Yeshiva World News

The following Op-ed appeared on CrownHeights.info:

At a recent Chaddishe auspicious day, celebrated with a children’s rally at 770 with several schools participating, there was a teacher from one of the schools that delivered a captivating story to the assembled children. It was a tale from the days of the Baal Shem Tov.

The teacher described this poor Jew thrown into prison by the poretz for lacking the funds to cover rent. He relayed to the spellbound children; “The yid was in such great despair and so sad, he felt that nobody can help him, so he screamed to Hashem from the depths of his heart, “Yechi Adoneinu… leolam Voed!”

Today, dropping my three year old child off at school, I entered the classroom with my kid, and the children were in the midst of davening. Yechi was a very central part as it was sung with great vigor. I was astounded. He isn’t enrolled in a fringe school, rather one of the mainstream ones that has been around for decades.

Do schools have policies regarding yechi? If not, why don’t they?

Shouldn’t sensitive Hashkafos of this sort be left to the parents to instill in their children the values that they choose for their own children?

Isn’t the main thing to have achdus and maintain proper uniform Chabad ideals and avoid the issues of contention which cause pirud halevavos?

Is it the role of a school that serve a diverse parent body, to be an indoctrination ground for children from the moment they begin to develop?

(Source: CHI)

The following article is by Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz, and appears in this weeks Yated:

As I was searching for pictures for this week’s edition, I came across several news photographs of workers cleaning out kvitlach from the Kosel. Apparently, this is an annual activity.

Prior to Rosh Hashanah, workers armed with hoses, sticks, brooms and shovels remove the thousands of notes that people place throughout the year in the crevices of the Kosel. They fall to the floor, where they are swept up, gathered together, placed into garbage bags, and transported to Har Hazeisim.

I was very troubled by the image. I don’t know the origin of the custom to write requests on small scraps of paper and place them in the wall. I don’t know if it has any validity. I don’t know if it is even proper for people to think they are writing notes to Hashem. I don’t know what it says on those scraps of paper.

But I do know that the notes are filled with tears and heartfelt tefillos. With emunah temimah, people travel to the Kosel and commit their most heartfelt needs and requests to paper. They beg Hashem to help them with whatever problem they are experiencing. They ask for good health. For a shidduch. For a job. For shalom bayis. For a place to live. For children. For anything that a person can need or desire. Then they open a siddur or a Tehillim and pour their hearts out in prayer.

You’ve been there. You’ve seen it. Maybe you have even done the same.

It’s almost sacrilegious to send workers armed with sticks to dig into the wall’s holy cracks and take out the scraps of paper.

What is the solution? I don’t know.

How many pieces of paper can the Kosel hold? I don’t know the answer to that either.

But the picture and thought bother me.

“What’s he driving at?” you wonder. “What’s his point?”

Now, as the school year gets underway, there are hundreds of children who are being treated like those pieces of paper. Their parents invested years of toil and effort to raise them and prepare them as best as they can to live productive Torah lives. Their energy, money and tefillos are invested in their children.

Yet for too many parents, their child will not be in school on the first day. They were refused. Rejected. Treated like unneeded scraps of paper.

Imagine the scene: A father and a mother stand around a glowing child who picks up his shiny new briefcase filled with all the school supplies he lovingly picked out himself as he perused the aisles of the local store. The young boy literally bounces out the door and down the steps, stopping at the sidewalk to wait for the bus on that first day of school. The young boy is upbeat, excited, animated and energized as a new school year begins.

As the yellow bus pulls up to the curb, it represents the arrival of new opportunities for growth and accomplishment.

The proud parents wave goodbye, as their son does the same, his joy almost palpable through the glass window of the bus.

Watching this scene right next door is a girl about the same age. A tear trickles down her cheek as she ponders her predicament. She has no school to go to. Why? She has no idea. What did she do wrong? Nothing at all. Standing behind her silently are her own parents, a father and a mother who have done their best to raise a good, wholesome Torah family. They did all they can to instill Torah-true values in their progeny. What they never expected was to experience this proverbial knife to the heart, being told by one school after another that there is no room for their young, charming, innocent daughter.

They are simple, hardworking, ehrliche people. Some aren’t wealthy, some are. Some have yichus, others don’t. Why should that even make a difference? They are our siblings, children of our greater family.

They stare out of their windows. They look up at a sky that appears to be dark and foreboding even though the sun shines brightly. Their tears flow as they wonder what to tell their children.

Their thoughts wander. “Where is everyone? Where are the people who say they are there for us? How can everyone pay lip service to the cause of children’s chinuch and then turn a blind eye to a neshomah that is breaking apart in front of our eyes?”

How can we tolerate what is going on? How can we sleep at night when we know that there are parents and children crying a whole day, unable to sleep, feeling unwanted, abandoned and forsaken?

Fine, honest, upstanding people cast away for no good reason.

As a community, we have to put a stop to this annual torture. We have to rise up together, whether we have children of school age or not, and whether we are affected by this problem or not.

We must declare that we will not tolerate this anymore. We must declare that the Torah is a Toras Chessed. The Torah commands us to treat other people as we want to be treated. Every Jew is precious. Every child is a treasure. We may not stand by and make believe we don’t know this is going on. Each one of us has an obligation to say, “Yodeinu lo shofchu es hadam hazeh.”

The Ponovezher Rov, whose yahrtzeit was this week, once asked Rav Yehoshua Zelig Diskin, the rov of Pardes Chana, to arrange a loan for him. He explained to Rav Diskin that he desperately needs the money by the next day in order to keep the Ponovezher Yeshiva going, but he has to travel to an important meeting of Torah leaders the next day in Yerushalayim. The Rov said he couldn’t miss the meeting and needed Rav Diskin to arrange a loan for him.

Sensing the urgency of the matter, Rav Diskin obtained a loan to keep the yeshiva afloat and brought the money to the yeshiva office in Bnei Brak. While there, he learned that the Rov was home and had not gone to the meeting in Yerushalayim he had said he could not miss. Worried, he rushed to the Rov’s home to make sure that everything was okay. He walked into the house and saw the Rov with a young boy. They were both crying.

Rav Diskin asked the Rov what was going on and why he hadn’t gone to the meeting. The Rov responded that he had left his house and, as was his practice before traveling to Yerushalayim, he stopped at the Batei Avosorphanage he had established for children who had lost their parents in the Holocaust to part from his beloved yesomimlach.

There, the Rov noticed a child crying. He learned that the boy had just been informed that his beloved brother was killed by the Nazis.

“The child was inconsolable,” the Rov said, “and he kept on crying. In an attempt to calm him down, I brought him to my house, but he keeps on crying, and I am crying with him and trying to comfort him.

“How can I travel to that meeting when I see a Jewish child crying?” said the Rov to Rav Diskin.

The Rov’s question is an alarm. It is a question that should be ringing loud and clear in our minds and hearts. How can we go about our daily rituals while, all around us, children are crying? How can we sit calmly when the cries of children can be heard far and wide?

How can we sit calmly during the Yomim Noraim knowing that children and adults are crying?

How can we feel comfortable with the approach of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur when we know that children and their parents have been rejected and we have allowed this problem to fester?

How can we face the Ribono Shel Olam on the Yom Hadin without doing everything in our power to ensure that His precious children have been given the opportunities they deserve?

