Sha-
group of other survivors, she co-founded the
ron Kleinbaum, in 2000, when it still
Holocaust Resource Center at Kean Univer-
was illegal for lesbians to marry in a
sity in Union.
civil wedding.
Connie Sawyer
The “Clown Princess of Comedy” also
was known as the oldest working woman
in Hollywood when she died at 105. Born
Rosie Cohen to Orthodox parents, Saw-
yer had more than 140 acting credits,
mostly small roles, in films and shows Victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting
ranging from “Hawaii Five-O” to “Sein- On October 27, an anti-Semitic gunman entered the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh’s
feld” to “Pineapple Express.” quiet Squirrel Hill neighborhood and killed 11 Jewish worshippers. It was the worst shooting
in American Jewish history, and it reverberated around the country and the world, spurring
heartwarming tributes and calls to take action against right-wing anti-Semitism.
Here are their names:
David Rosenthal, Cecil Rosenthal, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon,
Daniel Stein, Jerry Rabinowitz, Richard Gottfried, Joyce Fienberg,
Rose Mallinger, Melvin Wax, Irvin Younger
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Jewish World
Bernie Madoff
enters federal
court in New York
on March 12, 2009.
10 years ago, Bernie Madoff ’s deceit
rocked the American Jewish world
Here’s what happened to his victims
BEN SALES
R
obert Lappin was in Palm
Beach when he found out that
his charity was broke and his
money was gone.
That was the small, moneyed Florida
town where he would see Bernie Madoff
at the Breakers Palm Beach, the golf resort
where both men stayed during the winter.
Although the hotel was a social scene for
wealthy older Jews, Lappin didn’t play golf
or eat dinners with Madoff — in fact, he
called the investment adviser “standoffish.”
But Lappin wasn’t interested in Madoff ’s
personality. All he cared about was the
man’s reputation as a Wall Street genius.
For 17 years, Lappin had trusted Madoff
with nearly all of his money, pouring as
much as $30 million of investments into
five accounts at Bernard L. Madoff Invest-
ment Securities. Lappin first made his
money making vacuum cleaners, then
grew his wealth through real estate and
finance. Madoff, he thought, was only
making him richer — managing accounts
22 JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018
for his charitable foundations, his employ-
ees’ retirement plans, and much of his per-
sonal wealth.
“He did make sure that I understood that
he was doing us a service and a benefit by
allowing us to invest with him,” Lappin said
this month from his home in the Boston
suburbs. “Everything always checked out
beautifully, and his reputation as a money
manager and as a person was unblemished.”
Lappin’s last account statement said that
he had $83 million in the accounts, includ-
ing $8 million for the Robert I. Lappin
Charitable Foundation, which supported
Jewish causes across Boston’s North Shore.
Then, on the afternoon of December
11, 2008, Lappin got a call from his invest-
ment portfolio manager.
Madoff had been arrested for fraud.
And just like that, Lappin realized that
he didn’t have $83 million in investments
with Madoff. He didn’t even have $8 mil-
lion. He had nothing.
“I was totally shocked,” he said. “I
couldn’t believe it. I said to her, ‘Are we
wiped out?’ She said, ‘I’m sorry to say
we’re wiped out.’”
An American Jewish catastrophe
It’s been a decade since Bernie Madoff’s
arrest stunned Wall Street and sent the
Jewish world reeling. Investors — from
retirees to small Jewish nonprofits to day
schools to universities to large European
hedge funds — believed they had made a
safe bet with Madoff. By December 2008,
on paper, he was purportedly managing
$67 billion of other people’s money.
Then it all evaporated.
Really, it never was there. Madoff ’s
Ponzi scheme, where he used money
from newer investors to pay off older ones,
never actually trading stocks with it, came
crashing down with the Great Recession.
And it brought a host of Jewish people and
institutions down with it.
Among those investors were Jewish
foundations, leading Jewish institutions,
and public figures who met Madoff in the
intimate world of Jewish philanthropy and
saw his money management as a force
multiplier for their charitable causes and
retirement accounts. That made Madoff’s
STEPHEN CHERNIN/GETTY IMAGES)
fraud particularly tragic for the Jewish
world — an erasure of perhaps more than
a billion dollars on top of the losses suf-
fered in the Great Recession.
“The individual repercussions of it are
extreme and heartbreaking and in certain
cases fatal,” said Temple University Pro-
fessor Lila Corwin-Berman, author of the
forthcoming book “The American Jewish
Philanthropic Complex.” “Families and
individuals and even certain organiza-
tions were really dealt blows they could
not absorb because of his crime.”
It’s hard to come by an estimate of the
total amount of Jewish wealth Madoff
destroyed. But those investors included
some of the most prominent names in
American Jewry. Yeshiva University lost
about $100 million with Madoff. The
Ramaz School in Manhattan and the Mai-
monides School outside Boston, two elite
Jewish day schools, lost $6 million and $5
million, respectively. Elie Wiesel’s chari-
table foundation lost $15 million.
Wiesel himself also lost millions of his
life savings. Famed Dodgers pitcher Sandy

Koufax and disgraced former New York
Governor Eliot Spitzer also lost money with
Madoff. Ira Rennert, a billionaire financier,
reportedly lost at least $100 million. New
Jersey State Senator Loretta Weinberg of
Teaneck lost more than a million.
“Friends and family from Long Island
and Palm Beach had been with Madoff for
so long that they viewed him almost like
a bank,” said Matthew Schwartz, a former
federal prosecutor in the Southern District
of New York who led the criminal investiga-
tion of Madoff. “That provided a kernel of
so much money to this Ponzi scheme that
it gave him the ability to thrive for so long.”
But this story has a happy ending — at
least sort of. Most of the $67 billion Madoff
lost turned out to be fictitious profits, fake
gains on stocks that never existed. In the
end, Madoff stole $17.5 billion of money
that investors had put in. And 10 years
later, they’ve gotten almost all of that
money back.
The trustee for the liquidation of
Madoff ’s company, Irving Picard, has
STEPHEN CHERNIN/GETTY IMAGES)
recovered more than $13 billion, about 75
percent of the stolen money, and still is
pursuing claims.
“It went on for so long, and there were
institutions as well as a lot of people
invested,” Picard said. “They still had
money that we were able to recover. We’re
striving to collect as much as we can. My
goal originally was 100 percent. It still is.”
That money comes from so-called “net
winners,” clients who withdrew more fic-
titious profits than they invested. These
include Hadassah Women’s Zionist Organi-
zation of America, which withdrew nearly
$100 million more than the $40 million it
put in (and paid back $45 million in a set-
tlement). Lawyer Jeffry Picower, who paid
back $7.2 billion of fictitious profits, gave
back the largest lump sum of any investor.
Even though Hadassah withdrew more
than it invested, it shouldn’t be seen as
complicit in the fraud, says Steve Rabi-
nowitz, who handled public relations for
Hadassah at the time of the Madoff scan-
dal. After all, like so many other investors,
the organization thought it was tapping
into legitimate investment gains.
“The Madoff investment wasn’t really
their fault,” Rabinowitz said. “Lots of
good people got taken in by Madoff and
I never thought they got taken in by any
nefarious reasons. They made an unfortu-
nate investment for not bad reasons. They
were just unlucky.”
That’s why investors had a hard time
wrapping their heads around the fraud,
said Richard Greenfield, a lawyer who con-
sulted for a handful of Madoff victims in
Palm Beach. For so long, they had treated
their fictitious profits as real and legiti-
mate. Now, they were learning that those
profits always had been fabricated.
Some investors who needed cash
immediately sold their debt for pennies
on the dollar, Greenfield said. Others have
stuck it out to recover money via Picard
or the Madoff Victim Fund, another
From left, past Hadassah National President Marcie Natan, Israeli film director Assaf Galay and his wife, Hannah Pollin-
Galay, and past Hadassah National President Nancy Falchuk, at Hadassah’s 100th anniversary convention in Jerusalem on
Oct. 17, 2012.
entity, established by the Department of
Justice, that is distributing money directly
to individual victims.
“They really felt that they had so much
more money in their accounts,” Green-
field said. “When they talk about their
losses, they talk about the fictitious num-
Even as he built
an increasingly
elaborate
fraud, Madoff
maintained
a sterling
reputation.
bers in their accounts, and for some of
them, it’s hard to explain: Your real loss
wasn’t $200,000, it’s $10,000, which is
what you put in.”
Beyond the legal efforts, the organized
Jewish community performed triage to
help some of Madoff ’s nonprofit victims
get through the period after his scheme
came to light. Two weeks after the news
broke, the Jewish Funders Network, an
umbrella for donors, convened 35 of the
country’s biggest Jewish foundations to
make a plan to provide bridge funding to
bereft organizations.
And even though a decade has passed,
victims in the Jewish world still are hesi-
tant to talk about Madoff. Ramaz and YU
declined to speak to JTA, as did Hadas-
sah, the Elie Wiesel Foundation, the Carl
and Ruth Shapiro Family Foundation, and
several others.
Ruth Madoff, Bernie’s wife, politely
declined a phone interview.
How Madoff did it: The short version
Madoff got his start as a stockbroker as
early as 1959, when he still was in college.
His firm made its name over the ensu-
ing decades by investing in computer-
ized trading on the NASDAQ market and
by being a “market maker” — a firm that
buys and sells stocks at specific prices.
He started managing wealth in the 1970s,
beginning with a group of clients from his
father-in-law’s accounting practice.
Madoff claims that his Ponzi scheme
began in 1992, according to “The Wiz-
ard of Lies,” a 2011 book on the scandal
by Diana B. Henriques. But Schwartz says
that it started as far back as the money
management business itself, some two
decades earlier.
Even as he built an increasingly elabo-
rate fraud, Madoff maintained a sterling
reputation. He had served as the chair-
man of NASDAQ and was seen as a pio-
neer in computerizing the market. A lot of
the money for the fraud came from feeder
funds, or hedge funds that funneled all of
their money straight into his hands. Other
friends and colleagues of his, like Carl Sha-
piro or Jeffry Picower, invested their own
money with him and encouraged friends
to do the same.
Nearly all of these people since have
insisted that they had no idea Madoff was
running a sham, though many have had to
pay hundreds of millions in settlements.
Shapiro had to pay $625 million in an
agreement with the FBI. Picower’s estate
gave back more than $7 billion soon after
he died in 2009.
And as Madoff’s ostensible success grew,
JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018 23
Jewish World
COURTESY OF HADASSAH
so did his aura in the Jewish community.
He was the treasurer of Yeshiva University.
He met some of his Jewish investors in the
wealthy social circles of Manhattan and
the elite Jewish Palm Beach Country Club.
Many others, including Rennert and
media mogul Mort Zuckerman, invested
in Madoff through J. Ezra Merkin, a fix-
ture in Jewish life on the Upper East Side
of Manhattan who ran a group of hedge
funds that invested heavily with Madoff.
Members of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue
invested perhaps a billion dollars with
Merkin, a former president of the congre-
gation, according to the New York Times.
(Merkin has paid two separate settle-
ments as a result of his investing with
Madoff. He paid $410 million in 2012 to
New York State, and $280 million in a set-
tlement with Picard this year.)
In addition to his perceived record of
success, Madoff drew investors in with
his apparently unassuming and reserved
personality. Investors thought they were
gaining access to an exclusive club. And
Madoff ’s returns were not flashy either —
coming in at about 10 to 12 percent per year
— which also made investors think they
were making a safe, conservative choice.
There were whistleblowers along the
way: Harry Markopolos, a finance execu-
tive in Boston, repeatedly encouraged
the Securities and Exchange Commission
to investigate Madoff for running a Ponzi
scheme, though those warnings went
nowhere. A couple of articles in financial
publications in 2001 also cast doubt on
Madoff. And, in fact, all of his numbers
were made up. The totals people thought
they had — like Lappin’s $83 million — were
just fabrications.
When people began withdrawing large
 to Entire Estates!
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amounts of money as the economy tanked at the end of
2008, Madoff finally ran out of cash. He confessed his crime,
was arrested, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to 150 years
in prison in 2009. Now 80, Madoff is serving time in a federal
correctional complex in Butner, North Carolina.
focused on replicating the foundation’s free teen tours to
Israel in cities across the country. The night after Madoff was
arrested, she had just returned from her husband’s work-
place holiday party when she heard an ominous voicemail
from Lappin on her home phone. But because she never
Meanwhile, reporters were bombarding her for
an angle on the story. Katie Couric, at the time a CBS
news anchor, called Coltin’s house. When she went to
synagogue the next day, she said, “I just felt like there
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Madoff’s family also has suffered tragedy since his arrest.
On the second anniversary of his father’s arrest, Mark
Madoff killed himself. In 2014, his other son, Andrew, died
of lymphoma. Ruth Madoff, who was allowed to keep $2.5
million, lives in Connecticut.
“We were snookered into his trap,” Lappin said of Madoff.
dealt in detail with investments (all the money came from
Lappin) she wasn’t sure what was going on.
“Something in his voice just sounded horrible,” she
recalled. “I got a really sick feeling and I couldn’t sleep. I
was at the office by 6 a.m. and people were already there,
and they just told me what had happened.”
“I just remember crying and feeling a sense of deep,
deep loss and pain,” she said. “Monday morning is
going to come, and I don’t have a job.”
But then something strange happened. The broke
charity stayed open. Over that weekend, another local
philanthropist, David Lederman, pledged $100,000 so

