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INSIDE

MA Chadash

By Tuvia Brodie . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

No One Is Home

By Dave Kiel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Withholding UN Funding

By Ron Jager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

The Taxibot . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

The Dahlan Inquiry

By Samuel Sokol . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

The Oleh Chronicle:

David Bedein

By Samuel Sokol . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Under the Sun

By Rabbi Dov Lipman . . . . . . . . 8

UN Give and Take

By Larry Gordon. . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Chessed Corner

By Rochelle Maruch Miller . . . 10

Investing in Israel

By Aaron Katsman . . . . . . . . . . . 11

A Very Special

‘Aliyahversary’

By Shmuel Katz . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Focus on Fashion

By MIRI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Chelm-on-the-Med

By Daniella Ashkenazi. . . . . . . 14

Shmu’s Shmooze

By Shmuel Katz . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Letters to the Editor. . . 16

WWW.KOLEINU.CO.IL VOLUME I ISSUE 5 APRIL 13, 2011

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MA Chadash: News From Maale Adumim

B Y T U V I A B R O D I E

In September 2011, the Municipality of Maale

Adumim will expand a special school called NIRIM, which is completing its in-augural year. This school is for students who have tested at normal intelligence but who have demonstrated emotional and behavioral issues in the regular school setting. For the current year, the oldest child age for admission had been set at 12; for September 2011, the oldest age for admission will be set at 13. Ac-cording to Aliza Azarzar, school princi-pal, the typical student best suited for this program is one who has become so frustrated at school that regularly trained teachers, in a regular school setting, are not equipped to help the student learn.

With this program, the student’s school experience is organized to cre-ate an enhanced learning environment where teachers, working with specially trained adults, focus on the class curric-ulum in ways that help students devel-op. Each child’s progress is monitored daily, and emotional support will be available throughout the school day.

The school is located on Tsemach HaSadeh.

According to Ms. Azarzar, the program has three goals: “fi rst, to give the student reason to feel happy coming to school each day; second, to help each student discover his or her strengths; and third, to help the student feel successful enough to return to a regular school setting.”

To help ensure that these goals are achievable, classes will be small, per-haps no larger than eight. Also, each class will have multiple assistants and teachers, perhaps as many as four, de-pending on the number of students in each class and the needs of those stu-dents.

Esther Perez, manager of special ed-ucation for Maale Adumim, feels that a program like NIRIM is designed to give each child an opportunity to build school successes—and to feel success-ful. She is pleased that Aliza Azarza has taken charge of this program.

Maale Adumim parents who are in-

terested should speak to the teachers and principal of their child’s current school to discuss how the NIRIM pro-gram might benefi t the specifi c needs of their child. In addition, Esther Perez’s of-fi ce is conveniently located in the city’s central municipal building, and she wel-comes those who wish to make an ap-pointment to see her.

Tuvia Brodie has a PhD from the University of

Pittsburgh. He has worked at the University

of Pittsburgh and at American Express. Before

moving to Pittsburgh, he lived in Manhattan

for seven years. He and his wife, Shaina, made

aliyah in August 2010 and currently live in

Maale Adumim.

When The Lights Are On But No One’s Home

B Y D A V E K I E L

Jerusalem of Gold—the city that’s close to every Jewish heart and soul. We all mention Jerusalem in our daily prayers and dream of living in this holy city. Many of those who can’t currently realize this dream have built or pur-chased a home in Jerusalem, though they may reside at present in different parts of the world. These Jerusalem real-estate owners are fulfi lling an impor-tant mitzvah and preparing the ground for their future permanent aliyah or at least aliyah l’regel, spending Sukkot, Pesach, or other holidays in the comfort of their home in Jerusalem.

While most homeowners would not dream of leaving their precious invest-ment uninsured—all the more so when they are not residing full time—they are

unaware that their insurance policy may not provide the appropriate coverage.

Any untenanted (unoccupied) prop-erty is understandably more at risk. A burst pipe, a break-in, or a fi re—G-d for-bid—that goes undetected will cause much more damage than if detected im-mediately. For this reason, all insurance policies in Israel stipulate that if unoc-cupied, an additional premium is called for, as well as preventive measures like shutting the main water, gas, and elec-tricity fl ow to the home while away and regular visits by family, friends, or pro-fessional property managers.

Failure to comply with any of these stipulations, unless agreed, written, and authorized by the insurer, will void cov-erage!

Particularly at risk are homeowners with bank mortgages who are insured

through the mortgage bank affi liates that do not address these issues, leaving the client completely exposed and inad-equately insured.

Other problematic issues when in-suring through a mortgage bank in-clude your inability to choose your own plumber for burst-pipe repairs and lack of liability coverage (leaving you unin-sured if sued by someone who had an accident on your property or if your pipes are leaking onto your neighbor’s property), to name just a few.

In conclusion—prayers notwithstand-ing—one would be well advised to be in-sured appropriately!

Dave Kiel is the general manager of the

Centurion division at Elad Insurance Agency

with 27 years of experience providing all

insurance needs for Anglos, foreign residents,

and tourists in Israel.

The NIRIM school in Maale Adumim

3April 13, 2011

4 April 13, 2011

Withholding American Funding Of The United NationsB Y R O N J A G E R

Richard Goldstone’s Washington Post op-ed retracting the central conclusions of his earlier report is something of an earth-quake. Despite his at-tempt to apologize for his 2009 report by the United Nations Hu-man Rights Council, which caused a mod-ern-day blood libel and one of the deepest rifts between Israel and the international commu-nity, its bottom line was simple and conclusive: Israel had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Operation Cast Lead, by intentionally targeting civilian population.

Goldstone’s Jewishness gave the re-port special weight and an aura of ob-jectivity. All supporters of Israel should reject Goldstone’s pathetic attempt to correct the irreparable damage done to Israel when he paved the way to de-monize and delegitimize Israel across the globe. The United Nations, which has consistently and obsessively con-demned Israel at every opportunity in recent years, has shown that it can no longer fulfi ll its historic mission and should not be funded by the American taxpayer any longer. Read the report and

you will clearly see that Goldstone gave an erroneous picture of what it is like to face an enemy that is devoid of any hu-manitarian considerations, and he gave

no indication that Israel has the right and the duty to de-fend its citizens. Af-ter the years of in-cessant shelling of Israel’s south, dras-tic action was in-evitable. Goldstone never even men-tioned Hamas’s use of its own civilian

population as a hiding place for weap-ons and terrorists and as human shields, or its booby-trapping of buildings with civilian inhabitants. Hamas established military command centers in hospitals and UN-affi liated schools.

Hamas also exploited the relative weakness of the rockets that it sent into Israel; due to Israel’s home-front prepa-ratory efforts, physical damage was man-ageable, yet the world never showed in-terest in or took note of how deeply the Kassam attacks terrorized the pop-ulation in Israel’s south, making the ex-tent of Israel’s retaliation seem dispro-portionate.

Goldstone willingly created the im-pression that Israel was acting cruelly out of choice, never presenting Israel’s

actions as a response to Hamas’s system-atic targeting of Israeli civilians.

Goldstone, being only the most re-cent example of a “useful idiot,” enabled his biased and dishonest investigation to have a toxic effect everywhere in the “soft power” battlefi eld—in diplomat-ic and legal forums, in the print, broad-cast, and Internet media, throughout university campuses, and in the global public discourse. Goldstone poisoned Is-rael’s name. In the physical battlefi eld, where the IDF’s fi nest put their lives on the line, the Goldstone Report gave mor-

al support to our enemies, encouraging them to believe that they could kill us not only with impunity, but with ac-tive international empathy and support. Goldstone endangered the lives of all of Israel’s citizens on the battlefi eld as well as in the major population centers in the south of Israel. So much for Gold-stone’s penitence.

As the UN prepares for the next major anti-Israel event this September, when the nations of the world plan to cooper-ate with the enemies of Israel and vote in favor of a virtual Palestinian Arab state, the members might want to con-sider that the one-sided anti-Israel res-olutions over the years have led to the point where the majority of Israel’s cit-izen and politicians have absolutely no trust in the UN.