Do I have a solution to this problem and the others that plague our community and cause children to cry? No, I don’t, and maybe you don’t either. I am not blaming or faulting anyone. But if we would band together as a community and treat the problem as if it were our own, we would collectively find solutions.

Good people have to join together to analyze what is at the root of the problem in communities plagued by having children out of school. We have to examine the issues and determine what can be done so that every child is guaranteed a spot in a school where they can grow. Personally, I think a fund should be established to help fund the opening of new schools in growing communities. Merely squeezing more children into already over-crowded classrooms may solve the immediate problem but will lead to new ones. Perhaps the fund could be devolved into something large enough to assist in the expansion of existing facilities as well. There are those who have taken the initiative to open new schools, despite the challenges and difficulties involved in doing so. They should be commended and others should be encouraged to follow their example.

But the situation as it is now cannot be allowed to continue. It may be that there is an explanation for each individual case but taken as a whole there are too many children who are left out. There is something wrong and we have to resolve to correct it.

The purpose of this article, which my rebbi Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky asked me to write, is not to impugn or malign anyone, but to rally people to work towards a solution. Please join me.

We are, boruch Hashem, blessed with enough talented people, with enough money and with the wherewithal, to put an end to this annual sadistic ritual.

With achdus and brotherhood we can overcome all that confronts us and all our communal challenges.

Let us come together to help these fine people.

We are a community of Torah and chessed.

Let us all resolve once and for all to remove this stain.

May our efforts bear fruit, and may they be a source of merit for us on the approaching Yom Hadin.

(Article is in this weeks Yated)

The following was written by Rabbi Yaakov Bender Shlita, Rosh Yeshiva of Darchei Torah in Far Rockaway, following the tragedy that struck the community this past Friday:

It was a very difficult day yesterday. And that is putting it mildly. It has been a very hard four days. But as difficult as it has been for all of us, it is nowhere near the pain of the Tepfer mishpocho. In these very challenging days, we need to think about how best to be “nosei b’ol” – feel the pain of others.

When paying a shiva call, you are going there to help ameliorate the family’s pain. It is not important how a person passed away. It is also not important how old they were, how sick they were, how long they were ill, and whether they suffered. What is important is whatever is important to the family. What is important also, Chazal tell us, is to speak about the achievements of the niftar/nifteres. I have had no problem saying to an aveil: ‘Tell me about your mother’ or ‘Tell me about your father.’ If you are not sure about saying something, don’t say it. Try to bring the level of conversation to a higher plane. Chazal also tell us that the aveil should open the conversation. But sometimes, they are in too much pain to speak. If you react by just sitting quietly it can be best, even though the quiet can be deafening. When you feel you must speak, say something nice about the niftar, if you can. Try to focus on their spiritual accomplishments, or the history, dynamics and events of the family. You will be surprised how easy it is to get into a conversation like that. Stay away from questions that can bring up hurt.

My father once told me that when his rebbe, Rav Shlomo Heiman was very ill, he was one of the talmidim chosen to do shifts with his rebbe in the hospital. On one of my father’s shifts Rav Moshe Feinstein came to pay Rav Shlomo a visit. The doctor had given my father very strong instructions that no one should disturb his rebbe. My father did not know what to do. After all, the gadol hador, Rav Moshe, just walked in. The doctors’ instructions won out, and my father meekly and deferentially told Rav Moshe that Rav Shlomo cannot have any visitors. Rav Moshe took a Tehillim, stood by the door, and said some Tehillim. “Please tell the choleh that I was here to visit,” and then he added, “Bikur Cholim does not mean visiting. Bikur Cholim means doing what’s best for the choleh. If it is best for the choleh to leave, I was mekayem the mitzvah of Bikur Cholim by leaving.”

I think the same holds true by nichum aveilim. Ringing the doorbell at 11:30 at night because YOU have to pay a shiva call, is incorrect. And if there is no other time for you to come, call the aveil AFTER the week of shiva and explain why you couldn’t be there. Agav, another thought: unless you absolutely must call, because you are from out-of-town, you are making it very difficult for the aveil when you call during the ‘prime time’ of visiting. It is not fair to the aveil or to the people paying the shiva call to have the aveil answer the phone to talk to you – even if you are in Eretz Yisroel.

After a tragedy of this magnitude we must feel the pain of those in pain, but keep our emunah strong and to not let ourselves get depressed. It is important and essential to walk away from a levaya or a shiva and internalize the message. How can I further elevate the neshama of the niftar? One way is to accept upon oneself new ideas to improve, to perhaps find a special middah of the niftar to emulate. I think in our case, though I knew Aaron well, I came away from the levaya astounded by Aaron’s caring for others. The story that his father related, how at a very close baseball game, Aaron gave up his pitching position to a much lower-caliber friend/player, because that boy wanted to pitch, was incredible. He knew full well that his team may lose the game now, but the wellbeing of his not-so-talented friend was uppermost in his mind. This was his general derech in life: always worrying about the underprivileged. And he went out of his way to make these children feel happy, oftentimes at his own expense.

You know, we just began yeshiva. I know it’s very important to get our child into the perceived ‘best” rebbe’s and teacher’s class, with the most popular boys from your neighborhood. But is it important to insist that certain children NOT be in your son’s class? I don’t think that’s fair. Put yourself in the position of that other child: is it fair to you/him? Perhaps if you would invite the young man into your house and teach him not to be bossy or the center of attention all the time, you would accomplish so much more. You might even find out that there are issues in this young man’s home that you never knew about and that you can perhaps help with.

Aaron Tepfer O”H grew up in a home surrounded by parents and siblings who are forever worrying about others. Aaron did not grow up in a vacuum. Such sterling middos cannot develop except where a child is surrounded by them. Can we all make an attempt to leave the pettiness behind and take this terrible tragedy and do something positive with it? That would be the most wonderful thing we can do for Aaron’s family and for Aaron’s neshama.

May the neshama of Aaron Sholom ben Naftoli Hertz Yisroel, be a blessing for all of Klal Yisroel and may we be reunited with him with the coming of Moshiach very soon.

A Ksiva V’chasima Tova to one and all.

(Posted with permission from Rabbi Bender)

The special election in New Jersey to replace the late Senator Frank Lautenberg has lived up to the hype. With two veteran members of Congress, the Speaker of the State Assembly, and the mayor of New Jersey’s largest city all vying to represent the Garden State in the U.S. Senate, this has been a hotly contested election.

With only token opposition in the general election in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, the victor in the primary will presumably become the junior senator from New Jersey.

With the endorsements of several major newspapers and the celebrity status that he enjoys, there is an aura of invincibility that surrounds Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who appears to be the clear front runner in the race.

An out-of-the-box thinker who has shown a propensity for bipartisanship, Booker would be a larger than life figure in Washington, should he prevail in this special election. An icon in the Twitterverse who goes out of his way to develop deep and unique connections with his constituents, Cory Booker has the ability to be a superstar in the Senate.

For New Jersey’s vibrant Jewish community, and for Jews throughout the U.S. and Israel, Cory Booker, if elected, could very well become one of the staunchest allies and best friends that they have ever had in the Senate. Despite the frenetic pace in the waning days of the campaign, Booker carved out some time to speak with me about his “Jewish roots” and discuss several issues.