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“But of course we didn’t realize that until he was exposed.”
Ten years ago, that trap seemed like it might have left
Debbie Coltin out of a job. The executive director of Lap-
pin’s family foundation, as of December 11, 2008, Coltin was
Coltin then had the distasteful experience of calling in her
four part-time employees, one by one, and telling them that
they were laid off, effective immediately. She expected to lock
the door that day, a Friday, and see the foundation disappear.
that the Lappin Foundation could run the 2009 Youth
To Israel trip, which took some 100 teens on a summer
tour of Israel each year. With that money in place, Col-
tin and all of her employees came back to the office on
Monday and began doing something they had never
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Editorial
Thoughts on
the new year
T I
here are some obvious
if possibly cosmetic
parallels between the
Jewish holidays and the
secular ones.
First, they’re both at liminal
times of the year. Our High Holy
Days come when summer is turn-
ing into fall, the light starts to
change, the weather gets crisper,
the days get shorter, and we go
from vacation to the start of a new
school year, with new clothes and
new shoes and if we’re a kid a
new grade and new teachers. (Yes,
some of this is meteorological and
some is cultural, but so what?)
The secular holidays come as fall
ices over into winter.
Both involve the start of a new
calendar year.
Both are a mix of religious and
secular; the Jewish new year is
inherently religious, a time of
self-reflection and the hope for
redemption, but for the less obser-
vant among us, it’s often a time for
getting together with family, eating
foods rich in personal symbolism,
dripping with familial lore (and of
course often rich, even dripping, in
calories, but that’s a different mat-
ter altogether).
The secular New Year involves
a Christian holiday that often is
observed more in the breach, at
least from what we’re told. (There
was a fascinating op ed in this week’s
Washington Post that talked about
the phenomenon of Cheasters, peo-
ple who show up in church only on
Christmas and Easter. Who knew?)
Both times of year inspire looks
back and ahead.
This year, it’s terrifying to look
both behind and ahead. No matter
what you think of the political situ-
ation, it is hard not to see that it’s
chaotic. For most of us, most of the
civic life that surrounds us has been
predictable. We couldn’t tell who
will win elections, but we knew
Jewish Editor
Joanne Palmer
Standard Associate Editor
Larry Yudelson
1086 Teaneck Road
Community Editor
Teaneck, NJ 07666
Beth Janoff Chananie
(201) 837-8818
Fax 201-833-4959 About Our Children Editor
Heidi Mae Bratt
Publisher
James L. Janoff
Associate Publisher Emerita
Marcia Garfinkle
thejewishstandard.com
26 JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018
that they will be orderly, and that
power will be transferred accord-
ing to the rules. We knew that on
the whole elections were fair (and
if they weren’t, if there were elec-
tion fraud, we wouldn’t know). We
knew who our country’s allies and
enemies were.
September 11, 2001, was a mon-
strous change to that certainty, but
quickly enough we settled back
into standard life.
That’s gone now.
We also know that the divisions
in the American Jewish commu-
nity have grown so deep as to look
chasm-like; maybe they were that
deep before, but they were hidden.
(I don’t know how you hide a chasm.
Maybe they were in the backwoods.)
But now, our communal divide over
the politics that are dividing the
whole country are impossible to
ignore. No matter which side we
are on, we look at the people on the
other side with pure disbelief, by
now tinged with horror.
But there is a new year, and
maybe, just maybe, there is some
hope.
Often, as the Jewish year turns, I
quote the piyyut “Achot ketanah,”
where we hear the report of the tit-
ular little sister as she records the
tragedies of the year that has just
passed and pleads with God for a
better year to come.
“Let the year and all its curses
conclude!” she sings at the end of
each of the verses until the last one.
“Let the year and its blessings
begin!” she says at the very end,
and, oh, she is so right.
Please, let this year and all its
curses end, and let the new year,
2019, bring us Jews, us Americans,
us citizens of this great republic,
some blessings.
We hope that all of our readers
and all your families have a good,
happy, healthy, safe, and prosper-
ous 2019.~ —JP
Correspondents
Warren Boroson
Lois Goldrich
Banji Ganchrow
Abigail K. Leichman
Miriam Rinn
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KEEPING THE FAITH
Gunning for common sense
and better firearms laws
t is now sure that 2018 will be the worst year police who are answering a “shots fired” or “active
for gun-related deaths in the United States, shooter” call may react when seeing someone with
beating out 2017, the previous record holder. a gun is not part of this equation.
According to a report issued earlier this Consider these two examples:
month by the Centers for Disease Control and Pre- ITEM: On June 8, 2016, Henry County police
vention, there were more gun-related deaths in 2017 in Georgia received a 911 call from someone who
in the United States than at any time since 1979, with believed he heard shots fired and a woman’s cry for
39,773 people killed. That works out to about 4.5 gun help. Officers immediately were dispatched to the
deaths every hour of every day in 2017. location. The homeowner, 63-year-old Air Force
Gun deaths exceeded traffic-related deaths for veteran William David Powell, apparently thought
the first time — 37,133 people died in motor vehicle a prowler was breaking in. He got out of bed, took
crashes in 2017 compared to the nearly 40,000 his legally obtained and licensed handgun with
gun deaths. him, and went to investigate. Police
Now consider this finding from a saw a gun in his hand, and one offi-
recent Journal of the American Med- cer opened fire. Powell died from his
ical Association report: The civilian wound. A county grand jury deter-
gun death rate in the United States is mined that the “use of deadly force
53 times higher than that of Japan, 35 was objectively reasonable under the
times higher than that of the United circumstances” police were facing at
Kingdom, five times than Canada’s, the time.
and nearly four times than that of As it turned out, no threat was immi-
Switzerland. nent because the police were at the
Bring in the children, and it only Shammai wrong address. At the correct address,
gets worse. According to another CDC Engelmayer meanwhile, no shots had been fired;
study, this one published in the jour- the 911 caller had gotten it wrong.
nal Pediatrics in mid-2017, “Firearm- ITEM: One month ago, on Friday,
related deaths are the third leading cause of death November 23, police responded to an active shooter
overall among U.S. children aged 1 to 17 years, sur- call at Riverchase Galleria Mall in Hoover, Ala. One
passing the number of deaths from pediatric con- man was shot twice, and a 12-year-old girl was grazed
genital anomalies, heart disease, influenza and/or by a third bullet. Moments after entering the mall,
pneumonia, chronic lower respiratory disease, and police shot and killed 21-year-old Emantic Fitzgerald
cerebrovascular causes. They are the second leading Bradford Jr. because he was allegedly holding a gun.
cause of injury-related deaths in this age group, sur- Bradford, who had been in the Army and worked
passed only by motor vehicle injury deaths.” as a security guard, had a permit to carry that gun.
The CDC statistics average out to 3.6 children As it turned out, Bradford was not the shooter.
dying from gun violence every day, and nearly 16 Most likely, he drew his gun to protect himself
children injured. and others around him or was attempting to sub-
Of course, there are those who see such statistics due the actual gunman, who managed to escape.
as an attack on their Second Amendment rights According to witnesses, Bradford was not alone in
and so turn blind eyes to the truth. Said their cham- drawing his gun; several other shoppers drew their
pion, the NRA, in a tweet following the release of weapons upon hearing the gunfire.
the latest CDC report, “The facts are clear: Gun According to the Hoover Police Department:
control laws are not the answer. If we want to pre- “We can say with certainty Mr. Bradford bran-
vent more horrific acts of violence our leaders dished a gun during the seconds following the
need to stop demonizing the men and women of gunshots, which instantly heightened the sense of
the @NRA and find solutions that will save lives.” threat to approaching police officers responding to
By “solutions that save lives” the NRA means the chaotic scene.”
making it easier for people not just to own guns, Yes, guns at times may provide protection, and
but to carry them in public. The question of how even Jewish law would permit owning a gun for
Shammai Engelmayer is rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel of the Palisades, now in Fort Lee.
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that purpose. However, it also would insist
on better safety features, such as those
found on “smart guns” on the market. Is
it so terrible, for example, for a fingerprint
verification device to be added to a weapon
to prevent it from being used by someone
other than its owner? How many children
would be protected by that simple safety
device — a device even police officers have
endorsed, but the NRA opposes? Given the
number of mass shootings each year, is it so
terrible to keep military-style weapons and
accessories out of civilian hands, and to
prevent anyone who is mentally ill, or is an
abuser of any kind — spousal, child, or oth-
erwise — or who has a history of any type of
violence, from owning a firearm?
Jewish law would demand all such things,
even if civil law does not.
Halacha also would insist on a strict and
effective training regimen for civilians in the
use of such weapons, including better train-
ing in when to draw their weapons and when
not to do so. It is absurd to expect police in
a shooting situation to not perceive a threat