The public in Israel will dismiss the expected resolution concerning the Pal-estinian Arab state and demand of its po-litical leadership to respond to this lat-est attempt to attack Israel in the spirit of the Goldstone Report. The UN’s credi-bility and impact will be seriously weak-

ened, keeping in mind that the Muslim revolt in the majority of the Arab na-tions in the Middle East is a byproduct of the hypocrisy and neglect of UN in-stitutions.

The very nations that sit on the UN Human Rights Council are the ones whose leaders have attacked their own people with jets and tanks, refusing to respect the most basic human rights of their citizens.

In response to this expected devel-opment, the Obama administration has the opportunity to send a message to

the leaders who are undermin-ing American interests and dis-regarding the expectations of Obama, who has led the de-mand of respecting the dem-ocratic rights of the masses demonstrating for change and democratic reform in the Arab nations.

Obama can show the world that he is serious about his ad-ministration’s intentions by acting consistently and proac-tively. Halting American fund-ing of the UN will send the

right message: that America no longer condones the use of the UN for attack-ing Israel exclusively, rather than us-ing the resources of the UN to promote democratic reform and upholding hu-man rights in all of the nations that sur-round Israel.

It has become clear to all that the UN has dealt with Israel as a means of dis-tracting the focus from the nations that are the worst offenders of human rights. Obama, instead of ushering in an era of freedom in the Arab world, will enable Islamic radicals to benefi t from the UN’s continuing obsession with Israel, the only democratic nation in the Middle East. Now is the time to halt American funding of the United Nations.

Ron Jager is a 25-year veteran of the Israel

Defense Forces, serving as a fi eld mental-health

offi cer. Prior to retiring in 2005, he served as the

commander of the central psychiatric military

clinic for reserve soldiers at Tel-Hashomer. Since

retiring from active duty, he has been providing

consultancy services to NGOs, implementing

psychological trauma treatment programs

in Israel. To contact him, e-mail medconf@

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Judge Richard Goldstone at the UN

U.S. President Barack Obama addresses the UN

5April 13, 2011

A ‘Tugboat’ For Airplanes That Saves On FuelB Y K A R I N K L O O S T E R M A N

The idea has been around for a while, but engineers weren’t able to make it work. At least as far as Israel Aerospace In-dustries (IAI) knows, the Taxibot Dispatch Towing system is the world’s fi rst tugboat-like way to tow both wide- and narrow-body commercial airplanes between the gate and the runway without the use of their jet engines.

Developed and tested in a joint ven-ture with Airbus, the environmental-ly friendly semi-robotic towing system could potentially reduce annual fuel costs from $8 billion to less than $2 bil-lion, carbon dioxide emissions from 18 billion tons to less than 2 million tons per year, and noise emissions by a sig-nifi cant margin.

“This is an outcome of the very inno-vation process we are doing at IAI,” says Ran Braier, Taxibot project director and civil robotics director in the company’s Lahav Division. He notes that a team of about 26 people, mostly engineers, worked on building the Taxibot.

Instead of running the engine as the plane taxis to the runway—and if you’ve ever been stuck sitting in a plane on the runway for three hours, you know the problem all too well—jets outfi tted with Taxibot won’t have to turn on the engine until minutes before takeoff.

A Boeing 747 can burn through a ton of jet fuel for every 17 minutes it’s taxiing.

Control In The Pilot’s HandsWhen designing Taxibot, IAI needed

to recognize that pilots were not about to relinquish control over the taxiing process, Braier explains to ISRAEL21c.

“The pilot is the only person who is allowed to be in control of passenger jets because the human factor is one of the greatest causes for accidents. One of the weaknesses [in the link] is the change of responsibility between hu-mans,” he says.

Bottom line: Any towing system must be designed with its controls in the cockpit.

The engineers at IAI also had to clear another major hurdle: Previous attempts at taxiing systems produced too much wear and tear on the nose landing gear, causing breakdowns. Taxibot has been designed to overcome this problem.

“We have a lot of mechanisms that are maintaining the load envelope in real-time, in a way that it doesn’t affect the landing gear,” Braier says, describing in aviation terms how the innovative con-trol system of the Taxibot works.

And, of course, the device was devel-oped with the environment in mind: “‘Green’ is also part of why IAI selected this program among all those we are an-alyzing,” he adds.

The company recently announced a series of successful trials with Lufthan-sa on a Boeing 747 in Germany and on an Airbus in Toulouse, France. Lufthan-sa is a likely fi rst customer, and interest has been expressed by U.S. Airways in Philadelphia.

The business model is fl exible. The Taxibot could be owned by the airline, provided as a service by the airport, or owned and operated by privately held ground-crew companies.

With an estimated cost of about $3 million each, the company aims to sell some 1,500 Taxibots by the year 2020. The return on investment for airlines buying the device directly is expected to be quite rapid—less than two years, depending on the size of the plane.

Taking Off With PilotsDuring trials, IAI showed how the air-

craft’s pilot can steer the plane to the run-way using tiller and braking pedals like those used in regular airplane taxiing.

The use of the Taxibot system re-quires no modifi cation to the airplane and minimal modifi cations to the air-port infrastructure, which will not af-fect existing taxiways and runways.

After the test, Lufthan-sa pilot Bernd Pfeffer stated in his evaluation: “The overall impression is very good, and better than I expected. Steer-ing the aircraft using the Taxibot with all kinds of turns was absolutely to my liking in addition to the accelerating and braking capabilities that were good.

“A big advantage of using the Taxibot is on icy or slippery surfaces where traction is now better, and safety is increased when turning. I wouldn’t change anything at all.” (Is-

rael21c)

Taxibot in action

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6 April 13, 2011

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Fatah’s Dahlan Inquiry Highlights Divisions In Palestinian National Movement

B Y S A M U E L S O K O LNEWS DIRECTOR

While internal Pal-estinian Authority ma-neuvering may seem to hold little interest for the Jewish com-

munity, it is in fact vitally important for our security and well-being to understand what is taking place in Ramallah, only min-utes from our capital in Jerusalem.

The fi ght between “hard-liners” and “moderates” may seem to many Israeli ob-servers to be a confl ict between two vastly similar, and violently anti-Semitic, groups. But there is a signifi cant difference of which one must be aware.

Should the “hard-liners,” led by such men as Marwan Barghouti and Muham-mad Dahlan, gain ascendency, it could mean that the offi cial weight of the Pales-tinian Authority may be mobilized behind violence, going beyond the incitement and diplomatic warfare currently being prac-ticed by “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas.

The difference between Dahlan and Ab-bas has important security ramifi cations for Koleinu’s audience, and as such should be taken quite seriously.

Last week, the Fatah Central Committee an-nounced that it is inves-tigating allegations that former Preventative Se-curity Service head and former central commit-tee member Muhammad Dahlan due to allegations that he is responsible for smuggling Israeli muni-tions to forces loyal to Libya’s beleaguered dic-tator, Muammar Gaddafi . According to a committee spokesman, interference in the internal affairs of foreign nations is against the Fatah faction’s principles and runs contrary to Palestinian interests.

The accusations against Dahlan stem from a report in the Algerian newspaper Al-Shuruq that Dahlan and several oth-er Palestinians were “involved in a deal to supply weapons from Israel to Muam-mar Gaddafi .” The paper cited Omar El-Khadraoui, described as a member of the political leadership of the Libyan rebels, who accused Dahlan of arranging a ship-ment of “proscribed” Israeli weapons to Tripoli onboard a Greek ship. Libyan

rebels claimed that the munitions were used against their positions in the con-tested city of Misrata and that they were marked with Israeli symbols, includ-ing the Star of David. However, images of the weapons shown on Al-Jazeera did not appear to bear any such markings.

Dahlan expressed anger at Al-Jazeera over its reporting of the story, denounc-ing what he called the network’s “bad in-tentions.”

A second Palestinian named Khaled Salam was also named as a party to the arms deal, but Fatah sources claim that he has no connection to the movement and that he is not being investigated.

The investigation highlights the acri-monious relationship between Dahlan and PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who has been working hard to minimize the former Gaza strongman’s infl uence in recent months.

Abbas has taken a series of steps against Dahlan, including reducing the number of policemen outside his resi-dence from four to two, shutting down the offi ces of Dahlan’s “Tomorrow’s Pal-estine” satellite channel, purging his sup-porters from key ministerial and securi-ty postings, and forming a committee to scrutinize Dahlan’s “insolence.”