Booker easily and appropriately used Hebrew phrases throughout the conversation and with relative ease cited various Torah portions while referring to Jewish concepts and ideals. Booker said his longstanding ties to Judaism and his special affinity for the Jewish faith is credited to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and “an accident.” Approximately 20 years ago at Oxford University he went to meet a young lady “at a place that I couldn’t even pronounce, the L’Chaim Society,” and walked into a scene that he described, at that point in his life, as a scene from the movie Yentl. He said, “I immediately wanted to get out of there but the woman stood me up and the rabbi’s wife (Mrs. Boteach) asked me to stay and join them.” He ended up staying for dinner “and immediately felt a sense of ‘bashert,’ even though I didn’t know what the word meant.”

That episode led to a longer conversation with Rabbi Boteach and they agreed that in order to connect with one another, they needed to learn more about each other’s culture. Booker and Boteach decided that they would exchange books. “The first book he gave me, I’m embarrassed to say—that I was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and had never read anything by this author—was Night by Elie Wiesel,” Booker said.

Booker gave Boteach a book by Alex Haley. “We just started devouring each other’s literature. Before I knew it, I developed a sense of real love for Jewish philosophers and Jewish writers—people like Maimonides and Hillel. Eventually, I started studying Torah.” That initial encounter at Oxford helped him develop a profound understanding of Judaism and great respect for the Jewish faith.

I asked Booker how he would describe his relationship with the Jewish community. Not surprisingly, his response waxed philosophical.

“I see myself as an agent of social justice, and if you’re driven to seek justice in this world, one of the most fundamental ideals of Judaism is to heal the world, Tikkun Olam,” he told me.

“Judaism is exceptional in the sense that it’s not a religion that’s seeking to convert and make the world Jewish. It’s actually a religion that’s seeking to be a light unto nations of godliness and goodliness, and that’s very powerful. That’s why I think there’s such a rich tradition of Jewish activism.

“The Jewish community’s incredible activism and commitment to goodness, to tzedakah, this living chessed, which is just incredible to me. In so much of the work I’m doing in Newark, I find alliances within the Jewish community.”

How will Booker’s own personal faith and deep connection to Judaism play a role in developing his agenda and establishing a list of legislative priorities and public policy initiatives if he is elected to the Senate? He immediately launched into what is probably the number one issue for many members of the Orthodox Jewish community – the State of Israel.

“My love of Israel really comes through my Jewish connections. It does not come from my politics. It comes from knowing about the Jewish people, learning about the Torah, and visiting Israel when I was in my 20’s, and so I have a very strong desire that we do everything for the continuance of, and the establishment of, a real secure Jewish state of Israel. That’s very, very important to me and drives a lot of my thinking about foreign policy in terms of the Middle East situation.”

Booker then returned to the issue of ‘Tikkun Olam’ to further highlight his relationship with the Jewish community. He talked about how as a lawmaker in Washington, when it comes to matters of justice, like child poverty and education, he will be able to draw a lot from his base of support around the country. Referring to “Jewish leaders who have become essential to my life and my work in Newark,” Booker said that he imagines that their support and involvement will be just as critical for his work in Washington—if he is elected.

When faced with my somewhat nonconventional question about pinpointing one or two Jewish heroes who he admires the most, whether it be from the Torah, political life, or social justice, Booker immediately returned to the Torah.

“Two of the great heroes from the Bible to me are Moses and Abraham,” Booker said without hesitation, and promptly recited an anecdote from the Book of Exodus about how God contemplated destroying the Jewish people for their transgression with the Golden Calf.

“There is this point when Moses comes down from the mountain and his people are worshiping the Golden Calf. God talks about smiting them and he says ‘mecheini na misifrecha—if you destroy these people, then erase me from your book.’ There was this powerful sense that I will pursue righteousness and goodness, even if it means I need to fight God or argue with God. That’s a very powerful sense of defiance.”

Booker then talked about how Abraham, post-circumcision, saw strangers approaching him and despite his discomfort, got up, ran to them, and greeted them with kindness. “After the angels gave him a blessing and were going to head out to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham had the chutzpah, the audacity, to argue with them and say ‘no,’ even though these were messengers from God.”

Booker said, “These two people, Abraham and Moses, show that the idea of goodness, kindness, mercy, and then justice—by all means justice—are so important, and they are such inspiring figures to me.”

One of the biggest issues facing the Orthodox Jewish community, both in New Jersey and in communities across the United States is school choice and the rising cost of tuition for non-public school students. Booker is very aware of growing grassroots advocacy efforts across the nation, including in New Jersey, whereby parents of non-public school students seek much-needed relief through a variety of legislative steps, including scholarship tax credits, mandated services reimbursement, special-education initiatives, and other programs. I asked Booker about his thoughts regarding government relief for tuition-paying parents when it is constitutionally permissible to do so.

Booker strongly supports New Jersey’s Opportunity Scholarship Act, which would create a scholarship tax credit program for New Jersey students in failing schools. “I’ve been a longstanding proponent of scholarships for kids stuck in poverty and obviously I’ve had a strong alliance with the Orthodox Jewish community for that reason,” Booker said.

Before the interview ended, I informed Booker that there is an open invitation for him to join us in our home for a Shabbos or holiday meal. One thing is for sure – if he ever finds his way to our Shabbos table, we undoubtedly will be treated to an array of Torah thoughts from the inimitable Cory Booker, an honorary Member of the Tribe and one of the most “Jewish non-Jews” you will ever meet.

N. Aaron Troodler is an attorney and a principal of Paul Revere Public Relations, a public relations and political consulting firm.Visit him on the Web at www.PaulReverePR.com or follow him on Twitter: @troodler

NOTE: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of YWN.

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(YWN Desk – NYC)

The legendary Maggid of Yerushalayim, Harav Shalom Schwadron, zt”l, shared the following story: Once, while he was sitting in his home learning, Reb Shalom heard a scream from outside his window where the children were playing in the courtyard. A child named Meir, who had been playing with Harav Schwadron’s children, fell and was bleeding freely from the wound he had suffered in the fall.

Reb Shalom quickly scooped up the child and began to run to the neighborhood doctor. From a distance across the courtyard, the child’s grandmother, seeing Reb Shalom running with an injured child in his arms, assumed that the child was one of his own. She began to call out words of support: “Kein baiz nit, kein baiz nit, der Eibershter vet helfen, der Eibershter vet helfen.” (It’s nothing to worry about; Hashem will help.)

Reb Shalom wondered if she would stay consistent with this declaration if she knew the child’s identity. Indeed, the closer he got to her, the less confident she sounded with her pronouncement. When she realized that the child was her grandson she began to scream, “Gevald! Meir’keh! Meir’keh!”

Harav Schwadron said that he used this story to make a point to a group of baalei batim in shul. After he had spoken at a demonstration against chillul Shabbos by municipal workers in Yerushalayim, this group of people had asked him why he felt the need to get involved in the affairs of the city. But weeks later, when the municipality raised taxes, these same people began raising a ruckus about it.

Harav Schwadron, in his inimitable style, said, “When it’s someone else’s ‘Meir’keh’ you can easily say ‘kein baiz nit, der Eibershter vet helfen,’ but if it’s your ‘Meir’keh,’ you begin to yell. Shabbos is my ‘Meir’keh,’ money is yours.”

