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MindBizEsther Mann, LMSW 25

Stairway To PeoplehoodRabbi Avi Shafran 30

An AccomplishmentHannah Reich Berman 34

Real-Estate AllergiesAnessa V. Cohen 40

Soul Art

Riva Pomerantz & N. Fein 63

Matchmaker, Matchmaker

At the recent inaugural reception for the benefit of AchiezerTheComprehensive Chesed Community Organization (LR): Rabbi Paysach

Krohn, Rabbi Boruch B. Bender, Executive Director Josh Szpilzinger, hostRabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky.See Story, Page 44

Achiezer: Always On Call

B Y R A B B I Y A I RH O F F M A N

There is a well-known mitz-

vah to honor Torah scholars

(Sefer HaMitzvos 209). Although

theRishonim cite different vers-

es as to the source for the mitz-

vah, it is almost universally held

that the mitzvah is a Biblical

one. Indeed, it is such an impor-

tant mitzvah that the Meiri

(Yuma 71a) writes that it is a

greater mitzvah to honor a

When

Scholars Fall

CHAREIDI PATROL:VIGILANCE OR

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

ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT

Chareidi residents of the

Ramat Bet Shemesh Bet neigh-

borhood have formed a neigh-

borhood patrol in response to a

string of break-ins by Arab labor-

ers working on the many build-

ing projects throughout the city.

There are no hard numbers as

yet, but in the two weeks since

the founding of the vaad

LR: Rabbi Sholom Gold, Mr. Marc Sievers of the U.S. Embassy in Israel,Rabbi Dov Lior, Rabbi Joseph Gerlitzky, U.S. Ambassador JamesCunningham, Rabbi Moshe Havlin, and Rabbi Avrohom S. Lewin. The

rabbis handed the ambassador a halachic ruling this week, signed by over350 rabbis in Israel, that forbids giving up land controlled by Israel today.

See Story, Page 36

Continued on Page 23

B Y L A R R Y G O R D O N

Malkie Roth was 15 years old

in August 2001, when she was

murdered as she stood in line

for pizza at the old Sbarros on

King George Street and Jaffa

Road in central Jerusalem. Ten

other victims, people simply

waiting to order or eating theirlunch, also died that day.

The terrorists who organized

the bombing are on the list of

those who would be freed if the

deal for the release of Gilad

Shalit is reached with Hamas.

The inclusion of these mer-

chants of terror on the list is not

what is delaying the conclusion

of the deal.

Arnold Roth, Malkies father,

told CNN last week that he isadamantly opposed to the

release of those responsible for

B Y J U D A H S . H A R R I S

If you werent fortunate

enough a number of decades

ago to sit at the learning table

in Nechama Leibowitzs modest

Jerusalem apartment where she

taught her regular Torah classes

or to grab a place in one of the

outer rows where students yet

found room to sit, you still

could have secured a comfort-

Continued on Page 5

B Y L A R R Y G O R D O N

The hiatus is over, and I

guess you could say Im back in

the hunt. I knew this day

would comeor rather, I was

hoping this day would come

and lo and behold here it is.

The hunt that I refer to is a

rather casual forage for a suit-

able match, a shidduch, for my

next eligible child, this one a

formidable young gentleman

23 years of age.

After my three oldest chil-

dren were married, I thought

over these last several years that

for this next one I would be able

to apply all the wisdom and life

experience I had acquired in

dealing with the first three. In

other words, I was going to use

all my accidentally acquired

acumen to his and our benefit,

and perhaps even enjoy the

process, not unlike a surfer who

navigates his way through one

of those storm-induced tumul-

Continued on Page 8Continued on Page 12

CANDLE LIGHTING

Jan. 1 4:20 PM

Jan. 8 4:27 PM

The Shalit Dilemma

RABBIS URGE US: GO BIBLICAL

Rabbi Hamburger to speak in

Far Rockaway. See Page 23

SusholzKanner wedding.