Dahlan’s membership in the Fatah movement was suspended in December

amidst allegations that he was forming a militia outside of Palestinian Authori-ty control in order to stage a coup. The rivalry stems in part from the former se-curity chief’s criticism of the Palestinian president’s perceived weakness vis-à-vis Israel and his willingness to make what Dahlan believes to be “very dangerous compromises.”

Dahlan, who has been working to re-build his power base in the West Bank after leading Fatah’s forces to defeat in the 2007 Gaza civil war, has been a tough critic of the current Palestinian leader-ship.

Despite being accused of running a massive racketeering operation dur-ing his time commanding the PA’s secu-rity forces in Gaza and charges that he siphoned taxes collected at the Karni border crossing into a personal bank ac-count, Dahlan has positioned himself as a reformer and has accused President Ab-bas and his supporters of corruption.

Among the charges leveled at Dah-lan, who some Palestinians believe to be America’s favored candidate to succeed Abbas, is his interference in Prime Min-ister Salam Fayyad’s government.

According to Palestinian news sources, in 2010 Dahlan attempted to “maneuver a cabinet reshuffl e,” in pursuit of which he allegedly offered several prominent Gazans ministerial positions without the knowledge of Abbas or Fayyad.

Dahlan spoke to the Al-Arabiya satel-lite station in January, following the sus-pension of his Fatah membership, blast-ing reports that he called “humiliating to the Fatah movement.”

“Accusing me of conspiring against Ab-bas is unacceptable. These words aren’t part of the Fatah lexicon. They’re only helping Hamas and Israel and making it hard on the movement,” he stated.

Should the young guard loyal to Dah-lan gain power, we should all be wor-ried, for Fatah may drop the veneer of civility that it shows the world under Abbas. Abbas is bad, but Dahlan would be worse.

Mahmoud Abbas and Muhammad Dahlan

7April 13, 2011

The Oleh Chronicle: A Profi le Of David Bedein

B Y S A M U E L S O K O L

David Bedein gave me my start as a reporter. A short and friendly 60-year-old man who came to Israel on his 20th birthday, Bedein exudes a jovial pres-ence that makes one want to open up and confi de one’s most private thoughts. This is a useful, and carefully cultivat-ed, trait in a man whose living depends upon success in ferreting out facts that the subjects of his stories would rather keep hidden.

He is one of Israel’s most senior foreign newsmen, having worked as a radio cor-respondent for CNN and the Middle East bureau chief for the Philadelphia Bulle-

tin, produced documentaries for the BBC, and been retained by the Los An-

geles Times, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.

Operating in a cramped of-fi ce in Jerusalem’s Bet Agron In-ternational Press Center, Bedein is a whirlwind, taking call after call, reading through faxes and sending e-mails, all while keep-ing up a running dialogue as I sit in an old and battered armchair he keeps around for his numer-ous guests and interviewees.

An American immigrant orig-inally from Philadelphia, David lives with his wife, Sara (who came from Cleveland on the last voyage of the SS Shalom in 1966), in Efrat, where they are the proud parents of Noam, Rivka, Elchanan, Leora, Meira, and Ruchama.

He also runs the Israel Resource News Agency in Jerusalem’s Bet Agron. (Beit Agron was once the nerve center of Mid-dle East reporting, but now the only re-maining tenants are the Israel Resource News Agency; the Yomiuri Shimbun; and the Israeli Government Press Offi ce.)

What one sees today is a far cry from the building’s heyday in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when it was home to 40 in-ternational media outlets and IDF Radio.

However, with the decline of reve-nues for print media in the face of the Internet, fewer and fewer newspapers maintain full bureaus here.

His agency, however, is still thriving, and some of the biggest stories of the past decades were broken in his small, unas-suming offi ce, cluttered with reference volumes, sefarim, and propaganda leaf-lets produced by every organization from the PLO to the Likud and Yesha.

Due to his background as a social worker and community organizer, Be-dein decided that the best thing to do with people who, in his words, are “sell-ing a bill of goods” is to report what they say in their own language, among their own people.

As such, Bedein began closely follow-ing what Arafat was saying in Arabic after the start of the Oslo process. He hired a Palestinian television crew and retained a veteran translator who had been with the highest echelons of Israe-li intelligence to sit around and watch Palestinian television.

He then used the footage to put to-gether the famous Arafat tapes, in which the Palestinian Authority leader could be heard speaking in fl amboyant Arabic, negating his promises to the Israelis and Americans. Many people who felt relief at the thought of the end of the Arab-

Israeli confl ict were un-derstandably angry when Bedein showed the world that their celebration was premature.

During a face-to-face interview with the PLO chieftain in Ramallah, Be-dein used his social work/criminology background to calmly ask Yasser Arafat about his incitement and endorsement of those who murder Jews. Arafat gave his word that he would monitor and oversee the Palestinian me-dia and stop incitement.

Later, during a press conference at the U.S. State Department, Bedein challenged Arafat regarding his broken promise. Arafat, feel-ing cornered, began gesticulat-ing wildly and ranting in a loud voice, denying any anti-Semi-tism on the part of the Palestin-ian Authority. “I love the Jews!” Arafat screamed. “I love the Jews!” It was a poor attempt at spin that in the end went unre-ported.

That was the beginning of the Israel Resource News Agen-cy’s effort to report the real sto-ry of the Oslo Accords.

“The most important scoop, which was on April 24, 1996, was when we had the only crew—it was a Palestin-ian television crew—inside the Palestin-ian Legislative Council when they did not cancel the PLO covenant. Martin In-dyk, the American ambassador, reported to the Clinton Administration and to the U.S. Congress that they did, and on that basis Arafat got into the White House.”

Congress had conditioned Arafat’s ac-ceptance on American soil on his cancel-ing the PLO’s charter, which until today still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.

Indyk and then-Prime Minister Peres perjured themselves, Bedein asserts.

However buoyed I was by David’s en-couragement, it was with signifi cant trep-idation that I began interviewing subjects affi liated with the Palestinian Authority.

One of my fi rst meetings was with Ad-nan Husseini in East Jerusalem. Hussei-ni is the former head of the Islamic trust, known as the Wakf, that controls the Temple Mount and has served as an ad-viser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. He is one of the fi g-ures behind the sporadic violence that breaks out in Arab sections of Jerusalem and has a long history with the PLO.

When we met, in a hotel in a heavi-ly Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem, Hus-seini was accompanied by a burly body-guard wearing a Palestinian fl ag pin on

his lapel, and, frankly, I was intimidated. However, re-membering Bedein in Ra-mallah, I steeled myself and began to ask questions . . .

While daunting at fi rst, such activities become easi-er to conduct with time, and I am now in regular contact with both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

With the impending clo-sure of the Beit Agron press center and the relocation of the Israel Government Press

Offi ce to the Malcha Technological Cen-ter in Jerusalem, just opposite the Mal-cha mall, David’s base of operations will move while still maintaining the task at hand: to reveal the sordid details of the anti-Semitism promoted by the Palestin-ian Authority, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and the network of organizations that act on their behalf.

The center will be named the Na-hum Bedein Center for Near East Pol-icy Research, for David’s brother Na-hum. Nahum died of cancer this past year, leaving behind his wife and four sons. David dedicated the center’s work in recognition of his brother’s advice and counsel over the years. David says that his brother taught him a basic les-son that he applied to working with the media, which was that “you must give service, not just serve,” when you work with a reporter.

Refl ecting on a quarter century of work with the press, David believes that Isra-el’s challenge is not “media bias” per se.

David asserts that “Israel’s detrac-tors have mastered the art of giving ser-vice to the media, making the best use of state-of-the-art public relations, com-bined with charm, hospitality, and pa-tience, packaging their PLO terror state as some kind of humanitarian gesture.”

The challenge, David puts it, is to show the world that the PLO now de-mands the 1947 lines, not the 1967 lines, as the fi rst stage of that conquest.

The uncompromising PLO demand is that Israel withdraw to the 1967 lines and allow for the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees and their descen-dants to repossess the lands where their villages were in 1947, which have been replaced by Bet Shemesh, Ashkelon, Ash-dod, Kiryat Gat, S’derot, and more.

Despite the passivity of the govern-ment of Israel in all matters dealing with PR, it will devolve on the private-ly supported initiatives such as the Na-hum Bedein Center for Near East Poli-cy Research to tackle a diffi cult job with the press.