when they see someone holding a gun.
As I have often noted in discussing gun
laws especially, we derive the halachic view
from the “law of the parapet” found in Deu-
teronomy 22:8. Rabbinic decisions give this
law the broadest interpretation possible.
The Talmud sees this verse as the source
for the rule “that no one should breed a bad
dog in his house or keep a damaged ladder
in his house.” (See the Babylonian Talmud
tractate Bava Kama 15b.)
Maimonides, the Rambam, prohibits
owning anything “that is inherently dan-
gerous and could, in normal circumstances,
cause a person to die.” (See his Mishneh
Torah, The Laws of Murder and the Preser-
vation of Life, Chapter 11:4.)
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch says
the “parapet” law is so strict that it even
requires “local civil authorities to intervene
to remove anything at all which might be
dangerous” from a person’s premises. (See
his commentary on the verse.)
Given how seriously halacha views the
parapet law it follows that no one should
keep a dangerous weapon in his or her
house, or even on his or her person, with-
out extensive (not just adequate) training,
and the most effective safeguards.
When do we as citizens of this country
stop allowing our politicians to put the will
of the NRA ahead of our welfare?
As for us Jews, when do we start
acknowledging that Jewish law, which puts
life above almost everything else, requires
us to be in the forefront of any movement
to promote effective gun control laws?
After all, we are not to stand idly by the
blood of our fellows (see Leviticus 19:16;
also, for an extensive discussion of how
this verse applies to protecting others, see
BT Sanhedrin 73a). Not at least being a part
of such a movement in some substantive
way violates that law, just as supporting
the NRA violates the parapet law, and the
Torah’s prime directive — life — takes pre-
cedence over almost everything else.
Opinion
I’VE BEEN THINKING
Let’s not STEM the tide of critical thinking
S
TEM education — that’s science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics — is all the rage.
The idea of STEM is to use an interdisciplinary and
applied approach, integrating all four fields into a cohe- Nozick, some of which I actually remember from college, some
sive learning paradigm based on real-world applications rather
than teaching them as four separate and discrete subjects. The
desired result is to build on 21st century competencies such as
creativity, problem solving, and collaboration, thus preparing stu-
dents to participate in the future labor market.
So Harvard sponsors a Global Education Innovation Initiative
that includes seven STEM organizations, Columbia has a Girls in
STEM Initiative, and 11 Brandeis graduate programs have received
official STEM designations. The Moriah School of Englewood has
a STEM lab, the Idea School at the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades in
Tenafly has a STEM syllabus, and Heichal HaTorah at the Jewish
Center of Teaneck has an assistant principal for STEM. Students
from the Frisch School in Paramus participated in a Cooper Union
Summer STEM program, the Rosenbaum Yeshiva of
North Jersey in River Edge and the Yavneh Academy
in Paramus ran STEM nights, and just last week I
received an unsolicited email about a Teaneck Jew-
ish summer camp’s STEM program.
All this is, of course, a good thing. We live in a
highly technological world, and it’s becoming more
technological every day. Just ask your kids, or bet-
ter yet, your grandkids. And I’m not saying this just
as a former college math major. Rather, although
choosing math was one of my major life mistakes, I Joseph C.
recognize that STEM is a critical part of the future in Kaplan
which we very much want our children to actively
and competently participate, and to do that they
must be STEM-prepared.
But although I recognize all this, however, none of the courses
I’ve been taking recently as a retired person with time on his
hands has been related to STEM in any way. I’ve taken two history
courses dealing with World War II and Jewish Ideas and Ameri-
ca’s Founders, two wonderful Bible courses (an overview of the
Hebrew Bible given by a kippah-wearing modern Bible scholar!),
and a continuing course in Ezra-Nehemiah given by a more Jew-
ishly traditional Bible scholar — both courses are very different
from each other as well as from the numerous Bible courses I took
during my 16 years of yeshiva education — and also an ongoing
series of lectures on Jewish law and philosophy lectures.
And in all these classes the only relevant number was the
Roman numeral II in the World War course.
Naturally, these choices mirrored my personal preferences and
interests. But they also reflected my strong belief that humanities
courses form the bedrock upon which a high-level education rests.
And this feeling was strengthened by the most recent lectures I
attended (virtually) — the well-known course called Justice, given
by Harvard’s professor of government, Michael Sandel.
The course, available not only in Cambridge but also on iTunes
U and Boston’s WGBH PBS station, is one of Harvard’s most
popular, taken in some years by more than 1,000 students. It’s
described on Harvard’s website as an exploration and critical
analysis of classical and contemporary theories of justice, and
includes discussions of present-day applications such as income
distribution, same-sex marriage, and human and property rights,
as well as such historical applications as slavery and the draft, and ing other arguments? And what doctor, lawyer, or businessperson
Joseph C. Kaplan, a regular columnist, is a long-time resident
of Teaneck. His work also has appeared in various publications
including Sh’ma magazine, the New York Jewish Week, the Baltimore
Jewish Times, and, as letters to the editor, the New York Times.
The opinions expressed here are those of the authors, not necessarily those of the newspaper’s editors,
publishers, or other staffers. We welcome letters to the editor. Send them to jstandardletters@gmail.com.
theoretical issues like the trolley car problem.
There’s lots of serious substance — in-depth analyses of philo-
sophical ideas of Aristotle, Locke, Bentham, Mill, Rawls, and
I’ve forgotten, and much I never knew. And Kant, lots and lots of
Kant, whose often complex and dense thoughts Sandel, a spell-
binding philosopher and teacher, unravels and makes intelligible.
But it’s the discussions that impact my mind and raise my spirit.
And although the sessions are given in a large theater, a classroom
where the students who are speaking have to use a hand-held
microphone, it sometimes feels like a small seminar around a large
conference room table attended by a dozen or so students.
Regarding the students, let’s face it — many Harvard under-
grads are extremely bright and articulate. And Sandel, employing
a Socratic teaching method with consummate skill, plays upon
these traits to bring to light the complexities of the issues with
which they are grappling.
Unfailingly polite, always asking the partici-
pant’s name and then referring to him or her by
that name throughout the discussion, and despite
the large numbers of students in the class, often
in later lectures and discussions as well, Sandel
asks tough questions — sometimes unanswerable
ones — and probes and prods until ideas are clari-
fied, even if final answers or conclusions often
are never reached.
To take one example, I’m interested in the ques-
tion of affirmative action in college admissions,
and I have read a great deal about it. So I was fasci-
nated to listen to a discussion of that controversial
and complex issue among an amazingly diverse
group of Harvard students to whom this question was very per-
sonal. Should affirmative action be used? Good question; let’s
discuss. And Sandel guided that discussion with a gentle, yet at
the same time, tough questioning hand.
I finally realized that while the class tackled philosophical issues
of justice in its broadest sense, what Sandel really is teaching —
brilliantly and sometimes beneath the radar — is critical thinking.
Students learn that pat answers don’t cut it. They have to explain
their opinions, defend their thoughts, justify their positions, sup-
port their arguments. I think, I feel, I believe is not enough; stu-
dents are challenged by why? What if I change the facts a bit? How
do you respond to your fellow student’s argument? He forces
them to think. And they do.
But it’s even more than that. In teaching political philosophy
he’s also seriously talking to his students about values like eth-
ics, virtue, duty, loyalty, and politics of the common good. He’s
doing what he calls trying to bring “moral clarities to the alterna-
tives we confront as democratic citizens.”
And that’s what makes this type of course so important for
everyone. STEM is critical, of course, for scientists, techies, engi-
neers, and mathematicians, just as medical, law, and business
courses are essential for doctors, lawyers, and businesspeople.
But all of them would benefit, substantially benefit, from a
course like Justice.
What profession doesn’t need leaders who, while dealing with
complex problems, employ critical thinking, keep an open mind,
and believe in the necessity of listening to and seriously consider-
hasn’t been confronted by ethical and moral issues that go beyond
the four corners of their professional training?
Perhaps even more important for the country as a whole, STEM
and other professionals are part of the citizenry who need to
SEE THINKING PAGE 28
JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018 27
Opinion
The importance of project-based learning
N
ow that the Idea
School, the new
project-based learn-
ing, interdisciplinary
high school my colleagues and I
started this fall at the Kaplen JCC
on the Palisades in Tenafly, has
completed its first trimester and
is in the middle of its second one,
aspects of our educational model Tikvah
touted as useful for the real world Weiner
are starting to seem especially so.
Collaboration
One of them is collaboration. In project-based learning, stu-
dents consistently are being asked to work together, in pairs,
small groups, and in larger ones. Collaboration, therefore,