As tens of thousands of frum Jews gathered in Foley Square to protest the forced conscription of yeshivah students into the Israeli army, the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) issued a statement. In it, they “condemned” the “ultra-Orthodox anti-Israel rally” and said that the RCA deplores the attempt of a small but vocal group to undermine the image Americans have of strong, unshakeable, wall-to-wall Jewish support of Israel.”

Taking to the streets in America to protest policy positions of the state of Israel is, somehow, in the words of the RCA, “to publicly aid the many enemies who stand ready to destroy, G-d forbid, the Jewish State — and all Jews.”

Interestingly, the RCA felt no such need to condemn an organization it works with, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), for holding a rally back in June of 2005 to protest the Sharon disengagement plan. That rally drew over 10,000 protesters. A quick look through the RCA’s “policies and positions” finds at least five times that the RCA expressed opinions on different issues surrounding the evacuation of settlers from their homes.

While they express opinions on aspects of the disengagement plan itself to calling on the Israeli government repeatedly to treat the settlers with respect, one cannot find any such statement regarding the Lapid Draft Plan. Obviously, that is not their Meir’keh.

They are, however, careful to point out in a statement dated May 18, 2006, “that despite differences the religious community has always had with the governments of Israel, the religious Zionist community has always seen fit to fully support the government of Israel.”

Which brings us to the next point. It is said that someone once told the Chasam Sofer, zy”a, that there was an individual who was saying over the chiddushei Torah of the Chasam Sofer but was passing them off as his own. The Chasam Sofer replied that so long as that fellow only does that but doesn’t attribute his own opinions to the Chasam Sofer, he didn’t have a problem with it.

The most disturbing part of the RCA statement is that it says that the rally, which was called for and planned under the direction of the Gedolim, including both Satmar Rebbes, was “an insult to the memory of the Satmar Rav … For all his well-known opposition to a secular state, he always put the protection of Jewish lives first. It is unthinkable that … he would have countenanced aiding and abetting our enemies.” (It is important to point out that the opposition of other Gedolim to the rally was not for the reasons the RCA condemned it. It was a question of how we, as frum Jews, are supposed to work to get rid of this gezeirah, and whether public protest is an effective method.) It would seem that the RCA president is guilty of the very thing the Chasam Sofer was worried about, and is ascribing his own opinion to the Satmar Rav, zt”l.

In order to avoid making that very same mistake and assigning views we hold to people with whom we are not affiliated, what will follow will be excerpts from a 1957 speech to the RCA from Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, zt”l, who, on the RCA website, is referred to as their “guiding spirit and mentor.” In the speech, as transcribed by Rabbi David Holzer, he speaks in direct contradiction to the 2006 statement that “despite differences … the religious Zionist community has always seen fit to fully support the government of Israel.”

Rabbi Soloveitchik says that “When a Rabbi, a boy from our yeshivah … comes in [to a rabbinic position], he has a tough problem … There is a tendency on the part of the Rabbi to go with the crowd … Observers [of Jewish law] can be very hidden … [and] can become a marrano. You can be a Rabbi and a marrano, it’s quite possible. Many rabbis are marranos…To be a marrano doesn’t work. It’s practically wrong, it’s certainly ideologically wrong … but to display Yahadus is important. To fight for Yahadus! … And this is, of course, steadfastness, displaying non-wavering loyalty to Yahadus. A rabbi who hides is wavering.”

One can speculate if the RCA position condemning those fighting for the future of Yiddishkeit in Israel, and supporting all the state does, even in the face of religious differences, is “an insult to the memory of” Rabbi Soloveitchik. But one thing is clear: they have definitely chosen a different Meir’keh.

By Eliezer Stein

This article appeared in print on page 41 of the June 19th, 2013 edition of Hamodia.

NOTE: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of YWN.

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The verbal and even physical assaults against Rabbi David Stav are despicable and should be denounced by one and all, including the chareidi tzibur. Treating a person with respect, especially a rav/dayan is not contingent on following his hashkafa!

While Rabbi Stav’s hashkafa may not be in line with a chareidi lifestyle, the man is unquestionable a talmid chacham, a rav who is dedicating his entire life to kiruv and ahavas chinam, and there is no justification for acting disrespectfully towards him. To his credit, and it can’t be easy, he continues to take the blows while acting as one would expect a talmid chacham to act.

We, regular people, are not expected to nor is it our job to be the interpreter for Gedolei Hador Shlita, and the comments against Rav Stav by Rav Ovadia Yosef Shlita are to be left as they are. We are not electing the next chief rabbi and we do not have a hand in the process, but to speak ill of a Torah scholar is a chilul Hashem and of this there can be no doubt.

Not that it matters, but Rav Stav grew up chareidi, in the Belz community, and has a connection with the Rebbe Shlita. For his own reasons he decided to walk the path of a Zionist rav and he continues to bring people back to the fold. For those who have even a slight clue of the work carried out by Tzohar Rabbis, you are aware that literally thousands of lost souls attend Yom Kippur davening in one of the hundreds and hundreds of Tzohar minyanim around Israel run by dati leumi talmidim and bnei Torah. Tzohar mohels conduct britot on many children that may otherwise not have a Halachic bris, and there is never an issue of money. The Tzohar rabbonim are polite, courteous and never take a dime, always out there to make a Kiddush Hashem. They are not running from one bris to another, but patiently address each case and do their best to involve the tzibur. I have seen this many times and they are to be commended. It is that simple.

One may say Rav Ovadia is against him and that is fine, but to add the negative rhetoric and disparaging comments is simply out of place for an observant Jew. When YWN posted the letter giving moral support to the rabbi from the RCA, readers dared to mock that organization as well. It is high time that chareidi Jews learn there are many faces to Orthodox Jewry as well and Boro Park, Flatbush or Golders Green have not cornered the market on mitzvah observance. Many of the rabbonim of the RCA are talmidei chachamim too and we have no option other than to remain silent or speak of them in a respectful tone. Let’s leave running the world to Hashem and the Gedolim, and while there may be a dispute on exactly who the Gadol Hador is, it is not likely to be one commenting on an internet site, which by the way has been prohibited by Gedolim too.

On an aside, it is humorous how we saw photos of the giant conference against the internet held in NJ, as many chareidim were busy texting and looking at Blackberries and iPhones, but this for one reason or another is acceptable while refraining from badmouthing Rabbi Stav or others like him is not an option. Please, explain this to me.

So my fellow surfers, please hang up your holier than thou attire and get real. Rav Stav’s entire being is dedicated to the Jewish People and while you may not wish to recite Hallel on Yom Haatzma’ut, you do not have a Halachic right to refer to him as “Mr.” or any other way other than respectfully until such time gedolim in Har Nof or Bnei Brak instruct us to do so. There is no benefit to insulting anyone, and no permissibility to level such unacceptable comments in the direction of a rav, a dayan and talmid chacham. Perhaps you are challenged to see one with a knitted yarmulke possibly knowing as much or more than you. I don’t dare pretend to know what irks you, but time to look at the Chafetz Chaim’s sefer perhaps for guidance.

As the Three Weeks approach I think this is the lesson to be learned. Whatever occurs in the Israel Chief Rabbinate race, let Rav Ovadia and the other Torah giants direct us, but for certain, sitting in Israel or elsewhere, it is not our job to act disrespectfully towards any of the candidates.