To learn more about the center or to make a donation, visit http://www. Israel

Behind The News.com.

Nahum Bedein, z”l

David Bedein and family

8 April 13, 2011

Under The Sun: A Survey Of Bet Shemesh News

B Y R A B B I D O V L I P M A N

Bet Shemesh

Celebrates 60th

AnniversaryThe city of Bet She-

mesh is celebrating 60 years since its founding. The city was founded as a development town on De-cember 6, 1950 by immigrants from Iran, Iraq, North Africa, and Romania. It has since grown into a city of close to 100,000 residents from all over the world.

The city has been celebrating its 60th anniversary in many ways. Most nota-bly, a “resident card” has been issued granting Bet She mesh residents dis-counts of 5%–25% off at local restau-rants and stores. A contest was held for a slogan to be used throughout the year of celebrations. The winning entry, “60, And this is just the beginning” was in-cluded in the 60th-anniversary logo, also chosen through a contest.

The 60-year mark has led to numerous events and ceremonies, with a focus on the next 60 years. A recent youth event focused on what the youth want from the city in

the future. There is a general sense among the public that the city has been on “auto-pilot” in terms of how it developed and that the time has come for real planning.

A master transportation plan has been developed in conjunction with the Transportation Ministry. The plan includes widening Highway 38, which connects to Highway 1 to Yerushalayim and Tel Aviv; completing Highway 10, which runs from Bet She mesh to Ramat Bet She mesh and continues towards

Bei tar and Gush Etzyon; and a more con-venient internal north-south road from Bet She mesh to RBS Aleph.

New Project Geared

To Anglo OlimThe community of Nofei HaShe mesh,

under the leadership of Rabbi Shalom Rosner, is ready for its next stage of growth. The community is located be-tween Sheinfeld and Nofei Aviv and is

right next to the new Orot School cam-pus. In just a few years in Bet Shem-esh, Rabbi Rosner has become one of the city’s most popular rabbanim, with weekly parashah shiurim, daf yomi, and fascinating halachah shiurim drawing people from all over the city.

At its inception, the community con-sisted of one block of houses. It is now expanding to include several seven-story buildings with apartments rang-ing from 3 to 5 rooms. The apartments are geared to the dati community with porches for sukkot for every apartment and Shabbat elevators in each building.

For more information about this ex-citing new project please call *3112 or go to www.nofei.co.il.

Dov Lipman teaches at Reishit Yerushalayim

and Machon Maayan in Bet Shemesh. He has

semichah from Ner Yisroel and a master’s degree

in education from Johns Hopkins University and

is also the author of three popular books geared to

teenagers and their parents. In recent years, Dov

has become a community activist in Bet Shemesh.

He can be reached at ddlipman@gmail.com.

The winning 60th-anniversary logo and slogan “60, And this is just the beginning”

9April 13, 2011

UN Give And TakeB Y L A R R Y G O R D O NASSOCIATE EDITOR

That the now infamous Richard Goldstone is a Jew played beautifully into the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda machine run out of the United Nations on the east side of Manhattan. And the self-loathing Jews liked it more than most oth-ers. That even a Jew and someone who was once identifi ed as pro-Israel and char-acterized himself as an ardent Zionist could be so critical as to accuse the Jewish State of war crimes during Operation Cast Lead was simply additional “proof” of the validity of his panel’s assertions.

Now Goldstone has searched his wounded and apparently disturbed con-science, which he previously was able to comfortably suppress. Now that he has come to realize how misguided his ways are, the propagandists are turning the ta-bles and are suggesting that because of his Jewishness he has reversed his thinking and that they had predicted this all along.

For a short time it was just wonder-ful that the UN was able to fi nd a presti-gious South African Jew to brutally exco-riate the State of Israel. They had to know somewhere deep down in the brain trust that does their devious thinking that Goldstone’s Jewishness might someday backfi re on them. And what do you know; it happened more rapidly than anyone has anticipated.

Though the notorious Goldstone Report has had its major anti-Israel points magi-cally repudiated, the reaction of the Unit-ed Nations is, “Sorry, but not so fast, bud-dy.” A UN spokesman said this week that just because the chairman of a commis-sion set up to investigate events does a reverse and comes to the realization that his committee’s research was badly fl awed and that the fi ndings lack credibility, that’s no reason for the resolution condemning the involved parties to be withdrawn.

This approach can only make sense in the UN, and the fact that the anti-Israel fi nding of Goldstone will remain on the books over at that corrupt diplomatic fo-rum does not seem troubling to anyone. To them and a majority of the world’s dip-lomats who make their living lunching and lounging in the corridors of that au-gust body, backtracking on anti-Israel reso-lutions contradicts the raison d’être of the UN in the world today. When reading Gold-stone’s story, one gets a sneaking suspicion that amongst other things he has come to the realization that he has been used as a tool to do potentially irreparable damage to the State of Israel and the Jewish people.

So what exactly did Mr. Goldstone have to say in his piece published in last Fri-day’s Washington Post? Essentially he said that there is no equivalency between the fashion in which the Israeli military conducts itself and the way in which the death merchants and terrorists in Hamas ply their trade. Basically he said that Hamas and its leadership are a bunch of skunks that can’t be trusted (with apolo-gies to the skunks, of course).

“If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document,” he wrote in his op-ed piece. Without parsing words or turning sentences, Goldstone was saying that he was wrong to conclude that Isra-el had intentionally targeted civilians in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead in 2009. He added that while that was so, it was now clear to him that, on the other hand, Hamas had indeed targeted civilians (and continues to do so). He wrote in his piece last week that it was an error on his part and that “In the end, asking Hamas to in-vestigate (itself) may have been a mistak-en enterprise.”

Beyond Goldstone, Israelis needs to grapple with the issue of why it is so im-portant to them to be found in the good graces of such an obviously corrupt and long-standing anti-Israel forum. The anti-Israel frenzy and even deter-mination is such at the UN that despite Goldstone’s re-cantation of his awful and unfounded accusations, the UN will let the report stand, at least for now—repudia-tion and sham document that it is or not.

The biggest challenge to the UN at this point is the search for a mechanism whereby an anti-Israel reso-lution can be reversed. Diplo-mats are scratching their heads as if they have been asked to arrange for the water at Niagara Falls to fl ow upward instead of down. How does the UN go ahead and act in such a way that it favors Israel? This, perhaps, is a move that is not found in their playbook.

The UN, which by its actions of these last many years has made itself ex-tremely irrelevant on any substantive level when it comes to Israel, is plan-ning additional obstacles and diffi cul-ties for the Jewish State in the months ahead. The plan is for the Palestinians to ask the UN General Assembly to grant statehood to Palestine at the an-nual conclave that takes place in New York in September.

The plan would need to fi rst be pre-sented to the Security Council. Howev-er, a provision in UN law allows for the General Assembly to vote on a resolu-tion when the Security Council is dead-locked on an issue or when a majority of its member countries favor a resolu-tion but it is rejected because of a veto by one of the permanent core members (in this instance, the United States).

This is the major reason why PA lead-er Abbas has refused to enter into direct negotiations with Israel and engage in an effort to reach an agreement. Abbas’s obduracy has nothing to do with settle-ment-building. He and his cabinet and cohort believe that they have fi nally fi g-ured out a way to get their state by cir-cumvention and nuances in interna-tional law. While a General Assembly vote can further serve the effort to dele-

gitimize Israel, it is not binding by any application of law. Still, the prospect of having 120 or more countries vote to es-tablish a Palestinian state in and around post-1967 Israel is of serious concern.

Israel is very sensitive to these dra-matic fl ashes of condemnation that are covered in the New York Times and on major network news. They are used by leaders like President Obama, offi cials of European Union countries, and oth-ers to further isolate and pressure Israel. Coverage of the anticipated Palestinian move that papers like Haaretz in Israel and others seem to indicate will check-mate Netanyahu and call into question the entire enterprise and existence of the State of Israel may be troubling but also may be premature.

Alan Baker of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs says of the planned move

by Abbas to unilaterally seek a UN res-olution that will impose a solution on Israel that it is wrought with negative consequences for the Palestinians as well. First, the move would not have the authority to alter the status of the ter-ritories. Further, it would serve to void the basis of the peace process. He writes that it would “undermine the legal ex-istence of the Palestinian Authority and violate commitments by Yasser Arafat to settle all issues through negotiations.”