See Page 65

Darchei dinner guest of honor.See Page 18

VOL. 10 NO. 14 15 TEVES 5770hjhu ,arp

JANUARY 1, 2010

$1.00 WWW.5TJT.COM

See Pages 3, 4, 5

INSIDE FROM THE EDITORS DESK

HEARD IN THE BAGEL STORE

Nechama Leibowitz, ah

STUDYINGNECHAMA LEIBOWITZ



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B Y R A B B I S H M U E L

L I C H T E N S T E I N

Did you ever wonder why the yekkishe

shuls use a vimpel instead of a regular

gartel to wrap the sefer Torah? How

about why the German Jews pronounce

a cholam as ow rather than oy or oh.

Sensing the neglect of German meso-

rah, in 1985 Rav Shlomo Hamburger

founded Machon Moreshes Ashkenaz toresearch the source of minhagei

Ashkenaz, dating back to the times of

theRishonim.

On Motzaei Shabbos, parashas

Vayeira (January 16) Rav Hamburger will

present a shiuron these issues at the

Young Israel of Wavecrest-Bayswater,

2716 Healy Avenue. The event will

begin at 8:00 p.m. with introductory

remarks by Rabbi Eliezer Feuer, mara

dasra of YIWB. Rav Moishe

Katzenstein, rosh yeshiva of the Yeshiva

Gedolah of the Five Towns will also

will be speaking and a Q&A session will

conclude the session.

Rabbi Hamburger, who has a greatGerman yichus, has printed numerous

sefarim which eludicate the reason for so

many of the halachos and minhagim that

those of German descent perform on a

daily basis. One of the manysefarim pub-

lished by the institute is an updated ver-

sion of the Sfas Emes siddur, used by

German Jews, which was originally pub-

lished by R Wolf Heidenheim in the city

of Roedelheim, near Frankfurt, in 1799.

Noticeably absent from the Sfas Emes sid-

durare almost all kabbalistic tefillos. Rav

Hamburger explains, The non-kabbalis-

tic sidduris the most original form of the

German nusach, predating the kabbalistic

influences of the 17th and 18th centuries.

The great leaders of Western Europe, the

Chasam Sofer and Noda BYehuda, and

leaders in Germany itself, all rejected the

kabbalistic tefillos. There are various rea-

sons brought down for this: either they

didnt want to expose kabbalah to the

masses, or they didnt believe that these

tefillos represented the real kabbalah.

The Sfas Emes siddurhas its share of

problems, says Rabbi Hamburger. Had

Wolf Heidenheim had available to him

the sources that have become available

to us, he would have not made a num-

ber of grammatical changes, which he

held were corrections of typographical

errors.

When Rabbi Hamburger, a descendentof the Chasam Sofer, was growing up,

some of his chassidish neighbors told

him that the Chasam Sofer was really a

chassid. Never having heard this before,

he set out to research his zaides true

identity. What he discovered was that

the Chasam Sofer was definitely not

chassidish; as a matter of fact he was a

true misnaged. The Chasam Sofer simply

followed the oldest ofminhagim, which

is minhag Ashkenaz. With this knowl-

edge, Rav Hamburger set out to find out

what minhag Ashkenaz was. Since his

father was niftar when he was very

young, and there were not many German

kehillos inEretz Yisrael, Rav Hamburger

had no choice but to start his research

from scratch. This was the beginning of

Rav Hamburgers lifelong mission to

uncover and bring back to life such a pre-

cious old mesorah to the yeleideiAshkenaz. He believes that just as the var-

ious groups of Sefardim (Syrian,

Moroccan, Yemenite etc.) each have their

own shul, unique to their nusach, so too,

those of German descent should have

their own shul based on their unique

mesorah. Rav Hamburger is single hand-

edly responsible for numerous shuls

around Eretz Yisrael, Baltimore, and

Lakewood following the oldest ofmeso-

ras existing today, including his own

shul at Mayenei Hayeshua Hospital in

Bnei Brak. Thegedolim have the highest

of praise for his work.O

5 TOWNS JEWISH TIMES January 1, 2010 23

Restoring The Askenaz Traditionhashemirah, the number of burglaries by

Arabs is rumored to have dropped dra-

matically.