Asher Melamed
Rehovot, Israel

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Today’s Hamodia newspaper attacks NYC Mayoral candidate Erick Salgado and me for sending out press releases claiming the endorsements of prominent Hasidic Rebbes.

The editorial states that “…it is high time for those who serve as liaisons between candidates and our community to put an end to these shenanigans. If and when our spiritual leaders choose to instruct their followers how to vote, they will do so directly and not through the press releases of political campaigns.”

Since I was the liaison who accompanied Reverend Salgado to both the Skulener Rebbe and the Rachmestrivker Rebbe, and since I served as the English-Yiddish and Yiddish-English translator at both meetings, I would like to clarify the question of endorsements.

First of all, I wish to agree with Hamodia that this business of exploiting the Rabbonim and Rebbes for political gain has gotten out of hand.

It is truly a disgrace of Kovod Hatorah when a politician who advocates public policies of immorality and Toeva—the very opposite of what the Rebbes stand for–has the nerve to come to the Rebbe and ask for a “Brocha.”

The endorsement of a Rebbe should not be cheapened by giving it to every Bill, John, and Anthony who shows up at the Rebbe’s house.

However, for every rule there is an exception–Such is the case with respect to Reverend Erick Salgado, who is running in the Democratic party primary election for Mayor on September 10.

At great personal risk—he has received numerous death threats—Reverend Salgado has spoken out vigorously against the push for the legitimization of the homosexual lifestyle in New York and the indoctrination of our citizens–especially innocent children—into accepting this immoral and perverted behavior as normal and acceptable.

Reverend Salgado alone has stated—clearly and unequivocally—that one of his first acts upon assuming the office of Mayor will be the rescinding of the anti Bris-Milah regulations enacted by the Bloomberg administration, and the dismissal of the Health Commissioner and his bigoted assistants who participated in this fraudulent Blood Libel.

THERE IS NO OTHER CANDIDATE RUNNING FOR MAYOR WHO SUPPORTS OUR COMMUNITY’S VALUES AS SALGADO DOES.

When I related these facts to both the Skulener Rebbe and the Rachmestrivker Rebbe– both of whom I know personally–they responded enthusiastically.

They expressed their Hakaros Hatov (gratitude) to Reverend Salgado for sticking his neck out on behalf of our community, and they gave him an enthusiastic brocho for success in the coming election for Mayor.

To me, that’s an enthusiastic endorsement!

Rabbi William Handler
The BrisMILAH Anti-Defamation League

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Journalists gasp and growl whenever prosecutors issue lawful subpoenas ordering them to divulge their confidential sources or to turn over potential evidence, such as notes, video outtakes or other records. It’s an attack on the First Amendment, It’s an attack on the First Amendment, It’s an attack on the First Amendment, journalists and their lawyers chant.

Those chants were heard this week, as it was revealed that Department of Justice prosecutors had seized two months’ worth of records from 20 office, home and cell phone lines used by Associated Press journalists in their investigation into the Yemen underwear-bomber leaks.

First Amendment radicals – I count myself among them – resist any and all such intrusions: You can’t very well have a free press if every unpublished act of journalism can be co-opted by cops, prosecutors and defense attorneys.

First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams speaks for most journalists when he denounces the “breathtaking scope” of the AP subpoenas. But the press’s reflexive protests can prevent it from seeing the story in full, which I think is the case in the current leaks investigation.

(Disclosure: About 50 news organizations, including my employer, Reuters, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder objecting to the subpoenas.)

The Obama administration has already used the Espionage Act to prosecute more government officials for leaking than all of his predecessors put together, but we shouldn’t automatically lump its pursuit of the underwear-bomb leaker in with those cases. Perhaps this investigation is chasing an extra-extraordinary leak, and the underwear-bomber leak is but one of the drops.

The AP story that has so infuriated the government described the breakup of an al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula plot to place an underwear bomber on board a U.S.-bound airliner.

Published on the afternoon of May 7, 2012, the story patted itself on the back for having heeded the White House and CIA requests to not publish the previous week, when the AP first learned of the operation. The AP states in the article that it published only after being told by “officials” that the original “concerns were allayed.”

In a chronology published in today’s Washington Post, we’re told that the CIA was no longer resisting publication of the AP story on the day it hit the wire (Monday) and that the White House was planning to “announce the successful counterterrorism operation that Tuesday.”

That may be the case, but the government was still incensed by the leak. In fact, it appears that officials were livid. As my Reuters colleagues Mark Hosenball and Tabassum Zakaria reported last night, the government found the leak so threatening that it opened a leak investigation before the AP ran its story.

Now, what would make the Obama administration so furious? My guess is it wasn’t the substance of the AP story that has exasperated the government but that the AP found a source or sources that spilled information about an ongoing intelligence operation and that even grander leaks might surge into the press corps’ rain barrels.

At the risk of making the Department of Justice’s argument for it, a leak once sprung can turn into a gusher as the original leakers keep talking and new ones join them, or as the government attempts to explain itself, or as others in the government begin to speak out of turn. From what I can tell, all of the above happened after the AP story appeared.

As Reuters reported a week and a half after the AP scoop, the White House sought to spin the AP story immediately after its publication.

“At about 5:45 p.m. EDT on Monday, May 7, just before the evening newscasts, John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s top White House adviser on counterterrorism, held a small, private teleconference to brief former counterterrorism advisers who have become frequent commentators on TV news shows,” Reuters’ Hosenball wrote.

One of the participants in the conference call, President Clinton’s former counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke, proceeded to milk and re-milk the conference call over the next two days in his role as an ABC News contributor.

I don’t mean to suggest that Clarke “leaked” sensitive information from the Brennan conference call. Rather, he repeated what he was told about the operation. And once he started talking, his comments widened the AP’s rivulet into a 10-inch water main. On the May 7, 2012, edition of World News Tonight With Diane Sawyer, Clarke said:

“The U.S. government is saying [the bombing plot] never came close because they had insider information, insider control.”

That was new news. The AP story said nothing about an insider, an infiltrator or a double agent.

The May 7 Nightline ran a slightly longer clip of Clarke in which he said:

“The U.S. government is saying it never came close because they had insider information, insider control, which implies that they had somebody on the inside who wasn’t going to let it happen.”

“Insider information.” “Insider control.” “Somebody on the inside.” Gee, you don’t suppose Clarke was implying that the U.S. had infiltrated al Qaeda to stymie the underwear-bomb plot, do you?

Clarke had more to say the next morning, on a May 8, 2012, Good Morning America appearance:

“You have to wonder if this plot was foiled by someone on the inside, whether or not that means that source is blown, and therefore they no longer have someone on the inside and would not know about the next plot.”

And in his May 8, 2012, World News Tonight With Diane Sawyer, appearance, Clarke said:

“It’s quite an accomplishment to be able to pass yourself off as an al Qaeda terrorist to the terrorists when, in fact, you’re working for a U.S. or allied intelligence agency.”

Clarke wasn’t the only one expanding the AP’s original story, which was mute about infiltration or double agents or the participation of another intelligence agency.