In addition, Baker says, this ac-tion “would constitute a fundamental breach of the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian In-terim Agreement, thereby releasing Isra-el from its reciprocal commitments.” He says that “this unilateral action toward an imposed solution on Israel will also undermine the international communi-

ty’s reliance on Security Council resolu-tions 242 and 338 which form the foun-dation of all agreements between the parties.” Baker says it would also call into question the integrity and credibil-ity of any Security Council resolutions or agreements that are in place and have been accepted as the basis for resolving confl icts between states.

And fi nally, Mr. Baker states, “It would render as meaningless the signatures of the major powers as witnesses to pre-vious negotiated agreements. It would also be incompatible with provisions of resolutions and agreements requiring negotiated solutions to the Jerusalem and refugee issues.”

All the enthusiasm by Palestinian leaders is about the anticipation of a public-relations coup in September in New York that will temporarily dam-age the image of Israel—but that seems to be the major objective these days of Palestinian leaders. Apparently they are not taking into consideration that the move frees Israel to take unilateral ac-tion as well—including, of course, an-nexation of Judea and Samaria, which is long overdue.

Israel and its friends as well as its crit-ics are fi dgeting and contorting them-selves at the prospect of the Jewish State being vilifi ed by an overwhelming ma-jority of member states of the UN. After all, they may feel it was the UN that dra-matically created and breathed life into the modern State of Israel in 1948, so shouldn’t they have the power and abili-ty to undo or deconstruct whatever it is they may have created?

Clearly the responsible parties in the international community know that this is not the same UN. And more im-portantly, Israelis should not be so alarmed and beside themselves because of the international community’s con-tinued attempts to make Israel a pari-ah in the world. Our biblical commen-tators have said from time immemorial that the destiny of the Jewish people until the time of our Redemption is to be cast in the role of “a sheep surround-ed by seventy wolves.” Israel is indeed that sheep, and the UN states are play-ing their role very convincingly.

Judge Richard Goldstone

Arut

z-7

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10 April 13, 2011

Chessed Corner: Ohr Meir And BrachaB Y R O C H E L L E M A R U C H M I L L E R

Terrorism does not discriminate. Ter-rorists seek out innocent people and at-tempt to garner media attention by caus-ing the greatest possible tragedy. Even when the attacks subside, the pain never dies. Terror attacks do more than cause physical injuries. They crush the spirit.

For Liora Tedgi, founding the Ohr Meir U’Bracha Terror Victims Support Cen-ter was personal. Both her grandfather and her husband had been victims of

horrifi c terrorist attacks. Liora, a moth-er of ten, was herself a victim of terror and knows fi rsthand the effects of such a tragedy. Since 2002, she has dedicated

her efforts to provid-ing support and suc-cor to other victims of terror. Liora set up the organization to re-spond to the unmet, unrecognized needs of victims of terror and their families. Terror attacks destroy the lives not only of those who perish but also of those who sur-vive them.

There are hun-dreds of victims who “fall through the cracks” of the Israeli govern-ment’s aid initia-tive. They do not receive help be-cause they are still in the process of being assessed for disability (which can take two or more years).

Terror attacks do more than destroy buildings and cause physical injury; they cause great psychological duress in individuals and interfere with the longtime livelihood

of families. Many workers lose their jobs because of extended absences from work as a result of their own or a fami-ly member’s injuries, yet often they do not qualify for unemployment subsi-dies. Others are “unrec-ognized” or known as secondary victims, indi-viduals traumatized by having witnessed an at-tack or relatives of vic-tims — people whose lives have been inexo-rably altered due to the death or disability of a beloved family member as a result of an act of terror. The pressures on the family following a terror attack can wreak havoc, straining relationships to the breaking point, leading to divorce, de-pression, chronic unemployment, and dissolution of family functioning.

The grief and pain of losing a loved one or enduring ongoing extensive med-ical treatment can make it diffi cult for many families to cope with the daily

caretaking needs of their children.Other families fall into acute fi nancial

crises and do not have enough money to pay bills, buy food, or fi nd psychological counseling. The Terror Victims Support Center provides support for these vic-tims by offering many services to help rebuild their shattered lives.

Ohr Meir U’Bracha does not use lengthy evaluation processes. It does not have eligibility criteria other than verifying that the individual is a prima-ry or secondary victim of terror. This ex-emplary organization gives immediate assistance whenever possible. Ohr Meir U’Bracha provides numerous services to

victimized families. Its fl agship service is its weekly food distribution project, which brings together volunteers from all over to package and deliver food to 400 families each week.

The organization is open, however, to any provision that will improve the lives of those affl icted, and habitually provides shivah costs and catering ser-vices; hospital visits; psychological and legal services; open-line, 24-hour emer-gency call-in service; weekly and holi-day food distribution; new household electrical appliances; clothes and school supplies; and fi nancial assistance.

Through its Adopt-a-Family program, generous families commit to provid-ing for victimized families’ monthly needs. The center arranges visits to fam-ilies’ homes, to show support and bring

joy, through its Home Visits program. “Big Brothers” are dedicated volunteers who act as mentors to young victims. Through its Family Therapy Vacation program, the center brings families from all over Israel together for a welcome re-spite in their most diffi cult times.

“Our mission is to provide fi nancial and moral support for terror victims and their families,” with the aim of relieving the intense pressure that most of these families endure, Liora explains.

“The organization survives through the generosity of its do-nors worldwide. We are always looking for help, monetary or oth-erwise, and to increase awareness of our non-

profi t organization and the crucial ser-vices it provides.”

Unfortunately, at this critical time before Pesach, a vendor who supplied them with weekly vegetables can no lon-ger offer them his goods at a discounted price. Each week the cost of fresh goods will rise to NIS 10,000. Ohr Meir needs your help now more than ever.

You can touch a victim’s life through a simple act of chessed. Please join Ohr Meir U’Bracha in its noble endeavors by mailing your generous donation to: Ohr Meir & Bracha; P.O. Box 41055; Jerusalem 91410.

Tizku l’mitvot!

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11April 13, 2011

Investing In Israel: It’s Not Just About Real Estate

B Y A A R O N K A T S M A N

With many foreign investors worried about the potential of a real-estate bub-ble occurring in Israel, I have been asked by many tourists here for Passover about other investment alternatives available to gain exposure to the strong Israeli economy. While many of you will ques-tion my opening line about a poten-tial real-estate bubble forming in Israel, some recent data shows that it may be happening. It’s important to note that certain government offi cials have made it a priority to cool off the surging Israeli property market.

The Bank of Israel (BOI) continues to raise interest rates to try and slow down rising home prices. This comes on the heels of other BOI regulations regarding mortgages. Under new guidelines, buyers need to make a down payment of 40% of the price, and take a loan on only 60%.

If this is the case, then how else can foreign investors gain exposure to the incredibly resilient Israeli economy?

EconomyIsrael has successfully made it

through the global economic crisis with-out so much as a scratch. While certain European countries are on the verge of bankruptcy, not only is Israel on fi scal-ly solid ground but the Bank of Israel ac-tually upped its economic growth fore-cast for 2011 to 4.5%. In May 2010, Israel was reclassifi ed as a “developed market” by MSCI, Inc. For investors, this means that you get the stability of a developed country with the strong growth pros-pects of an emerging economy. Sounds like the best of both worlds.

I am of the belief that this change in classifi cation will be a boon for Israeli stocks. In spite of the fact that Israel used to occupy a larger percentage of the emerging-markets index, investments tracking the developed market are so much greater than their emerging coun-terparts that Israel may actually see a net infl ow of investment money looking for Israeli stocks.

Not Just A Tourist

DestinationWith its sandy beaches and living his-

tory, Israel has always been sought af-ter as a tourist destination. Over the last decade, Israel has become a very popu-lar destination for foreign investors as well. Global giants like General Electric, Microsoft, IBM, and Johnson & John-son are only a few of the companies that have made large investments in Is-rael by buying local companies. In fact, Warren Buffet, perhaps the world’s most famous and successful investor, made his largest non-U.S. investment when he purchased Iscar, an Israeli company, for

$4.4   billion. Buffett has since referred to the purchase as a “dream investment.”