isn’t something that students have to grapple with in certain
classes or at certain points of the year, but on a constant
basis. This means that our students have started to get a
sense of who they are as team members and how they work,
as well as how group dynamics can make or break a project.
During our first trimester, the major group project was a
museum exhibit, where each team researched and created an
exhibit about a different ancient civilization. One group was
especially successful in managing themselves. At the end of
the unit, when students had to reflect on their learning in a
protocol we have called Presentations of Learning, we discov-
ered that one group had decided to meet each morning to
divide tasks and set deadlines. That habit was one of the ones
that made that group’s collaboration so successful. Another
was that team members had actually met their deadlines.
One student in that group reflected during her Presentation
of Learning that she had made sure to meet her deadlines,
because she knew her group had been counting on her and
she had wanted others to meet their deadlines, too.
The JCC’s CEO, Jordan Shenker, who was there for the pre-
sentation, noted that that student — a high school freshman!
— had just unknowingly articulated the workplace concept of
mutual accountability.
Active listening
Another characteristic we’re seeing as crucial to project-
based learning is the quality of being an active listener.
You might think that listening is a passive act, but that’s
actually not so. Listening requires strategies and tech-
niques in order to be effective, as Idea School students
discovered recently when they engaged in a chevruta
(paired learning) protocol in the beit midrash headed by
our Judaic studies principal, Rabbi Tavi Koslowe, and our
Judaic studies teacher, Rabbi Zach Rothblatt.
Chevruta learning is a common practice in many Jewish
day schools, but in their book “A Philosophy of Havruta:
Understanding and Teaching the Art of Text Study in Pairs,”
Elie Holzer and Orit Kent detail the principles that under-
lie this methodology and help educators elicit the kinds of
deep and rich responses toward which chevruta learning
aims. To start, Rabbi Koslowe and Rabbi Rothblatt had stu-
dents describe speaking and listening cues that they thought
should be employed. Articulation cues are more obvious to
the average person, I think. They include beginning state-
ments with phrases such as “I think…,” “It seems to me
that…,” and “It’s clear from here….”
Meanwhile, listening cues are perhaps less intuitive, par-
ticularly for students. Ours said that good listeners are atten-
tive and silent, would make eye contact, and would nod
their heads in response to a speaker. They might use verbal
cues such as “Yes, I understand,” or “Can you please explain
that in another way?”
28 JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018
Once students had internalized the difference between
speaking and listening, they received a piece of text to analyze,
with each student first taking on the role of speaker and then
switching. Rabbis Koslowe and Rothblatt also had the students
record themselves, so the teachers had an audio of how the
chevruta learning had gone. Students took the task seriously,
making sure they understood which role they were playing,
gaining as much from the protocol as they did from the text
study. Which perhaps is the point of chevruta learning, as Drs.
Holzer and Kent explain: The text is meant to come alive and
take on the personality of the people studying it. A protocol
such as theirs helped make that happen.
Listening also is an integral part of another protocol we
have at the Idea School: the Socratic seminar. We’ve had two
in recent weeks, both connected to the overarching driving
questions of our current PBL unit: What does it mean to be
a good citizen, how do we make ethical decisions, and how
do we pursue justice? So in humanities, students discussed
whether the characters in Shirley Jackson’s short story “The
Lottery” were good people and good citizens, and in beit
midrash students discussed the talmudic cases they had
been exploring, about when it was appropriate to use lethal
force, who decides to sacrifice him or herself, and what it
means to be a hero.
If you google Socratic seminar, you might discover that its
aim — as you may have guessed from the person it’s named
after — isn’t to win a debate by proving one side correct,
but rather to raise thought-provoking points that cause par-
ticipants to question their own opinions and perspectives.
The point of a Socratic seminar is to enrich its participants
by interrogating their thinking. This can only happen, of
course, if those in the seminar are willing to listen and hear
each other, and, in fact, part of the protocol is for students to
sit at a large table where they can see each other and actively
respond to each other’s statements rather than simply make
disjointed comments.
It takes practice to have a Socratic seminar. Participants
often are used to simply stating their opinions and moving
on. They might not intuitively return to what a fellow partici-
pant is saying, so having students be aware that they need to
respond to their classmates is an important part of the prac-
tice. We’ve seen significant growth in students when we com-
pare the way in which they participated in Socratic seminars
in the beginning of the year to their role in the seminars now,
and we can’t wait to see how they continue to refine their
practice of speaking and listening to each other.
High-quality work
Finally, we want to note the role that striving for high-qual-
ity work plays in PBL. Ron Berger, a PBL aficionado whom
I’ve quoted before, cannot stress enough how important
it is to build a culture in PBL schools where students must
produce high-quality work. This is because high-quality
work is not only part of the way students demonstrate the
depth of their learning, but also a way for students to show
they care about what they’ve done.
High-quality work can manifest itself in many differ-
ent ways.
It shows the rigor of what students have learned and can
be seen in work that has been revised and is polished, reveal-
ing that students have mastered content and skills and have
displayed stamina, grit, and an academic mindset as they’ve
gone deep into a subject and task. High-quality work might
also be beautiful and evince mastery of a craft or artistic tech-
nique. In fact, at the High Tech Schools in San Diego, Calif.,
the educational model for The Idea School, the pillars of
their schools are deep learning and beautiful work, and this
is because educators there know — and have proven — that
high-quality work happens when this is the focus of school.
Why should it be? We want high school students not only
prepared for college and its rigors, but also to take pride
in whatever they do, whether they’re in school, the work-
place, or pursuing an extracurricular activity. This emphasis
on the quality of work — rather than grades — is something
that can have a profound effect on students. We’re seeing
that at the Idea School when students prepare to present
their work even on small projects — not only the major ones
due at the end of each unit. They’re not asking what grade
they’re going to get on their work, but rather are focused on
seeing how their work compares to others’.
As one student recently presented a superhero she and a
classmate had created and then programmed, a classmate
leaned over and showed me his work, asking me nervously,
“Did I do everything I needed to?” He was afraid his work
wasn’t of the same quality. I looked down at the paper where
he and his partner had written the values their superhero
was defending, his powers and weaknesses, and noted it
was all filled in. He also had programmed not only one, but
two parts of his superhero, so both of his hero’s arms moved
when it was connected to a computer. The student was tak-
ing natural pride in his work, not motivated by the external
driver of grades, but by an internal engine of motivation and
desire to do his best.
At a recent Idea School event, I noted that it’s hard —
impossible, really — to create an elevator pitch for PBL. It
has so many components and moving parts that trying to
flatten it into a pat speech reminds me of an old story about
a group of blind people who have to describe an elephant:
they’re let loose near only one part of it and so one group
describes the trunk, one the body, one the ears, and so on.
No one gets it right.
I’ve tried to describe some of the key elements of the PBL
model not only because I’m an educator who’s a proponent
of it, but because these three key elements seem particularly
useful for society right now: in a world that seems divisive
and focused on superficial sound bites, we all could use tech-
niques to get us listening to each other and collaborating. And
I daresay we — both kids and adults who are feeding off the
instant gratification that technology provides — all could use a
reminder that some things require slow work, patience, and
care, in order to reach a high level of quality.
Tikvah Wiener of Teaneck is head of school of the Idea School, a
new coed Jewish high school at the Kaplan JCC on the Palisades
in Tenafly. Learn more at www.theideaschool.org.
Thinking
FROM PAGE 27
address the complex alternatives that are outside their
particular specialties but confront our nation. And as
such citizens, all would benefit from an education that
provides a pathway to searching for answers to these
challenges.
I’m happy that STEM education is being taken so seri-
ously not only by our educators and educational institu-
tions but also by students, as demonstrated by a recent
letter to the New York Times from an eighth-grader called
Get More Girls into STEM. But as I continue to search the
internet for classes to fill my time and my mind, I hope I’ll
find humanities courses that will, in the words of Derek
Bok, “work in subtle ways to create a web of knowledge
that will illumine problems and enlighten judgment on
innumerable occasions in my life.”
In STEM it’s usually the conclusions that are most crit-
ical. In humanities, though, it’s often the journey, not
the destination, that illuminates our world.