On the morning of May 8, 2012, Representative Peter King (R-N.Y.), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, shared what the Obama administration was telling him on Soledad O’Brien’s morning CNN, much in the way Clarke had shared. Here’s their exchange:

O’BRIEN: “There was a drone attack that was able to kill Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso. Are these two things linked? The drone attack over the weekend that was by U.S. accounts successful, and foiling this plot?”

KING: “Yes, I was told by the White House they are connected, they’re part of the same operation, and that’s why I said this operation is still ongoing.”

Fahd al-Quso – of whom O’Brien and King speak – had a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head and was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Terrorists list for, among other things, his role in the bombing of the USS Cole – was killed in a May 6 CIA drone strike in Yemen’s Shabwa province.

Although the killing of al-Quso was mentioned in the AP story, it made no connection between the foiled plot and al-Quso’s death.

But now thanks to Clarke, who was briefed by White House aide Brennan, and King, who also claims to have been briefed by the White House, the world learned that the underwear bomber plot had been undone by a double agent inside al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The press advanced the story.

The Los Angeles Times (“Al Qaeda bomb plot foiled by double agent,” May 9) claimed that the double agent who handed off the underwear bomb to authorities was working in cooperation with Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency.

The New York Times (“Airline Plotter A Double Agent, U.S. Officials Say,” May 9, published on the Web May 8) similarly claimed that the double agent “was actually an intelligence agent for Saudi Arabia” and “operated in Yemen with the full knowledge of the CIA but not under its direct supervision, the officials said.”

The Wall Street Journal (“Bomber Plotter Was Informer,” May 9) reported that the double agent answered “to a foreign intelligence service that works in concert with the CIA. Saudi intelligence officials played ‘a large role’ in handling of the double agent inside AQAP, this official said.” Upon convincing al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula that he would complete the suicide attack, the double agent was given the bomb. Instead of detonating it, he gave the bomb and new intelligence about the group to intelligence officials.

NBC News (“Spy who uncovered underwear bomb plot is British national, sources say,” May 10) maintained that the double agent held a British passport and that multiple “security services” had participated in the operation, including that of Saudi Arabia.

Reuters (“British played central role in foiled bomb operation: sources,” May 10) gave British intelligence services MI5 and MI6 “a central role” in the operation. (MI5 is the U.K.’s domestic security agency. MI6 is its CIA equivalent.)

The Telegraph (“British secret agent was al-Qaeda mole who cracked new ‘underpants’ bomb plot,” May 10) reported that the double agent was recruited by MI5 and MI6, and worked with the Saudis on the operation.

Echoing King’s comments on CNN, the New York Times, NBC News, the Telegraph and the Los Angeles Times reported that the double agent (or the double-agent operation) had helped the CIA’s drone find and kill Al-Quso.

What not for the U.S. government to like here?

To begin with, the perpetrators of a successful double-agent operation against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula would not want to brag about their coup for years.

Presumably, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula will now use the press reports to walk the dog back to determine whose misplaced trust allowed the agent to penetrate it. That will make the next operation more difficult. Other intelligence operations – and we can assume they are up and running – may also become compromised as the press reports give al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula new clues.

Likewise, the next time the CIA or foreign intelligence agency tries to recruit a double agent, the candidate will judge his handlers wretched secret keepers, regard the assignment a death mission and seek employment elsewhere.

Last, the leaks of information – including those from the lips of Brennan, Clarke and King – signal to potential allies that America can’t be trusted with secrets. “Leaks related to national security can put people at risk,” as Obama put it today in a news conference.

The ultimate audience for the leaks investigation may not be domestic but foreign. Obviously, the government wants to root out the secretspillers. But a country can’t expect foreign intelligence agencies to cooperate if it blows cover of such an operation.

I’d wager that the investigations have only begun.

Jack Shafer is a Reuters columnist covering the press and politics.

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The following article was written in Hebrew by Dr. Mordechai Kedar for the May 10, 2013 issue of the Makor Rishon newspaper, and translated to English by Sally Zahav.

An Open Letter to the Arab League
by Mordechai Kedar

To the Honorable Leaders of the Arab States,

We in Israel received with great pleasure your agreement to normalize relations with Israel on condition that we agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state and exchanges of territories between that state and Israel. The Palestinian state that you propose to establish in Judea and Samaria would be the second Palestinian state, since the first Palestinian state was established six years ago in the Gaza Strip, and you clearly recognize it as such in practice. How else can the state visits of the Emir of Qatar and the secretary of the Arab League in Gaza be understood? Now you propose the establishment of a second Palestinian state? Perhaps a third!! Because Jordan is also a state with a Palestinian majority. And all of these states were established – as you know – on land that the League of Nations had designated for a Jewish state at the San Remo Conference, in April of 1920. So why should we agree to exchange territories with any state or states that have been established or will be established on our land?

And if indeed a second Palestinian state will arise in Judea and Samaria (that which you call “the West Bank”) can you promise us that this state will not at some time in the future become another Hamas state? Do you not recall that Hamas won a clear majority of the seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council in January 2006? Did you not see how Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip with bombs, fire and kalashnikovs in June of 2007? Will you send a military force to get rid of Hamas after this terror organization also takes over – by means of elections or revolution – the new Palestinian state as well? Or perhaps you will leave us bleeding as a result of the problem that you have created?

We in Israel are very touched by the fact that you, as an Arab collective, not as individual states that have made a peace agreement with us, finally agree to accept us as an existing state in the Middle East. Indeed, it has taken you 65 years to understand that we are here, on the land of our fathers, that we have come back to stay in our land forever and ever until eternity. But why do you call to displant Jerusalem, the historical capital of the Jewish people, from the Jewish state? Was Jerusalem ever a capital of something connected to the Arab world or Islam? Throughout all of history, did an Emir, Sultan Caliph or Arab or Islamic King rule in it even for one day? Do you not remember that since the Islamic conquest in 637, the capital of “Jund Filastin” (the region of Palestine) was called Ramallah? Then why has Jerusalem suddenly emerged as a candidate for capital of the second Palestinian state? Just because it is our capital?

Just to remind you: Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria were under Jordanian occupation for 7000 days, from May of 1948 until June of 1967. You had 7000 golden opportunities to establish a Palestinian state on this territory with Jerusalem as its capital. Why didn’t you do it? Why did you think of it only after the Jewish people liberated the territory from the Jordanian occupation whose legality even you, the Arab League, never recognized? What did you know all those years about “the rights of the Palestinian people” that you don’t know today? And why is Israeli “occupation” worse than Jordanian occupation?

Just imagine that we had made a peace agreement with Asad’s Syria. Would the Saudi Arabian jihadists, followers of al-Qaida who want to eliminate Asad, honor the peace agreement that he signed with the Zionists? And what about the Palestinians in Jordan – if they will also rise up and overthrow the royal house that the British imported from Saudi Arabia, are you sure that they would honor the agreement that that royal house signed with us over the Palestinians’ objections? Are you willing to assure us that the Muslim Brotherhood, which has taken over Egypt, will always honor the peace agreement with Israel after all the years that they said that they would cancel it when they could? Just to remind you, Israel has had agreements of mutual recognition on different levels with Qatar, the United Emirates and Tunisia. Why did they cancel these agreements and close the Israeli diplomatic missions? Is this what your signature is worth?