How To Capitalize?For many investors, investing in Israeli

stocks is an alternative way of gaining ex-posure to the Israeli economy. While you could open up a local Israeli brokerage account, for many foreign investors this solution is a bit complicated as it entails transferring money to Israel and convert-ing into shekels. Foreign investors may want to look at Israeli stocks that trade in the U.S. In fact, Israel has more compa-

nies trading on major U.S. exchanges than any other foreign country. Not all Israeli companies are created equal and, unfor-tunately, options are limited in mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that fo-cus on Israel. Therefore, investors should speak to a licensed fi nancial adviser expe-rienced with these investments.

RiskIt’s very important to note that these

types of investments carry an element of risk. As some of these companies are not very large, the smallest piece of

news can send their stocks either soar-ing or tumbling. It’s therefore important to speak with your investment adviser to see how, if at all, investing in up-and-coming Israeli companies fi ts into your overall investment portfolio.

Aaron Katsman is a licensed fi nancial

professional in both the United States and

Israel and helps people who open investment

accounts in the United States. Securities are

offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc.,

a registered broker dealer, member FINRA, SIPC,

MSRB, NFA, SIFMA. For more information, call

(02) 624-0995, visit www.aaronkatsman.com, or

e-mail aaron@lighthousecapital.co.il.

12 April 13, 2011

A Very Special ‘Aliyahversary’B Y S H M U E L K A T Z

Rosh Chodesh Nissan dawned with rain in the air. Although it ended late this year, the rain season seemed to have a fi -nal gasp of energy and released one more spate of rain showers before what looks to be the end of the season. In the pouring morning rain, with 200 of their close fam-ily and friends joining in the celebration, Rabbi Jay and Mrs. Ruby Karzen hosted a special celebration for the 25th anniversa-ry of their aliyah.

The Karzens followed their children Tamar and Morris Rubin and Rabbi Uri (himself an army rav) and Mrs. Shelley Kar-zen in achieving their 20-year dream of making aliyah. They celebrated their “ali-

yahversary” and the dedicated service of their children and grandchildren in Tzahal by donating a sefer Torah to the Mitkad Chatmar Etzion army base in Gush Etzion as part of Young Israel’s “Ruby Davidman,

z’l, Redeem a Torah for the IDF” project.

The premise of this program is quite sim-ple: Young Israel in Is-rael solicits congrega-tions from the U.S. and across the globe to do-nate unused, often pa-

sul sifrei Torah for re-furbishment and then donates those sifrei To-

rah for use on Tzahal bases throughout the country. In the 12 years of the program, Young Israel has presented 190 sifrei Torah to various

bases, including the Karzen Torah.As the four busloads of guests pulled

in to the base, the skies looked threaten-ing and ominous. As a cousin of the Kar-zens, I was thrilled to participate but was

concerned about the weather. I remarked to Zion Shenkur, the s’gan mefaked of the unit on base, that although we defi nitely would be blessed by the rains, I hoped that they would hold off for an hour or two, so as not to interfere with the hachnassat se-

fer Torah. He responded to me that he to-tally disagreed. “The more we are incon-venienced, the greater will be the benefi t from Heaven, especially when the incon-venience comes from gish-

mei berachah,” he told me.He got his wish. Despite

the fact that the rains be-gan almost simultaneous-ly with the beginning of the dancing on the way to the beit knesset, no one rushed to get out of the rain, choosing instead to joyously dance with the Karzen family and the Karzen Torah as it slowly made its way through the base. Chayalim (including Benzion Rubin, the Kar-zens’ grandson) energet-ically joined in the cel-ebration and there was a tremendous sense of love and joy in the air.

When the sefer was safely ensconced

in the aron kodesh, Rav Aryeh Menashe, the rav of the base, effusively thanked the Karzens and all their guests for the To-rah and for joining them in celebrating the Torah’s arrival at the base. After tell-ing the guests that the base’s beit knesset had only recently been upgraded and en-larged, with the bimah and aron kodesh having arrived days earlier, he added to thunderous applause that the Karzen To-rah would be the very fi rst Torah of the beit knesset and base.

After the formal hachnassat sefer Torah concluded, Rav Menashe invited all the guests to a lavish breakfast seudat mitzvah in honor of the Karzens. At the seudah, the Karzens were saluted by divrei Torah and divrei berachah from Rabbi Berel Wein, rav of Bet Knesset Hanasi in Yerusha layim and a longtime personal friend of the Kar-zens; Ceec Harrishburg, a leader in the In-ternational Young Israel Movement; Rav Menashe; and Zion Shenker.

Daniel “Mush” Meyer, executive direc-tor of the International Young Israel Move-ment’s Israel Region, thanked the Karzens for their participation in the program and presenting the sefer Torah to Tzahal. He sa-luted their hard work and dedication to

the Jewish people over the years, especial-ly the six months of preparation that had gone into that morning’s celebration.

He added that not only had Young Israel recently brought in the 191st Torah to be refurbished and dedicated to a Tzahal base, but that Young Israel is in discussion with the IDF rabbanut to launch a new kollel safrut, with young so-

frim who will work in the morn-ings on sifrei Torah for the army and learn in the afternoons, in an effort to dramatically step up the program. He then called upon the Karzens to address their guests.

Rabbi Jay Karzen’s message was one of inspiration and leadership. He opened his remarks by saying, “Mishenichnas Nissan marbim be-

simcha,” commenting that this year’s two Adars were too fi lled with tragedy and that he hoped that their Rosh Chodesh Nissan celebration would be the launch-ing of a new period of simcha. He spoke about his pride in being

Rabbi Jay And Mrs. Ruby KarzenJay and Ruby Karzen made aliyah

from Chicago in 1985. Prior to their ali-

yah, Rabbi Karzen served as a highly re-garded rabbi/spiritual leader in the Chi-cagoland area for many years.

Upon making aliyah, Rabbi Karzen founded “Rituals Unlimited” and ar-ranges/conducts/offi ciates at bar/bat mitzvah services for tourists at the Ko-tel and other holy sites. He is also the author of Guide to Jerusalem Funeral

and Burial Practices and runs the ceme-tery and bereavement program for the AACI (Association of Americans and Ca-nadians in Israel).

He also authored the best-selling book Off The Wall, an anthology of hu-morous tales spanning his rabbinic ca-reer.

He teaches Torah to various women’s groups in Jerusalem and is a member of

the Rabbinical Council of America and Young Israel Rabbis. He is currently co-president of the RCA-Israel Region.

Ruby Karzen has served as both na-tional president of AACI and chairper-son of the Jerusalem Region. She spear-headed a successful campaign against curtailing the English-language news on radio and television. Ruby is an inte-rior designer, “Kablanit,” journalist, and teacher in the fi eld of design as well as in feng shui.

The Karzens form a wonderful team and are leaders in communal involve-ment and Israel advocacy; they are a highly regarded scholar-in-residence team.

Their son and daughter (and their spouses), eleven grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren all live in Israel.

Chayalim and guests dance through the rain at the

hachnassat sefer Torah

Rabbi Karzen being greeted by Rabbi Menashe as the Torah is

presented to the Chatmar Etzion base

Rabbi Karzen looks on as his grandson Benzion Rubin, currently serving in the IDF,

dances with the Torah

Rabbi Jay Karzen

13April 13, 2011

able to present the Torah to Tza-

hal, and said that “the real sefer Torah is us, walking and living; we are G-d’s partners.” He add-ed a charge to all those present that “after we leave here, we have to be sifrei Torah, not just in bein adam l’Makom, but also most im-portantly in bein adam l’chaveiro.”

Rabbi Meyer then called upon Ruby Karzen to deliver the fi nal message to their guests. She spoke about the dawn of their person-al aliyah dream in 1964. Her voice cracked several times as her hus-band watched with tears in his eyes as she spoke of their pride in living in Israel and in having their children and grandchildren serve in Tzahal.

“We are Zionists! Religious Zionists! Passionate, fl ag-waving, lump-in-the-

throat Zionists. When we are on the highway driving home and the sign to Je-rusalem appears, I still marvel at the fact that we actually live in Jerusalem. The city of Yerushalayim with all its majes-ty and history and meaning is our home,” Ruby declared. She shared memories of watching her father listening to the radio on November 29, 1947 and seeing tears run down his face as he ticked off coun-tries voting in favor of the establishment of the State of Israel.