I am very afraid for my country
L
ast week, in his col-
umn called “Amer-
ica’s culture of jeal-
ousy and destruction
and how we can triumph,” Rabbi
Shmuley Boteach writes about
what is wrong with America.
It is our culture of jealousy,
our consumer-obsessed soci-
ety, our need to “tear down the Rabbi Aryeh
other in order to achieve happi- Meir
ness,” he writes. According to
the rabbi, we are taught that we
must be the “alpha of the species, or we are nothing.” We
are victims of ubiquitous manipulation (by whom it is not
clear). We are judgmental and unforgiving.
His prescription: The book of Genesis, which teaches us
to be satisfied with what we have; to practice humility, self-
sacrifice, forgiveness, and appreciation, and love for our fel-
low human beings. We should be less concerned with honor
and with material goods.
I agree with much that Rabbi Boteach says. We do need
to be better human beings, more caring for the other, less
materialistic. But there is so much more that is wrong with
America now that he completely misses.
LETTERS
Chasidim contribute to Jewish life
I read Dr. Tani Foger’s opinion piece with interest (“Unusual
guests at my Shabbat table,” December 21). I am neither cha-
sidic nor ultra-Orthodox. It seems to me that the challenges
in family life related to the transmission of traditions dating
back to Har Sinai is a feature of the human condition. Those
challenges can occasionally be found behind closed doors
in modern Orthodox families as well. We must not put our
head in the sand when we see a problem. That we can do
better is one of the foundational principles of Judaism and
part of our daily prayers.
But I feel compelled to point out that, in my view, the lov-
ing embrace of which Dr. Foger speaks is often exemplified
by the chasidic movement in particular. Bikur cholim is syn-
onymous with Satmar. Hatzalah was founded by a Satmar
chasid in the 60s and has become a worldwide movement.
The mitzvah tank and outreach of Lubavitch through Chabad
houses around the world, amongst so many other projects,
has opened the door for multitudes to be included in Jewish
life — at a level of their own choosing, without any sense of
being judged. In 30 years of law practice, it is the students of
Lubavitch who have come to my office on Friday afternoon to
say a dvar Torah and check on whether I needed a mezuzah,
had matzah for Pesach, or whether I needed anything else.
The Lakewood community has been an international center
for Jewish scholarship for many decades.
I commend Dr. Foger on her dedication to providing the
loving embrace to those who, like each of us in our own way,
struggle. Each and every one of those individuals is not only
precious but our responsibility as members of Klal Yisroel.
Dr. Foger must be praised for giving more than lip service to
our duty to extend a loving hand and we must learn from
her example and act upon it.
Her professional life has put her front and center in under-
standing the issue about which she writes. I for one believe
that we are a more fortunate people because of the significant
contributions of the chasidic and ultra-Orthodox communities
to Jewish life. Jeffrey Bernstein, North Bergen
We are still a nation that can’t free itself from its racist
core. The United States was born as a racist society, and
though we have come a long way, racism still is very much
alive in this country. White nationalism, which was a core
belief of many of our “founding fathers,” always has been a
part of our ethos. It emerges from the shadows from time to
time, as it has now.
This nation was built on immigration. We are all (with the
exception of native peoples) the children and grandchildren
of immigrants. Our forbears came here seeking refuge and
freedom. But now we turn our backs on those seeking the
very same thing for themselves. At our southern border,
children are torn away from their parents. We imprison
them. We treat them like criminals, when all they are seek-
ing is refuge from danger.
We are a nation whose founding document contains the
words, “we hold these truths to be self–evident that all men
are created equal.” But we now are told that there is no
truth, or that there is your truth and my truth. We are told
by our leaders that the free press is the enemy of the people.
The free press is our best guarantee for the continuation of
our democracy.
There is such a thing as truth. It is based on facts. On evi-
dence. On reality.
We are told that our allies are not our friends. The leader
Enough of Trump is enough
It was a sad day for Americans when the Defense Secretary,
Jim Mattis, resigned. Every American should read Jim Mat-
tis’ resignation letter. He questions the president’s fitness as
commander in chief.
I think we have had enough!
Every day there is a new facet of the president’s illegal,
unethical wrong doings. His tweeting of the withdrawal of
our troops from Syria is not advisable and could be a disas-
ter. He didn’t even have the decency to discuss this with the
Pentagon or the generals. Apparently, his decision to with-
draw the troops from Syria was influenced by the Turkish
government. Such withdrawal would be a gift to Russia,
Who does Trump work for??
Trump often does this to deflect any topic he doesn’t want
talked about.
There are so many investigations going on covering this
president. There is the Mueller investigation about obstruc-
tion of justice, collusion, and his financial ties to Russia and
Saudi Arabia. There is the investigation of the Trump Foun-
dation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District
of New York, and others in New Jersey and Maryland. There
is his raving about how he will “be proud” to shut down the
government. In his two years as president, he has undone
all the rules and policies. He has no sense of history or of
our Constitution.
In plain language, he is an ignoramus.
He has broken agreements such as NAFTA and the Paris
Climate Agreement. As a nation, we have 14 trade agree-
ments and they are threatened by Trump.
He has no regard for the rule of law. He constantly attacks
the FBI and the CIA.
He attacks the free press. His handling of the migrants
seeking asylum at the Southwest border who must wait in
Mexico is a disgrace and the separation of families is
heart-wrenching
If a former president did a tenth of what Trump has done
and is doing, he would have been out in a nanosecond.
Opinion
of this country praises dictators, autocrats, practitioners
of mass atrocities (North Korea), murder of enemies of the
state (Saudi Arabia, Russia), and a variety of undemocratic
leaders.
We have a leader who listens to no one but his own ego,
who has shown that he cannot accept the advice of anyone
who disagrees with him. And he is the commander and
chief of our armed forces!
I am very afraid for our country right now. I am afraid
like I never have been before. Never before has our democ-
racy been so threatened by a leader. I always have believed
that our political leaders (with few exceptions) have had the
best interests of the nation in mind. I have disagreed with
policies of both Republican and Democratic leaders, but I
trusted that our system of checks and balances that keeps
our democracy healthy would get us through stormy times.
Not so now. I am very afraid for our country.
I hope and pray that our democracy is strong enough to
get us through this very dark time.
And I ask Rabbi Boteach: Are you afraid for our country?
Rabbi Aryeh Meir is an active member of Congregation
Beth Sholom in Teaneck, a member of the New Israel Fund,
the Teaneck Environmental Commission, and the J Street
Rabbinic Cabinet.
Where are the patriots in the Republican Congress?? Their
silence is astonishing. They are weak, ineffective, and timid,
which makes them as bad as the President.
How telling it was to learn that a bipartisan group of 44 for-
mer U.S. Senators recently wrote an op-ed expressing their
concern about the dangers facing American democracy.
We cannot go on with this man In office, who hasn’t
abided by the Emolument Clause or the Logan Act, or the
Hatch Act, or the laws about nepotism. Why isn’t he called
out for ignoring these laws, and for not producing his tax
returns?
Hopefully, when the Mueller report comes out and the
Democratic Congress is in office, they will finally discharge
the powers and duties of their office and look to remove
Trump from office via the 25th Amendment, Section 4, or
by impeachment.
How much longer do we have to put up with an incompe-
tent, narcissistic, pathological liar, racist, and demagogue as
the president of the United States? He is an embarrassment
to our country and to the world. He has to go and take his
tweets with him. You can’t believe a word that comes out
of his mouth! I have nothing but visceral loathing for this
president.
To quote from “A Code of Jewish Ethics” by Rabbi Joseph
Telushkin: “Boris Pasternak, the Nobel Prize-winning nov-
elist and author of Dr. Zhivago, lived in the Soviet Union,
a totalitarian regime, and routinely had to lie to stay out of
prison. Pasternak noted the toll it took to live in a state of
continual untruth.” As he said, “Your health is bound to be
affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you
feel, if you grovel before what you dislike, and rejoice at
what brings you nothing but misfortune.”
I remember the words of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and of
Michael Bloomberg when Trump was elected. How right
they were. The Supreme Court justice called Trump, “a
faker” and the former three-term mayor of New York City
called him “a scam artist.”
I say enough is enough! Grace Jacobs, Cliffside Park
JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018 29
Calendar
Sunday  In New York
JANUARY 6
Brunch in Washington
Satuday 
Township: Temple Beth DECEMBER 29
El of Northern Valley in
Closter joins Temple Beth ASL-interpreted
Or for their first joint Kol Shabbat service: Town
Dorot New Year’s brunch, & Village Synagogue
9:30 a.m. 56 Ridgewood in Manhattan holds an
Road. (201) 664-7422. ASL-interpreted Shabbat
service, with full readings
Blood drive in from the Torah and
Englewood: haftorah, 10 a.m. This
Congregation Ahavath marks the program’s
Torah holds a blood drive bar mitzvah month —
with New Jersey Blood the 13th anniversary of
Services, a division of regular ASL-interpreted
New York Blood Center, services and events
9 a.m.-3 p.m. 240 Broad at T&V. Kiddush will
Ave. (800) 933-2566 or follow. 334 East 14th
www.nybloodcenter.org. St., between First
and Second avenues.
Workshop for expectant Underwritten by UJA-
parents: The United Federation of New York’s
Synagogue of Hoboken Jewish Community
begins a two-part Deaf Interpreter Fund.
Shalom Baby workshop (212) 677-0368V, www.
for expectant parents tandv.org, or email Bram
on welcoming a Jewish at bramweiser@usa.net.
child, 7:30 p.m. Also
January 13. 115 Park Ave.
(201) 659-4000 or www.
hobokensynagogue.org. Singles
JAN. Temple Beth El of Northern Valley in Closter welcomes
Benjamin Baron, principal clarinet of the Philharmonic Wednesday  Sunday 
4 Orchestra of the Americas and the Chamber Orchestra of New
York, and pianist James Rensink at its guest artist Shabbat.
JANUARY 9
Beyond BDS discussion
JANUARY 6
Seniors meet in West
Baron has performed with the American Symphony Orchestra, New York in Woodcliff Lake: Nyack: Singles 65+
Temple Emanuel of the meets for a social bagels
Pops, American Ballet Theatre Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Pascack Valley offers and lox brunch at the
Belgian Radio Orchestra, and the London Winds. The mini-concert at 6:30 a discussion for high JCC Rockland, 11 a.m. All
p.m. will be followed by a wine, fruit, and cheese “pre-neg” at 7. The school and college are welcome, particularly
students and adults, those from Hudson,
7:30 p.m. service will be led by Rabbi David Widzer and Cantor Elizabeth “Beyond BDS: The Passaic, Bergen, or
Goldmann. 221 Schraalenburgh Road. (201) 768-5112 or www.tbenv.org. Purpose of the Campus Rockland counties. 450
Pro-Israel Movement,” West Nyack Road. Gene,
7 p.m. Co-sponsored (845) 356-5525.
Girls holds its annual by the American Israel
Friday  Sunday  “Day of Big Ideas,”
9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Saturday  Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC). Speakers
DECEMBER 28 DECEMBER 30 Keynote speaker JANUARY 5 include Jonathan Levin, Announce
Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, an AIPAC student activist
Shabbat in Teaneck: Yeshiva University’s Shabbat in Emerson: at Lehigh University your events
Rabbi Larry Rothwachs president, will discuss Congregation B’nai whose family belongs We welcome announce-
of Congregation Beth “Who is My ‘Brother’: Israel hosts its special to TEPV, and AIPAC ments of upcoming events.
Aaron continues “Talking A Halakhic Look at “Resolutions” Shabbat leadership development Announcements are free.
in Shul” series for a Midlevel Christian service led by Rabbi director Adam Accompanying photos must
teens and adults with Dilemma.” Shirium by Debra Orenstein, Teitelbaum. 87 Overlook be high resolution, jpg files.
““All Smiles: Exhibiting faculty. Sponsored by including an interactive Drive. Registration is Send announcements 2 to 3
Healthy Self-Expression the Brodsky family. discussion connecting required; email Logan weeks in advance. Not every
in the Age of the Selfie,” 1650 Palisade Ave. the secular New Year Tessler atLTessler@aipac. release will be published.
7:30 p.m. It continues (201) 833-4307 or www. with the Jewish year, org, call (347) 778-7735, Include a daytime telephone
January 11 and February Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman maayanot.org. 10 a.m. 53 Palisade Ave. or go to www.aipac.org/ number and send to:
1. 950 Queen Anne Road. (201) 265-2272 or www. bergenaipaconcampus.
(201) 836-6210 or www. Study program in bisrael.com. 
pr@jewishmediagroup.
bethaaron.org. Teaneck: Ma’ayanot com • 201-837-8818 x 110
Yeshiva High School for