And in general, why should we, the citizens of Israel, believe you? Is your promise worth anything? Does the Arab League indeed function as a relevant and effective body? In the covenant of the Arab League, which all of the Arab states have signed, there are articles that state principles of behavior among yourselves, but you behave in the totally opposite way!! Article 5 prohibits your states from using force against each other. Were there not wars between Egypt and Libya? Between Egypt and Sudan? Between Saudi Arabia and Yemen? Between Iraq and Kuwait? Between Syria and Iraq? And while we’re on the subject of Syria and Iraq, Article 6 of the League’s covenant states that if a foreign state attacks an Arab state, the League must take measures against this attacker. What did you do when your brother, Saddam Hussein, was attacked in 2003 by foreign states? Not only did you not help him but you joined the attackers!!! So can anyone trust you?

And when Syria occupied Lebanon what did you do? And in August 1976, when Syria slaughtered Palestinians in the Tel al-Za’atar refugee camp in Lebanon, what did you do? and when Kuwait eliminated many thousands of Palestinians after it was liberated from Iraqi occupation, what did you do to your Palestinian brothers? And what did you do in order to solve – not perpetuate – the problem of your brothers, the “Palestinian refugees” since 1948? Why have you not allowed those “refugees”, who originally came to Israel from your countries before 1948, to return to their homes in your countries after they fled the wars that you started? And when Qadhaffi slaughtered 50,000 of his citizens, what did you do as an Arab collective besides calling on Europe to do your work for you, to rescue Arabs from the knife of the Arab butcher!!! When ‘Ali abdAlla Salah, the former dictator of Yemen, slaughtered his citizens what did you do? And during the past two years, while your brother Bashar Asad, has been slaughtering 80,000 of his citizens until today, where have you been? If this is the way you behave, allowing so very many thousands of Arabs, your brothers, to suffer and be killed in vain, only because they want to live the normative lifestyle of a human being, then why should we, citizens of Israel, think that you would care at all about us? Would you come to our aid if one of your countries decided to attack us?

The way you relate to one another is so terrible that we are not sure that we want anything to do with you. Can an Arab travel to another Arab state without a visa? How does any Arab state treat foreign workers who come from other Arab states? And why do the Egyptians kill Sudanese living in Egypt when they demonstrate against the humiliating way they are treated by their Egyptian brothers? And what did the Iraqis do to the Palestinians who were in Iraq until 2003? Did they not persecute them and chase them with knives into refugee camps of Rawishad on the Iraqi-Jordanian border and al-Kaaam on the border of Iraq and Syria? And why have Arab citizens of Lebanon been slaughtering Arab citizens of Syria for the past year? Only because the killers are Shiites and the victims are Sunnis? And why does Saudi Arabia send criminals to Syria in order to slaughter Assad’s soldiers, who only wanted to slaughter Syrian citizens? And why does the Sudanese government slaughter its citizens in Darfur? Is this any way for a nation that proposes peace to the citizens of Israel to behave? And what has the Arab League ever done in order to bring a little calm to the Arab nation? Why do people say that the Arab League is like a frozen body in a morgue, that no one has the courage to declare as dead?

And even if we assume that there will be peace between us and all of the Arab states, what will that give us? Will you be able to buy our products? Do you think that we will allow tourists from your countries to visit us freely? We tried this in the nineties, when hordes of tourists came from Jordan, and more than a hundred thousand of them “disappeared” into Israel. We have learned the lesson, and many years will pass until we’ll want to see your tourists in Israel again.

But the most important thing is the fact that despite the terrible holocaust, in which the Palestinian Mufti – your brother, Hajj Amin al-Husseini – took an active part, and despite the wars and the terror between the wars that you have imposed upon us, we have established a democratic and developed country, and we have proven to the whole world that we need you, our dear neighbors, about as much as we need a headache. We have managed very well without you, and according to all the signs, we will continue to manage not at all poorly without you.

You have nothing to offer us besides the poverty, unemployment, corruption, backwardness, violence and neglect that characterizes your societies and countries. Believe us, nothing, absolutely nothing, makes us want to connect ourselves with you. Do you want peace with us? We’re willing – but what do you offer us in return? What will you give to us in exchange for our agreement to get into the same picture frame with you and to sit around the same table with you?

Peace with you will come only after we see that you really want peace. As long as you encourage and arm terror organizations who act against us, incite against us in your media, erase the state of Israel from the geography books in your schools and act against us in
international arenas, why should we believe that you indeed want peace? A peace agreement should be a recognition of actual peace in the field, for one important reason: when we see how you behave with yourselves, no one in Israel believes even one word of yours, because you have no idea what peace is. If you want peace with us, show us please that you have some concept of the term “peace”. Begin with making peace within your countries, continue with peace between your countries and then perhaps we will believe that you know what peace is.

And if anyone thinks that our requirement is absurd, because there will never be peace in the Arab world, this is the proof that we are right. There is a saying in Arabic “Faqd a-Shay la y’atiha” – “He who has nothing, cannot give to someone else.” How can a nation that has no notion of peace, give peace to others?

In conclusion, dear neighbors, we – citizens of Israel – want very much to live in Peace, in a region of peace where you and we enjoy it together. But we do not think that there is any point in signing an agreement with someone who today is here and tomorrow is in a grave, and his successors won’t honor his signature. When the Middle East becomes a region of peace, give us a call, perhaps we will join the peace that you will begin in the Middle East. until then please leave us alone.

Signed: Mordechai Kedar, and many, many more citizens of Israel.

===============

Dr. Mordechai Kedar is an Israeli scholar of Arabic and Islam, a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University and the director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation), Bar Ilan University, Israel. He specializes in Islamic ideology and movements, the political discourse of Arab countries, the Arabic mass media, and the Syrian domestic arena.

Translated from Hebrew by Sally Zahav with permission from the author.

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(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)

“What’s he worth?”

“What’s he worth?” How many times has this question passed your mind when speaking to someone? Have you ever asked this question to someone point blank?

Well, there are certainly people out there who are interested in knowing about your worth. For example, the government is interested when trying to determine your taxes or Medicaid eligibility. Fundraisers for charitable institutions would love to know how much they can ‘hit’ you for. Oh, and yeshiva administrators are dying to know how much tuition they can expect from you as well.

Yes, it’s that time of the year again. Parents in our community are now busy completing their registration packets for their children’s upcoming school year. In it, there is sure to be some information about tuition. In fact, this year numerous schools in our community updated their tuition negotiation process. Unlike in the past where parents would meet with the school administrator to have a face to face meeting about the monetary issues, this year parents are being directed to a ‘third party’ online website where the most detailed financial information conceivable needs to be disclosed and the most private financial documents provided (tax documents, credit reports etc.).

I can see why it is in the schools’ interest to implement this new screening system. Firstly, this saves the administrator time since time-consuming meetings with parents are now mostly eliminated. Secondly, as this third party company ‘verifies’ the submitted numbers with tax and credit agencies the numbers are seemingly more truthful. Thirdly, the school can now place the blame squarely on the unnamed ‘third party’ when tuition reductions are declined. No longer can the administrator be called the ‘Rasha’.

Now don’t get me wrong. There is no doubt that yeshivas offer our children an indispensable service and need money to function. There is also no doubt that those who can afford to pay substantial tuition should pay. The point of what follows is the questionable process of judging peoples’ financial situations in general. To be clear, this article is not specifically pointed towards school administrators (although, as this is on peoples’ minds these days, they are being used as an example); rather, it should hopefully be an eye opener to all those who assume they have figured out someone else’s financial situation or “worth”.