She saluted all the chayalim, includ-ing the seven of her children and grand-children who have already served and

continue to serve along with the rest of the young men and women who pro-vide a safe and secure country for us all. She spoke of her pride in being able to give them the gift of the Torah and thanked the friends and family who joined them in supporting the Torah project and in celebrating a truly mo-mentous aliyahversary and closed with a berachah, “Shehechiyanu, vekiymanu, vehigiyanu lazman ha’zeh!”

To learn more about the Ruby David-man, z’l, Redeem a Torah for the IDF project, contact Daniel “Mush” Meyer at iyimisrael@gmail.com.

Morris Rubin, son-in-law of the Karzens, holds

the Torah as Rav Aryeh Menashe welcomes the

celebrants to the base shul.

IYIM executive director Daniel “Mush” Meyer (far left) and President Ceec Harrishburg

present Jay and Ruby Karzen with a certifi cate commemorating their gift to the IDF

Rabbi Jay Karzen surrounded by friends and chayalim as they dance

the Torah through the base.

14 April 13, 2011

B Y D A N I E L L A A S H K E N A Z I

Send Cookies ASAP!When things got dicey in Japan, the

Japanese government put out an urgent request for 300 special Geiger counters made by the commercial wing of the Di-mona nuclear reactor, Rotem Industries.

The Israeli ambassador to Japan made an urgent request, too—that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem send his be-leaguered skeleton staff of four at the Is-raeli embassy a shipment of Purim haman-

taschen to lift their spirits. The Hong Kong Chabad center came to the rescue, airlift-ing the goodies to the stressed-out diplo-mats in Tokyo via FedEx.

Apparently unsure whether haman-

taschen would do the trick, the ambas-sador also asked Jerusalem to “send a psychologist” who began conducting

hour-long conference calls with Israeli na-tionals stuck in Japan, to calm their nerves.

Earthshaking News By SMSRemember “You’ve Got Mail–À La 2011”

from last month, about how the IDF’s Is-rael Home Front Command will be send-ing personalized SMS messages to all cell phones within radius of any incoming rocket or missile anywhere in the coun-try?

Quick-thinking offi cers at the Home Front Command came up with another innovative application in the wake of the Japanese earthquake-tsunami: text mes-sages will also go out to warn Israelis in advance of such natural disasters.

How?The existing SMS rocket-missile noti-

fi cation system will be attached to state-of-the-art earthquake warning technology that gives a 5- to 35-second warning before an earthquake occurs, and 30 to 60 min-utes before a tsunami. (The last tsunami hit Acco in the year 1033.) Granted, 5 to 35 seconds doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but tell that to residents of S’derot who have 15 seconds to duck and cover.

PigeonholedJews may not have a Holy Grail, but do

they have a Pious Pigeon? Talmudic stu-dents at the ultra-Orthodox Kaminetz Ye-shiva in Jerusalem believe a white pigeon

comes to sit in on their Torah lessons. For a month, the bird has sat on the window-sill during the two-hour lesson, only departing when the class is dismissed.

The students view the bird as some kind of medium and have formed “learning circles” (with the bird in the center) to recite Mishnah passages and request for-giveness from deceased souls that they believe have set up house in the holy bird’s body—but to no avail. The bird keeps coming back. The yeshiva is studying the issue.

Improving The Solar SystemNinety-fi ve percent of Israeli houses

have solar water heaters. Unfortunate-

ly, although new high-rise buildings in-tegrate solar panels into the roof design and hide the unsightly storage tanks, most solar water heaters are pretty ugly, perched as they are on fl at rooftops of apartment buildings like fl ocks of life-less metal storks. To be frank, they’re ecologically friendly eyesores.

If the tanks weren’t ugly enough to begin with, manufacturers always splay their names in paint across the tank ex-terior as “advertising”—as if they were selling fashion apparel.

Now a Rechovot solar water heater manufacturer, Tal Sachar, has taken a leap of faith to enhance the aesthetics: For a nominal 50 NIS ($14) surcharge, owners

Eli Cohen and Yaakov Cahlon will wall-paper their new solar systems in puffy white clouds on a pale sky-blue back-ground, in lieu of the Tal Sachar logo.

Reprinted courtesy of www.chelm-on-the-med

.com.

CHELM-ON-THE-MEDOO

What To Wear, How To Wear It, And Where To Find It

Notable New York designer MIRI an-

swers questions on resort wear, fashion

faux pas, and just how to get the pieces

you loved from the runways.

Dear Miri,I am going away for Passover to the

Dead Sea, and I’m not sure what to pack. I know so many people who will be there, and I know every time I leave my hotel room there will be a little fashion show with the ladies. How do I know what is appropriate for day? What about night?

Eleanor Schain,Manhattan

Dear Eleanor,More and more people every year are

choosing to go away for the holidays rather than deal with all the hassle of preparing their homes and having fam-ily over and making meals. There is no need to worry about what to wear if you follow these simple guidelines:

Evenings in the desert can be almost as hot as day, so stick with light fab-rics like chiffon. Mix it up with navy instead of black. Beaded lightweight sweaters with structured skirts are another alternative. For the daytime, keep cool in cotton dresses, and exper-iment with prints. You might want to bring slightly more formal attire for synagogue in the mornings, and then

change into casual resort wear for lat-er in the day.

Dear Miri,I was recently at the wedding of a

friend and I noticed a woman across the room wearing a black dress with a lace insert in the back and a beaded belt. I noticed the details because I was wear-ing the same dress! I wasn’t sure what to do. It was so awkward. Is there any right way to react to that situation?

Sarah GoldmanNew York

Dear Sarah,This question is a very relevant issue.

With all the chain stores, it’s become commonplace to see several of the same designer pieces at any event, and the chances of seeing the same dress that you have on increases as well. The best thing to do in this situation is to place yourself on the opposite side of the room, with some distance between you. Try to see how your “twin” ac-cessorized. What shoes, jewelry, and makeup is she wearing? Take it as a les-son for yourself for the future; see if there is anything you can incorporate into your look. If you fi nd that you can-not avoid this person, try to put a posi-tive spin on it. Give her a friendly smile and compliment her fabulous sense of style!

Dear Miri,I love looking at the designer collec-

tions each season, and every once in a while I will see a look that is beauti-ful and fi ts my needs perfectly. I wait and wait and the line fi nally comes to the stores, but then the piece I loved is nowhere to be found. How can I make sure to get specifi c designs from the collection, and why are these styles missing?

Elaine SternbergNew Jersey

Dear Elaine,The runway clothes you see now

in magazines and online are simply proposals or samples. If retailers like them enough to buy them, they will be produced. Some are too outlandish to ever be produced en masse. These experimental runway samples will be headed to museums, private collec-tions, or the brands’ own archives. But don’t lose hope. Most of the clothes on the runways really are samples in search of a champion. If you’ve seen something on the runways that you just have to have, there’s a good chance you can get it, with a little pa-tience and savvy.

Here’s what to do:1. Call the brand and ask if they have

a trunk show scheduled near you. Most brands take parts of their collections on

the road to retailers, who invite good customers to come see the samples and place orders.

2. Contact a local luxury retailer who carries the label and ask if they’ll order the item for you. The time to do that is now. Once the orders are closed, it’s very hard for brands to produce additional items. They simply won’t have enough fabric to make them.

3. If you have no idea how to contact a helpful retailer, look on the website of the brand. Most will list all the retail-ers that carry their label. As a designer, I love for my clients to send me looks they loved from the runways so that I can incorporate some of those key ideas into my own collection!

E-mail your questions for MIRI to info@

miricouture.com. To contact MIRI’s Jerusalem

boutique, call 026502352. For the Ramat Gan

boutique, call 036186231. To reach the Jerusalem

bridal salon, call 026525638. Visit MIRI on the

Web at www.miricouture.com.

What daf did you say we were on?

Koleinu is looking for

civic-minded individuals

to share news stories from

their community with our

readers. Submit your story

to stories@koleinu.co.il.