30 JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018

 Calendar

January Shabbat program launches

‘One Book One Community’ season
As part of Jewish Federation of North-
ern New Jersey’s “One Book, One Com-
munity” yearlong celebration, Temple
Michal Alge is Emeth in Teaneck is hosting a full-day
flanked by Coach Shabbaton celebrating themes from this
Michael Alon and year’s book, “Among the Living” by Jona-
Assistant Coach than Rabb. It’s set for Saturday, January
Danielle DeStaso. 12 and it will begin with Torah study at 9
a.m., and an examination of two inter-
views of Southern rabbis compiled in
“To Stand Aside or Stand Alone” by P. Joseph J. Levin
Allen Krause. Shabbat services at 10:30
will highlight the book’s themes. There is no charge for lunch, but res-
Kiddush lunch is at noon. At 12:45 p.m., ervations are required to ensure there
Big shots Joseph J. Levin Jr., co-founder of the South- will be enough food and seating. RSVP

spur YU ern Poverty Law Center, will discuss “Hate

in America: Then and Now.” The memoir
to lindaposkanzer@msn.com by January
8 at 4 p.m. If you can volunteer to bring
Senior Michal Alge, a for- is about his Jewish upbringing in Alabama a potluck item from a recipe in “Matzo
ward on the Yeshiva Univer- during segregation, the events that led Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales of the Jewish
sity’s women’s basketball him to co-found the SPLC in 1971, and the South,” email Lynne Graizel at lynnegee@
team, and Simcha Halpert, a work the center does today combating hate optonline.net.
junior guard on the YU men’s groups and promoting tolerance.
basketball team, both scored
their 1,000th career points
this month and earned spots
on the Skyline Conference
Weekly Honor Roll last week.
Michal Alge, a Boston
native, became the second
player in program history to
PHOTOS COURTESY YU

achieve this milestone. She

now has the most career
rebounds in YU women’s
basketball history and is the
first player to both score
1,000 points and grab 1,000
rebounds for her career. Sim- Simcha Halpert drives toward the basket.
cha Halpert, a Los Angeles
native, was named Most Outstanding Men’s Basketball Scholar-Athlete of the
Player of the Skyline Conference cham- Year, and was a Jewish Sports Review All-
pionships; he led the Maccabees to their American. He is now 27th on the universi- Jacob Wisse
first Skyline Conference championship ty’s men’s basketball all-time scoring list.
and NCAA tournament bid in program
history, was named the 2017-18 Skyline
For news about the team’s schedules,
go to yumacs.com/.
Holocaust family’s rescued photos
form centerpiece of talk at shul
Jacob Wisse, the director of Yeshiva Uni- re-discovered, and returned to the family’s
versity Museum, presents “Lost & Found: descendants in 2016. The album’s photo-
Adventures of a Family Photo Album Res- graphs evoke the rich Jewish cultural life
cued from the Holocaust” at Congregation that flourished in the urban centers of
Salsa’s Willy Chirino Rinat Yisrael. The adult education multi-
media presentation is set for Sunday, Janu-
Eastern Europe between the wars. The
rediscovery of the album and of the lives
headed to Englewood ary 6, at 8 p.m. of the people shown in it shed light on the
The Bergen Performing Arts Center in Engle- Dr. Wisse will explore the history of a important role of photography in strength-
wood presents Willy Chirino on Saturday, family photo album that was assembled ening family bonds and preserving mem-
March 9, at 8 p.m. Chirino combines the musi- in the decades before World War II, smug- ories for future generations. The talk is
cal traditions of Cuba with American rock and gled out of the wartime Kovno Ghetto by based on an exhibition that Dr. Wisse co-
jazz, helping to create the Miami sound of salsa its Jewish creator, hidden for three gener- curated at Yeshiva University Museum,
music. The Cuban-born and South Florida- ations by a non-Jewish Lithuanian family, where it is on view until April 28.
based vocalist and bandleader boasts a musi-
cal repertoire of more than 100 songs and 30
albums, making him one of the most iconic
tropical music acts around.
Other upcoming shows include Pat Metheny
More than 411,000 likes.
COURTESY BERGENPAC

Side Eye with James Francies and Nate Smith

on Wednesday, April 3, and “Oh What a
Night of Doo Wop & Rock N Roll Volume III”
Like us on Facebook.
on Saturday, May 4. For tickets, go to www.
ticketmaster.com or call bergenPAC’s box
facebook.com/jewishstandard
office at (201) 227-1030.

JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018 31

Kosher Crossword
“JEWS IN THE NEWS 2018”
The Frazzled Housewife
BY YONI GLATT, KOSHERCROSSWORDS@GMAIL.COM
DIFFICULTY LEVEL: CHALLENGING

At the movies

I
love going to the movies. Even Relax, enjoy the 40 minutes of pre-
when I was in high school and views and all is good.
the theater was walking dis- Well kids, not anymore. For the past
tance, and well, long story short, few Sundays, husband #1 and I have
I hope my principal isn’t reading this…. gone to an early movie on Sunday
We would get there for the first showing mornings. (It’s the cheapest and we are
and then the second movie was free! practicing to be senior citizens.) Two
(Forgive me, I was young.…) Movies weeks ago, we get to the movie and
are this beautiful escape from reality. the guy tells us we have to pick a seat
What gal from the 80s didn’t watch “16 because starting now, there are only
Candles” and not fall in love with Jake? assigned seats at the movies. NO! I DO
The original “Star Wars” trilogy? “Get NOT LIKE THAT!! And we didn’t know
Out”? (Gee, those were we could do it online so
random..) But each movie all of the good seats were
you have seen reminds taken. So we pick two
you of that time in your seats and we go into the
life. My first R-rated movie theater. Of course, there
that my sister took me to are two cute old people sit-
— I felt like such a grown- ting in our seats. We don’t
up. The first date I had want to bother them so
at a movie and saw “Top we go to two other seats.
Gun.” And then there is A few minutes later, we
the movie date story that Banji are asked to leave those
husband #1 loves to hear. Ganchrow seats, so we go to two
Many, many years ago, other seats. And then we
before social media and are asked to leave those
sushi, a boy who my mother made me seats…. You see where I am going with
go out with took me to a movie. I did this. We just wanted to be nice to the
Across Down not want to be there, at all. Sitting next old folks and not make them move!!!!
1. He’s often toasted? 1. Wolverine’s weapons to me, coincidentally, was husband In the end, it was fine, and the movie
6. Radar image 2. ‘60s stereos #1, and I remember thinking, I would was great. And now we know that we
10. Remote choice 3. Chameleon’s cousin rather be here on a date with HIM than
14. Blair of a famous 360 4. See 5-Down the boy I was with. Sometimes wishes
15. Lessen, as difficulties 5. With 4-Down, old cinema star
do come true!
16. Chemical suffixes 6. ___ light
17. “The game is ___!” (Sherlock Holmes 7. Rudd in “Ant-Man” But what if the movie is really bad?
line) 8. Analogy words What if you are watching Ashton And if I have
Kutcher, who is usually nice to look
18. Gelt, perhaps
19. Cathy of “East of Eden”
9. Skin
10. Oxford, Ohio, school some think at, but the acting and plot are so ter- learned
20. Some might consider his passing in
2018 as “inconceivable”
is much further south
11. Single
rible that you want to bang your head anything from
on the seat in front of you? “Why not
23. Ashdod to Chevron dir.
24. Reeves role
12. Most itsy-bitsy
13. Start and end of Shabbos? just leave the theater?,” one might ask — living with
25. Publishes, perhaps
26. Owner whose team flew high in 2018
21. U.S. fighters, in WWI
22. Auto racing great Earnhardt
well, movies are now like $30 a person. husband #1 for
And if I have learned anything from
31. Funny ___.com 26. Part of many a Korean name
living with husband #1 for all of these all of these
34. Blade often in crosswords
35. Cash or cop chaser?
27. Fix, as a shoelace
28. Brand with pluses and minuses years, it’s you don’t leave a movie if you years, it’s you
have paid for it. Not unless you can get
36. Start of a famous anti-Semitic book
37. Singer who rose to world fame in 2018
29. Positive vote
30. Jyn or Galen in “Star Wars: Rogue your money back. Funny story (and my don’t leave a
39. Own (up)
40. They make Arad bearable in the
One”
31. Five-star Bradley
mother-in-law will love this one). A few movie if you
years ago we went to the movies and
summer, for short
41. Famous Amos
32. Suggest
33. Talk out of then I had to pay a visit to the restroom. have paid for it.
42. Supplement 37. Prefix with profit Well, the restroom looked like a boys
43. Comeback star of 2017 who fell 38. Direction follower? hockey team had had its way with it — have to get seats online before we go to
precipitously in 2018 39. NYC freeway named after a N.Y. and there was no attendant in sight. I the movie. (Well, we learned that after
47. Some gifts for mom governor
was so appalled that I called the theater this past week when we had to sit in
48. Bank letters 41. Checklist item
49. New School deg. 42. It may be shared on an airplane and got gift certificates for free movies!! two different rows, but then the nice
52. He lost billions (in stock) in 2018 44. Means of escape In any event, movies are an experi- man moved without us asking and we
57. Make like Egypt in ‘67 45. Marzipan, e.g. ence — you come in, find your seat — I got to sit next to each other.)
58. Competent 46. Tucked away usually like the one with no seats in Man, it was so much easier in the
59. One to stand for 49. Kind of bias
front of it so I can crack my bad knee olden days… But maybe it’s just me.
60. Washington bills 50. Guitar parts
61. Kind of admiral 51. Say amen during the movie. I sneak in some Who out there likes the assigned
62. Hotel offering 53. Avodah ___ snacks because the snacks are more seating? Next time you go, give us a
63. 7 and 11, e.g. 54. Ride offerer expensive than the movie (yes, hus- holler….
64. The Israeli Defense Force, e.g. 55. Traif chowder band #1’s influence again — $10 for
65. Josh 56. Fringe color, in the Bible
soda and peanut M&Ms. Do you know Banji Ganchrow of Teaneck really loved
57. Be lovey-dovey
how many bottles of soda and bags “Bohemian Rhapsody” and now Alexa
of M&Ms you can buy for $10?!?!?!?) knows to play Queen all day long….
The solution to last week’s puzzle is on page 34.