Residents of the Sheinfeld neighbor-

hood, a Modern Orthodox area that bor-

ders Ramat Bet Shemesh Bet, are uncom-

fortable with the idea of the patrol. A

local resident, who spoke with the Five

Towns Jewish Times on condition of

anonymity, admitted that a neighbor-

hood watch is a good idea in principle,but expressed reservations about the peo-

ple leading the group.

Posters have been plastered on walls

throughout the chassidic neighbor-

hood, which contains a sizable expatri-

ate population from such chareidi cen-

ters as Bet Yisrael and Meah Shearim in

Jerusalem, calling on residents to volun-

teer for the patrol.

Two of the men listed on the broad-

sheet are known members of a small

group of zealots, known as kannoim,

who have terrorized the community of

Bet Shemesh in recent years, engaging

in stone-throwing, physical assaults,

and threats against those found to be in

violation of the groups value system.

Some residents have expressed their

reservations regarding the new patrol,

fearful that it will soon be used to

Chareidi PatrolContinued from Front Cover

Poster calling for volunteers for the vaadhashemirah.


Deadline for Advertising

in the Next Issue is

Tuesday, January 5at 5:00 P.M.

Call 516-984-0079


3/3

enforce the moral standards of

the Bet Shemesh kannoim.

Dov Lipman, a local rabbi,

was quick to point out that the

situation in Bet Shemesh has

been relatively calm in the

past year. However, in the past,

local residents have been

threatened with violence by

some chassidim who moved

into the neighborhood and

were disturbed by the sight of

televisions in their neighbors

homes.

The throwing of rocks at cars

on Shabbat and attacks on

women whose skirts were

deemed unacceptably short

were a regular occurrence in the

area for some time. The situa-

tion had become so bad at one

point that an Egged driver

whose bus was attacked pulled

his gun and shot in the air in

order to ward off his attackers.

According to neighborhood

residents, many, if not most, of

the local chassidim object to the

methods of the kannoim, who

only number a few families, but

other residents have been ter-

rorized into acceptance of their

ways.

Rafi Goldmeier, a popular

Israeli blogger who lives in the

adjacent Ramat Bet Shemesh

Alef development, described one

of the men listed on the signs as

a patrol organizer, as a leader of

the zealots who has sat in jail a

number of times for his violence

around the neighborhood. In a

statement to the Five Towns

Jewish Times, that individual

denied any connection with

Shabbat demonstrations.

A. Eizenbach, one of the lead-

ers of the community patrol,

explained that his group deals

only with the issue of break-ins

and does not have a connection

with any other type of activity.

He denied both reports that his

organization works in conjunc-

tion with the local police andthat the police have been

harassing patrol members. We

could not reach Bet Shemesh

police chief Kobi Cohen for

comment.

Due to pressure and threats

of violence from the zealots,

projects such as a new school

for national-religious girls in a

primarily Modern Orthodox

neighborhood have been

slowed. The zealots claim that

the neighborhood is theirs and

that a Zionist school impinges

on the sanctity of the area.

The presence of older rabbisin the neighborhood, who have

begun reining in the young

men, and the formation of a

national-religious community

patrol, have been credited by

some with calming Bet

Shemesh. O

24 January 1, 2010 5 TOWNS JEWISH TIMES

{picture of poster shmira1 / shmi-ra2}

Chareidi PatrolContinued from Page 23

For the

next issue,

deadline

for reserving

ad space is

Monday,

January 4

at 5:00 P.M.

All graphicsfor ads

must be in by

Tuesday,

January 5

at 5:00 P.M.

Call

516-984-0079

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