15April 13, 2011

More Marror For Pesach?Shmu’s Shmooze

B Y S H M U E L K A T Z

By the time you pick up this paper, we may be fi ghting an openly declared war. There is no doubt in my mind that the un-declared war has been ratcheting up for the past several weeks. If it happens, this will be the third war since we made ali-

yah, not even fi ve years ago. It seems like they happen every time we turn around.

The second Lebanon war broke out liter-ally days after our aliyah. I remember our confusion as we tried to grasp what was go-ing on and explain it to our kids. Families from the North streamed into Bet She mesh, staying in strangers’ homes as they fl ed the nightly rocket attacks.

The Gaza war began just a couple of years later. My nephew saw action in that war and I remember our panicked drive from Eilat to Bet She mesh as we drove through Be’er Sheva, where rockets had been falling sporadically for days. We didn’t tell the kids that we were even near Be’er Sheva, because we knew how afraid they would be.

If you believe the various reports, the coming war, if it happens, will be even scar-ier than the prior ones. Rocket capabilities that can reach as far as Tel Aviv. An enemy that has learned from its failures the last time around and may be more entrenched than before. An enemy that seems to be seeking escalation, for whatever purposes.

And it seems that the constant barrage of concern and worry has somewhat im-munized us from getting as emotionally overwhelmed as we might otherwise be. We have learned to adjust to the times and not let the concern over terror and wars immobilize us. Which I assume is a sign of strength and courage and refl ects our ironclad resolve not to let events stand in the way of living our lives.

Even the recent escalation has seemed a bit less alarming than it had been in pri-or times. Yes, the brutality of Itamar still shocks with a stunning blow that does not want to fade. The bus bombing saw another step in the wrong direction, with people commenting about how it re-minded them of the last set of bus attacks in Jerusalem. Even the dramatic increase in rocket fi re and last week’s striking of a school bus with an anti-tank weapon ini-tially seemed just like more of the same. Tragic, something we hate, but still some-

thing to which we have adjusted because the circumstances dictate that we adjust.

Then came the news that Daniel Aryeh Vifl ic, the teen critically injured in the school bus, was a Bet She mesh boy. His parents ran a local restaurant for years (they recently converted it to an all-deliv-ery/pickup service). Even though we do not know them personally, the news hit home just a little bit harder and made us focus on it a bit more.

I don’t know about you, but I was disap-pointed to realize that I had emotionally distanced myself from the pain I had been feeling when the latest set of attacks be-gan. It might have been a simple defense mechanism, but having heard that it hap-

pened somewhere south, I breathed a sigh of relief for myself, family, and friends and tried not to think about it.

And when I found out that the fam-ily was a Bet She mesh family, I real-ized that I wasn’t as emotionally in-vested in the news or as concerned about the attack as I might have been a couple of years ago. I had be-come distant and detached in an ef-fort to protect myself. And I am a bit ashamed.

In 2002, we had joined my brother-in-law in Florida for Pesach. I remember walking around aimlessly on erev Pesach

with the pictures from the Netanya hotel bomb being shown on every TV I could see. It was shocking.

The next morning at the hashkamahmin-

yan, I was asked (to this day I do not know why they chose me) to say the tefi llah for the medinah and for the IDF. I remember the passion in my voice as I prayed, the in-tensity I felt in reading the words, and the sudden depth of meaning that the simple tefi llot had for me. For the fi rst time in my life, I did not simply say the words or an-swer “amen” by rote. Instead, I prayed.

And I got a bunch of strange looks as I went back to my seat. Surely, no one in the minyan expected such a display. I didn’t even expect it. It just happened.

From time to time I catch myself in shul answering “amen” to the very same tefi llah in a refl exive manner, without fo-cusing on what I am praying for. When I do, I remind myself of the bond I felt that fi rst day of Pesach 2002 and try to re-focus my thoughts on where they should be, perhaps even answering “amen” with more emotion and feeling.

I think we need to take that same mes-sage to heart. While it is easier for us to mentally and emotionally shut some part of ourselves down in order to sim-ply function, we need to keep focused. That terror victim is someone’s loved one, and they deserve our honor and respect. When we become immune to that, we lose something of ourselves.

As we approach yom tov, I hate to close on such a down thought. We live here in a land of constant juxtaposition. Events

here have a tendency to run far afi eld and leave us breathless in their wake. Because the issues are so heavy and divisive, our emotions always seem to be on high no-tice, often leaving us exhausted by the end of the day.

So, before I wish you a Chag

Sameach, I will share a simcha

with you. As the paper went to print, we began the celebra-tion for our daughter Batya’s bat mitzvah. Although she was born just after Pesach, we are taking advantage of having some of our extended family members join us for the chag

and pushed up the celebration to coin-cide with their visit here.

In our fi rst year here, when our fami-ly struggled with multiple challenges and Goldie and I were in the U.S. for almost two months, Batya shrugged off all her worries and concerns and thrived. She has integrated herself into her class, in which there are only two English-speakers, and amazed us then and now with her confi -dence and competence in being Israeli.

We are incredibly proud of her, as parents should be. We are thrilled to be celebrating in Israel, something we

would never have even thought possi-ble 12 years ago. Our lives are so differ-ent now, as I am sure many of yours are (well, those of you who live here—the tourists maybe not as much). She has

learned and grown so much, and—as I told her six years ago would happen—her He-brew has so surpassed mine that she laughs at and is em-barrassed by mine (as are her siblings).

So a special mazal tov to my goofball (I haven’t called her that in years). We hope you will always be sweet and yum-

my. Mazal tov to the rest of the family too.As for everyone else, it is my fervent de-

sire that you come seek me out on erev

Pesach at the Beit HaMikdash. As a kohein, it will be my joy to be makriv your kor-

ban Pesach for you and your family. I hope and pray every day to have the hon-or and privilege of serving in that way. On the chance that for some reason we have not seen the ultimate redemption and are still suffering the galut, I offer you our best wishes for a Chag Sameach and a prayer that we celebrate l’shanah haba’ah

b’Yerushalayim habenuyah!

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Bus that was hit by an anti-tank missile last week

Mazal Tov, Batya!

16 April 13, 2011

What Are You Doing This Chol HaMoed?

We all know that Israel is a land full of history and fascinating ac-tivities. Over the years we have gone on so many different tiyulim, ranging from three-hour hikes to a

day at the beach, from volunteer-ing for food pantries to parasail-ing on the Red Sea, and everything in between. What are YOU doing over Chol HaMoed? Send your pic-

tures and a brief description to sto-

ries@koleinu.co.il for our next is-sue showing how you spent your Chol HaMoed and vacation days this month.

Dear Sir,I was amazed to learn, in your article

describing the Bnei Menashe offi cer’s ap-pointment [March 1 edition], that the Ten Lost Tribes had been found. I would have thought that all the media, including CNN, Fox, and the NY Times, would have had headline stories about this discovery. Since your article mentions that Lt. Gin is

descended “from one of the Lost Tribes” please inform your readers which one of these tribes he is descended from.

Just to get the record straight.Robert Stern

Mr. Stern,Later in the article, we more accurate-

ly note that the Bnei Menashe “claim

descent” from the Ten Lost Tribes. We

should have made the same clarifi cation

in the sentence you noted. Thank you for

pointing out our inconsistency and we

apologize for any confusion.

Shmuel Katz

Editor’s Note:In Koleinu’s March 29 edition, we

printed a photo of Mary Jane Gardner with the following caption: “UK Citi-zen Mary Jane Gardner, who was killed in last week’s Jerusalem bus bombing.”

Last week, we received an unsigned hate-fi lled e-mail about the publica-tion of the picture. The author made disgusting comments about the death of a human being. We are not printing the letter. Besides being incoherent, it was unsigned, and we do not cred-it cowards.

Koleinu understands that Mary Jane Gardner was working on a project and living in a community that appears to be highly involved in missionary activity. We do not condone such activities. We would rather that there be no missionary activity, be it by this group or any other missionary group, in Israel. We do, however, recognize that Ms. Gardner’s death was caused by a terrorist bomb. As such, we felt it wholly appropriate to mark her passing respect-fully, without further comment.

We stand by that decision.Shmuel Katz

Eretz Bereishit

Yeladudit

Superland

ATV’ing

Ganei Yehoshua at Park Hayarkon

Eilat Aquarium

(American) football in the sand mountains in the Negev

The Biblical Zoo

Matzah baking

Hiking the Red Canyon