32 JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018

 Obituaries

Paul Berko Hilda Luria Gertrude Tucker

Paul Berko, 89, of Paramus, formerly of Clifton, died
December 21.
He founded Walden Farms and was a past president
and longtime member of the Clifton Jewish Center.
Predeceased by his wife Lorraine in 2004 and a
sister Pauline Boloker (Sol), he is survived by sons
Alan (Peggy), Daniel, and Mitchell (Robin); brother,
Jerome (Henrietta); seven grandchildren, and three
great-grandchildren.
Donations can be made to the Clifton Jewish Center.
Arrangements were by Robert Schoem’s Menorah
Chapel, Paramus.
Curt E. de Jonge
Curt E. de Jonge of Fort Lee died December 20.
Born in Germany, he was an executive in the
glove industry.
Predeceased by his wife, Marion, née Mahler, who
died in May, and a brother, Alfred of Connecticut, he is
survived by daughters Audrey de Jonge of Fort Lee and
Ellen Ozeri of New York City; four grandchildren, and
Hilda Luria, 84, of Teaneck, formerly of Boynton
Beach, Fla., Hopewell Junction, N.Y., and Yonkers, died
December 20.
She was a member of the JCC of Paramus/
Congregation Beth Tikvah and a life member of
Hadassah.
She is survived by her husband of 64 years, David,
daughters, Nina Glaser (Gary) of Oradell, and Susan
Luria (Neil) of Congers, N.Y.; grandchildren, Brad
Luria (Andrea), Sherri Zysman (Harris), Andrew Glaser
(Elissa), and Arielle Glaser, and great-grandchildren,
Seryn, Hanya, Perry, and Asher.
Donations can be sent to Solomon Schechter Day
School of Bergen County, New Milford, or Holy Name
Hospice, Teaneck.
Arrangements were by Robert Schoem’s Menorah
Chapel, Paramus.
The Christopher Family
Gertrude Tucker of Wayne, 96, died December 23.
Predeceased by her husband, N. George Tucker,
she is survived by children, Edmond (Maria)
and Laurence (Risë); grandchildren, Michelle
Eisenberg, Eric and Marc Robinson, and three
great-grandchildren.
Contributions can be sent to WNET/WNYC or
PBS in New York or the Yiddish Book Center.
Arrangements were by Gutterman and Musicant
Jewish Funeral Directors.
201-791-0015 800-525-3834
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Lonni Gruber, 92, of Fort Lee and Hallandale, Fla., MAIN BRANCH
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died December 20. 317 Totowa Ave. 681 Rt. 23 S.
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JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018 33

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34 Jewish Standard DECEMBER 28, 2018

Madoff
FROM PAGE 24
nonprofit victim of the fraud. It didn’t lose
the most money or collapse like other
groups, but for Hadassah, the Madoff story
has never really ended.
(Hadassah’s leadership declined to
speak with JTA, and did not answer ques-
tions sent via email. Beyond the sources
quoted here, JTA reviewed Hadassah
documents and spoke with many former
employees who asked not to be quoted.)
Hadassah, like many other Madoff inves-
tors, started relatively small, putting an ini-
tial stake of $7 million into his care in 1988.
Then, based on the decisions of its invest-
ment committee, Hadassah added an addi-
tional $33 million over the following nine
years, for a total investment of $40 mil-
lion. When Madoff was arrested, the group
thought it had $90 million in the account.
“While the loss of $90 million dollars is
significant, let me reassure you that Hadas-
sah will continue to carry out our mission
in a cost-effective manner,” the organiza-
tion’s president, Nancy Falchuk, wrote in a
confident email to her board soon after the
scandal broke. “This is a painful moment,
when, with the very best of intentions, we
find ourselves victims of the actions of one
man. But it is at these challenging junc-
tures in the history of our people that the
real story is written.” (Nancy Falchuk is a
former board member of 70 Faces Media,
JTA’s parent company.)
In the years following the Madoff scan-
dal, Hadassah began offloading assets. It
closed its Washington, D.C., office and 16
other regional offices. It laid off a quarter
of its staff. It sold property in Jerusalem in
2009 and midtown Manhattan in 2012. In
2011, it spun off Young Judaea, the Zionist
youth movement that it used to fund.
Meanwhile, Madoff continued to dog
the organization. In 2009, a former execu-
tive confessed to an 18-month affair with
Madoff, though she had left the organiza-
tion in 1997. And although the group lost
$40 million in principal investments, it
also had withdrawn $137 million in the
20 years between its first investment and
Madoff’s arrest.
Hadassah, like all of Madoff ’s other cli-
ents, thought that money was legitimate
investment income. But the withdrawals
meant that Hadassah benefitted to the
tune of nearly $100 million dollars from
Madoff, making it a “net winner” — and
subject to a clawback.
Picard settled with the group in 2011,
mandating that it pay back $45 million.
Anything more would prevent Hadas-
sah from being able to “continue to meet
its charitable mission domestically and
abroad,” according to a court document
filed in 2011 by Picard’s office.
“It was never unstable, it was just bleed-
ing,” said Rabinowitz, the former spokes-
man. “I think we managed to do all the sell-
offs and spinoffs slowly enough that people
didn’t really notice that there was this
wholesale selloff of everything Hadassah.”
In 2012, Hadassah appeared to turn a
corner. The group celebrated its 100th
anniversary and inaugurated a massive
new medical tower in Jerusalem that had
cost the organization $363 million. But the
trouble had not ended there. The hospital
descended into its debt crisis the next year.
The Health Ministry report, blaming the
crisis partly on Madoff, also showed that in
2008, mostly before Madoff’s confession,
the hospital was running a $45 million def-
icit. At that same time, Hadassah was in
the process of scaling back its giving.
In 2007, it lowered its annual funding
to the hospital from $40 million to $25
million, a number that later fell to $19 mil-
lion, where it’s at today. And the group
was simultaneously raising its commis-
sion on dollars it funneled to the hospital.
The organization used to take 8 percent
of every dollar donated through it to the
hospital. By 2016, that figure had risen to
14 percent.
The Hadassah organization, the hospi-
tal and the Israeli government reached a
recovery agreement in 2014 for the hos-
pital, which provided some relief. But
Hadassah has seen rocky times since then,
including a mass resignation of doctors in
the pediatric hematology-oncology ward
in 2017 and, this year, a more than $20
million lawsuit against the organization
from the man who says he’s responsible
for guiding them through the debt crisis
and that he was never properly paid.
Hadassah has had some good news in
recent years. This October, it reopened
its Washington, D.C., advocacy office. The
same month, the hospital dedicated the
Milstein Heart Center, a new cardiac divi-
sion. The organization has also launched
a new $92 million capital campaign for
the hospital.
But there’s still the possibility that old
controversy could resurface. In 2014, the
former deputy executive director of the
hospital, Jacob Schreibman, wrote an
email to the Israeli state comptroller claim-
ing that the organization improperly took
$100 million from the hospital in 1990. The
comptroller passed the tip onto the attor-
ney general.
JTA has learned that in Hadassah’s view,
that money represented surplus donations
that the hospital freely returned to the orga-
nization. But when it learned of the email,
the organization decided not to comment
on it publicly. Nor did it respond to a ques-
tion about the $100 million this week.
“It appears that we are never going to
have any peace and quiet,” wrote Audrey
Shimron, the executive director of the
organization’s offices in Israel, in an inter-
nal email about the accusation in 2014.
“Just when we think, that we are getting to
a resolution, something new, unexpected
and distasteful looms on the horizon.”
What doesn’t kill you makes you … more
financially stable
At least one organization appears to have
come out of the Madoff fraud more stable
than before. Like other organizations, the
Local/Jewish World
America-Israel Cultural Foundation lost its
entire endowment of $13.7 million.
But a year after Madoff ’s arrest, the
organization was celebrating its 70th anni-
versary at a gala in Carnegie Hall.
“We have done remarkably well for
coming out of the recession, to have a
substantial impact for our mission,” said
David Homan, the organization’s executive
director, which provides grants to prom-
ising Israelis studying the arts. Homan,
who started in the job in 2006, is quick to
note that he did not decide to invest AICF’s
money with Madoff. “We were able to raise
and secure funds to support every com-
mitment to our artists, hold new auditions,
and continue our programs,” he said.
When the news about Madoff broke,
AICF found itself on the hook for hun-
dreds of students’ tuition bills for the
spring semester. The organization scram-
bled, and managed to replace its fraudu-
lent Madoff funds with donations from a
rising class of Israeli philanthropists, like
the Ted Arison Foundation and the Azrieli
family, heirs to a cruise line mogul and a
real estate developer, respectively.
The Arison Foundation, says Homan,
was particularly critical — pledging $2.5
million in funding over five years right
after the Madoff scandal broke. That
money helped grow the group’s opera-
tions as well. Now, it and its affiliates have
boards in the United States and Canada as
well as Israel, and it’s increasing its philan-
thropic base in Germany.
“There were some incredible Israelis
who stepped forward philanthropically
and placed great value on us,” Homan
said. “It was a major catalyst. We were an
organization that had never asked for a lot
from Israel, and then we were an organi-
zation that needed that in order to have
an impact.”
Ohr Torah Stone
FROM PAGE 7
is the country’s social equalizer.”
Rabbi Brander, like Rabbi Riskin, brings
an American sensibility to his job, as well
as his lived understanding of the Israeli
sensibility that also is part of his way
of thinking. “I grew up in America and
was nurtured in America,” he said. “And
I had experiences in Boca that trans-
formed me. And I obviously am growing
in Israel.”
He also has a doctorate in philosophy
— his dissertation was on the history of
synagogue in America — that gives him
an intellectual depth and also the ability
to distance himself and think analytically.
So how do these many ways of think-
ing — the Israeli and the American, the
passionate and the dispassionate — and
the Jewish way of thinking that under-
girds all of it — inform his work?
“I find that in issues of spirituality and
experiential Judaism, there is a certain
JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018 35
The organization has still not regained its
full strength. Its budget is about $2.5 mil-
lion, as opposed to $3 million before the
fraud. And it’s scaled back the number of
scholarships it gives from around 1,000 to
400, though Homan says that’s a matter of
refocusing priorities as well as the smaller
budget. And after a major dip in its employ-
ees following Madoff, AICF is back to a staff
of 11 full- and part-time employees.
The foundation also got some good news
last year when a clawback suit against
it was dismissed. Despite the decreased
numbers, Homan says he’s pleased with
how the past decade has gone.
“We’re fortunately one of the only orga-
nizations to suffer those types of losses to
come back and thrive,” he said.
Before the Madoff scandal hit, Coltin
was planning to write a book about the
Lappin Foundation’s success in Boston —
and how to take it national. Ten years later,
she’s managed to keep the once-moribund
organization alive. But scaling it nationally
has remained out of the question — and the
book’s manuscript sill sits in a filing cabi-
net near her desk.
“Before Madoff, the sky was the limit in
terms of the kind of programs we could cre-
ate for Jewish living and learning,” she said.
“In that sense, there’s a loss. But I feel proud
that we’re doing so much. I can only imag-
ine how much more we could have done.”
Robert Lappin is more sanguine. Having
seen his fortunes rise and then abruptly
fall, he’s just happy that his philanthropic
work didn’t disappear. He said that even if
he had the opportunity to talk to Madoff
now, he’d just ignore him.
“He was a flawed character and I think
he got caught up in his own machinations
and he enjoyed the good life that that gave
him,” Lappin said. “But he’s a miserable
human being.” JTA WIRE SERVICE
richness to the Israeli experience that I
haven’t seen in America,” he said. “And I
often have found that thought processes
or organizational structures that I know in
America have enriched what I do in Israel.
“So there is a yin and a yang there. It
goes back and forth.”
He combines the Israeli spirituality,
which, he says, traces back to the chasidic
world, and to Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook,
Israel’s first Ashkenazi chief rabbi, with
the American understanding of the impor-
tance of data. “You have to be data driven
when you are spending Jewish communal
money,” he said.
Leading Torah Ohr Stone to further
growth and innovation is an ambitious
undertaking. “Yes, it is, but I am blessed
to be following Rabbi Riskin, one of the
great leaders of the Jewish world,” Rabbi
Brander said. “You have to be ambitious if
you try to build on his legacy.”
There’s information on Ohr Torah Stone
at its website, ots.org.il.
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36 JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018

  Real Estate & Business

Miron adds
client-care
manager
Miron Properties has welcomed
Maureen Lyons-Brennan to its
team of dedicated real estate pro-
fessionals. As client-care manager
at Miron, Maureen brings over
20 years of experience in opera-
tions, administration, client rela-
tions and sales support to her vital
real estate role. She is a highly sea-
soned and capable team player,
known for taking charge of her
responsibilities and seeing every
detail through from start to fin-
ish while providing valuable assis-
tance in many areas.
A major part of her work
involves interfacing with all of the
company’s team members and
providing thorough, enthusiastic
customer service to every client.
Her diverse duties include sched-
uling showing appointments,
appraisals, certificate of occu-
pancy inspections, and photo
shoots. As a licensed realtor, Mau-
reen also often accompanies cli-
ents on their home inspections,
walk-throughs, and closings. She
is a well-organized, adaptable
multitasker and problem solver,
with excellent customer service
skills that are always accompa-
nied by a big smile and calm-
ing reassurance.
Born and raised in Jersey City,
Maureen holds a bachelor’s degree
in marketing from St. Peter’s Uni-
versity. She is a lifelong resident of
New Jersey who has lived in Fair-
view for more than 25 years. Mau-
reen appreciates Bergen County
coupled with its proximity to
New York City. She has served on
the school board, taught ESL and
adult literacy, and volunteered at
the food bank/mission in Fairview.
To contact Maureen, call her at:
(301) 362-0459, or email her at:
Maureen@MironProperties.com.
For additional information, please
visit www.MironProperties.com
Englewood Health recognized by
American Cancer Society, Healthgrades,
CareChex, and NJ Sharing Network
Englewood Health has again been nationally rec-
ognized as a leader in providing exceptional and
safe patient care by Healthgrades and CareChex
— an information service of Quantros, Inc. — as
well as by the American Cancer Society and the
NJ Sharing Network. According to an analysis by
Quantros, the health system is among the top 10
percent in the nation and in New Jersey for over-
all medical care, medical excellence, and patient
safety in major clinical areas.
At a recent awards ceremony held at Engle-
wood Hospital, representatives from Quan-
tros and Healthgrades, another health rating
agency, presented medical excellence and
patient safety awards in the following clinical
areas: cardiac surgery, cardiology, gastroen-
terology, general surgery, oncology, neurosur-
gery/orthopedic surgery, vascular surgery, and
women’s health.
Additional awards included the Inaugu-
ral Community Partner Award presented by
the American Cancer Society and the Health
Resources & Services Administration (HRSA)
Gold Award presented by the NJ Sharing Net-
work. The College of Healthcare Information
Management Executives (CHIME) also named
Englewood Hospital as One of Healthcare’s Most
Wired Hospitals for the fifth consecutive year.
“Receiving national recognition for our care is
truly humbling,” said Warren Geller, president
and CEO of Englewood Health. “Each and every
one of these honors is a testament to the dedica-
tion of our staff to ensure that our patients have
the best possible experience and outcome.”
Among the highlights:
• Named among the top 5 percent in
the nation for patient safety in 2018
by Healthgrades
• Recipient of the Healthgrades 2018 Patient
Safety Excellence Award
• One of Healthgrades America’s 50 Best
Hospitals for Vascular Surgery in 2019
(Only New Jersey hospital)
• Ranked top 10 percent in the nation
for patient safety by CareChex for
overall medical care, cancer care, heart
failure treatment, vascular surgery, and
gastrointestinal care; and top 10 percent
in the nation for medical excellence by
CareChex for major neuro-surgery
• Healthgrades 5-Star recipient for hip
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JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018 37
Real Estate & Business/D’var Torah
Shemot: What’s in a name?
A
s a mohel, I am often asked for
input and advice when parents
are choosing their newborn
son’s name. The inquiries could
be regarding the meaning of a name and its
connotations, whether the name they like is
appropriate, if it’s okay to name after some-
one who died due to illness, God forbid, and
other questions. Traditionally, the name of
a Jewish baby boy is given at the time of
the bris, the circumcision, after the proce-
dure is completed and blessings are given
to the baby and his parents. This is the time
when the neshama, the Godly
soul, enters into the baby and
a name is intrinsically con-
nected to the soul.
But what’s really in a name?
Shemot, this week’s Torah
portion, starts by count-
ing each of the names of the
descendants of Israel that
went to Egypt. Our Sages ask,
why does our parshah count
Rabbi
them, if they were already
Yossi Katz
counted in the previous par-
Lubavitch on the
Palisades, Tenafly,
shahs? Why do they need to
be counted again?
Orthodox
The Midrash offers
two answers.
First, this teaches that after 210 years
of exile in Egypt, slavery, and torture, the
Hebrews kept their Jewish names and did
not assimilate. They went down to Egypt
with those names and they returned with
the same Jewish names.
The other response is based on Isaiah
(40:26): “He Who counts the stars, calls
them all by name”. The Jews are compared
to the stars. When we count something, it is
to appreciate its value. As the Hebrews were
about to begin and endure the long Exile,
they were counted, to ensure they won’t be
lost and forgotten. By giving them a name,
they become eternal like stars.
When two answers are offered in
response to the same question, there has
to be a connection between them. In our
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38 JEWISH STANDARD DECEMBER 28, 2018
Meet your fitness goals
case, the connection is that the strength at the Wayne Y in January
that made it possible for the Hebrews to go
through the hard Exile without assimilating Start your new year off right at the Wayne Y with a membership special
came from the counting and naming they through January 31. New members will pay no joiner fee and receive the MyFit
received. We see from this that a name has “get started” fitness package (valued at $400) at no charge. The Y can help
a special power. A name is not just a way to members reach their fitness goals and start living a healthier lifestyle.
identify someone. Your name defines your A Y facility membership includes:
identity and the way you are in life. Accord-
ing to Kabbalah, the name is the channel in • Indoor pool • Group exercise classes
which a person receives his spiritual energy. • Fitness center included in membership fee
Perhaps now we can understand why • Gymnasium • Free adult sports
this parshah (and the second book of the • Tennis, racquetball and • 12 week wellness coaching program
Torah) has such an apparently irrelevant squash courts • Free child watch and game room
title, which seems to not ade- • Outdoor sports and recreation field • Free parent/child classes
quately represent the story • Access to performances in • Free family events
of the Exodus. Our names the 400 seat Rosen PAC
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ence in who we are and what get started today. For more information, call the Y’s Welcome Center, (973)
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mark us forever. metroymcas.org/join.
It’s written that in merit of
three things, our ancestors
were redeemed from slavery
in Egypt: because they kept New computer vision technology
their Hebrew names, their
language, and their tradi-
cues the driver who’s distracted
tional clothing. technology into consumer electronics.
BRIAN BLUM
When sharing this with parents of On the company’s website, you can see
Here’s a secret about self-driving cars:
a newborn, the choosing of the name images of people gesturing with their
They won’t be entirely autonomous for
takes a whole new dimension. It’s not just hands rather than clutching a mouse or a
quite some time. The near future belongs
about your favorite artist or a melodic keyboard to operate PCs and smart TVs.
to semi-autonomous vehicles, which do
pronunciation. It’s about facilitating and Eyesight’s facial analysis can also suss out
most of the driving but pass over control to
giving over to your newborn child the details like age and gender to present rel-
a human behind the wheel at certain points
qualities for him to be a good person that evant content (read: ads) to viewers.
But how will the car know if the driver
will reach personal fulfillment and be In the consumer space, Eyesight has
is ready and alert for the transfer?
able to help others. Similarly, when we deals with NTT Docomo and Sony in
Israeli computer vision company Eye-
name after deceased family members, in Japan. Sony is launching a portable pro-
sight uses a single camera located near the
addition to honoring our loved ones, it jector called the Xperia Touch with eye-
infotainment system or above the instru-
is with the intention that our child will Sight gesture controls built in.
ment cluster, plus proprietary algorithms
inherit the positive character traits from That’s what Eyesight was working on
and artificial intelligence (AI) to judge if
that person. In the same way that the originally in cars too – the ability to con-
the driver is prepped to take the wheel.
keeping of Jewish names in Exile was the trol entertainment and telephone system
Even in a standard vehicle equipped
cause for redemption from Egypt, may touch-free.
with Eyesight technology, if you’re not
our continued keeping of Jewish names “With your finger, you can do a small
paying attention your steering wheel will
bring the ultimate redemption, with the circle motion to the right or left to turn
vibrate or beep. It’s like Mobileye for dis-
coming of Mashiach, Amen. volume up and down,” Shmuel says. You
tracted driving. could flash one finger to call home, two
There’s a big opportunity here: In 2020, fingers to call your office or hold your
new Euro NCAP (New Car Assignment palm flat to answer an incoming call.
J
Program) rules come into effect, requir- But as the Euro NCAP rules loomed,
im
im
ing any manufacturer wishing to receive a “the market came to us,” Shmuel explains.
5-star safety rating on its models to have a “Sometimes, a market requires a long edu-
driver-monitoring system installed. cation for a new technology. Here, the mar-
Eyesight just raised $15 million to drive ket said, ‘Don’t educate us, we know what’s
the expansion of its vehicle AI computer-
vision system. All told, the company has
coming.’ We need driver monitoring sys-
the
the
tems to understand the state of the driver.”
raised nearly $50 million, CEO Gideon
Shmuel says, including a $20 million RESIDEN
That includes detecting the direction of
a driver’s gaze, pupil dilation, eye open-
investment in 2016 from Chinese investor WE
ness and head position to gauge drowsi-
Kuang-Chi. ness vs.• attentiveness. Att
China’s carmakers are prominent on A Chinese bus company is interested in De
Eyesight’s client prospect list. In June, Eye- having Eyesight monitor whether its driv-
W
CALL
sight joined forces with Soling Industrial,
a Shenzhen-based automotive integrator TODAY
ers are eating, smoking, talking on the
phone or doing anything else that could
201- 6
with sales in more than 60 countries and
clients including Mazda, Toyota and Fiat.
put passengers in jeopardy.
For more information, visit eyesight-
tech.com.
We Eyesight
do initially integrated not its trans ISRAEL21C.ORG
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