A Tale of Three Paupers

Imagine the following scenario:

Three people are waiting outside the school administrator’s office each holding their respective tax returns: Nosson Ha’Nebach, Boruch Ha’Batlan, and Kalman Ha’Ksil (-names have been changed to protect their true identities). Each enters the office separately and declares poverty. Each of their tax returns shows only $15,000 of income for the past year and they each have four children!

The administrator understandably agrees that they can’t pay much tuition and comes up with some relatively low amount (-which, for these paupers, is still a substantial sum).

Ah, but there’s more to know about these three poor men! Here’s their story:

Nosson Ha’Nebach is a sad case indeed. This man lost his job nearly a year ago and has been searching for a new job ever since. Not a day goes by without him reading the classifieds, sending his resume to employers, and scheduling interviews. Every night he goes to sleep worried about his family’s future. His self-esteem is shattered and he confides his broken feelings in his wife. And, when he’s out of options, there’s always a tehillim nearby. To survive this difficult period, Nosson applied for Medicaid and foodstamps but hopes this assistance will only be needed temporarily.

Boruch Ha’Batlan is a different story altogether. This guy never had a job nor is he interested in one. Having a job would mean needing to get up before 10 am every day! It would mean having more responsibility in life than he is interested in. It would also mean that he would be like those other ‘losers’ who slave away yet live the same way he does. You see, Boruch has it all figured out. He has been living in a ‘Section 8’ apartment for years, has Medicaid, foodstamps, HEAP, and WIC for the family. Oh, he even gets free cell phones and air conditioners every year! On top of it all, he knows he’ll get all sorts of free food before every yom tov (-these magic trucks show up loaded with goodies!-) and that the yeshivas and other institutions will give him all kinds of breaks because he is destitute. Whoever said America is not the land of the free (stuff)!

Kalman Ha’Ksil. Wow, this one is something else. Kalman is just like Boruch. He also gets all of the benefits, including Section 8. But there’s a dark secret. Kalman actually is a very capable and proactive guy. He has a full time job and earns $75,000 a year. In cash. Shh, this is his little secret that he is hiding from the IRS, the school administrator, and from everyone else. No one even knows about the property he recently purchased (with cash – under a relative’s name) and now rents out to tenants. This, while living in his three bedroom Section 8 apartment!

Knowing these backgrounds, please, pray tell me, how would or could a school administrator or some third party software possibly be able to determine each of their circumstances? Aren’t these three individuals three entirely different situations?? While on paper these people are no different, in reality these people are worlds apart.

And this hypothetical situation does not take into account the myriads of other personal circumstances and variables that would need to be taken into account before determining what each person is really “worth”.

So, I ask you, who’s to judge?

The Poor Rich Man

Did I mention that there was a fourth person also waiting in the administrator’s office? Indeed, Gavriel Ha’Gvir is sitting there too holding his tax return that shows $100,000 of income for the year. A six figure salary! The administrator or ‘third party’ takes one look at that number and suggests that he should pay nearly the full tuition.

Little does the administrator or ‘third party’ know of this person’s circumstance:

Gavriel Ha’Gvir actually earns $65,000 per year working 9 am – 5 pm every workday (there is also a 45 minute commute). His wife also works part time and earns $25,000. In addition, Gavriel has a Sunday job, to bring in some extra money for the family’s needs, from which he earns another $10,000. This brings him to the $100,000 total.

Gavriel wishes he can spend Sundays with his kids, but he thanks Hashem every day that he at least has a parnassa in these tough times. This, after having invested thousands of dollars and hundreds of stressful hours over the past three years when he was acquiring marketable skills while studying in an intensive training school.

But wait! Does Gavriel get to keep the $100,000 amount that is listed on his tax return? Oh no! That is the gross amount of his earnings. 7.65% ($7,650) is removed for payroll taxes. Another approximately 35% ($35,000) from the gross is removed for federal and state income taxes. Now he just has $57,350 of net pay.

Being a good Jew, Gavriel gives 10% maser from this net amount ($5,735) to his poor relative (Boruch Ha’Batlan perhaps?) leaving him with $51,615. From this, he must pay for his family’s medical insurance (around $15,000) and, of course, pay rent at around $2,000 per month ($24,000). Now he has $12,615 to spend on food (around $10,000 per year at $175 per week plus yomim tovim) and utilities (phones, electric, and gas around $2,500).

Poor Gavriel Ha’Gvir just has $115 left to spend on everything else (clothes, insurance, transportation etc. etc.)! Did I mention that Gavrielalso has four kids? And that the administrator wants him to pay nearly full tuition. From where, pray tell me, from where?!

Up is Down and Down is Up

Back to our friend Boruch Ha’Batlan, the lazy pauper who only earned $15,000. This guy would not pay any federal or state income tax because he earned so little. In addition, he would get around a $4,000 ‘earned income credit’ and an additional $1,000 for the child tax credit! (This guy loves filing his taxes each year!)

So, his $15,000 of income turned into $20,000 after the tax credits. Plus, he gets free medical insurance (a $15,000 value) and Section 8 (around a $20,000 value) in addition to foodstamps (at $400 per month, a $4,800 value), not to mention the other perks (WIC, HEAP, air conditioners etc). In addition, he sends his child to the Bais Rivka Head Start program (a $5,000 value).

Without lifting a finger or making any attempt to find a job (or to wake up before 10 am), Reb Boruch raked in a value of $65,000, none of which is taxable!!

So who gets the last laugh, Boruch Ha’Batlan or Gavriel Ha’Gvir?

The Point

I don’t believe there are any chiddushim here. We all understand that every person’s situation is entirely unique. And this is precisely the point: By just looking at numbers on paper one can never capture the finer factors that make everyone’s circumstance unique. Some unknown ‘third party’ website cannot possibly discern Nosson’s tears from Boruch’s laziness nor distinguish Kalman’s evasions or Gavriel’s labor.

Perhaps what this takes is face to face, honest meetings between parents and school administrators. The intuitive administrator should be able to gather more understanding from the parent’s face than from the face of tax documents.

And, from their end, parents need to realize and recognize the incredible value of the service our schools are providing our children with and be totally honest about what we can afford to contribute.

The tuition problem has been around for years and will probably not go away anytime soon. Parents will still struggle to pay their tuition and schools will struggle to pay their bills as well. However, when trying to determine peoples’ worth, I ask, “Who’s to judge?”

“Don’t judge your fellowman until you are in his place.” (Pirkei Avos 2:4)

Sincerely,

Chanoch Ha’Chochom

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Events unfolded rapidly in Boston this week, from the bombing on Monday to release of photos of the suspects on Thursday to the citywide manhunt for one brother and the killing of the other. While we now know that the two young men are ethnic Chechens who spent time in Kyrgyzstan, we know nothing as yet about why they did what they did.

But perhaps less important than whatever their rationale turns out to have been is how the United States is reacting to the events of this week. On that score, the initial reactions here suggest that we may have turned a post-9/11 corner: still shocked, still pained, but no longer so fearful, or so ready to blame religious zealots, or so willing to discard the freedoms that give us such strengths and yet can, at times, leave us so vulnerable.

There will always be people who find some reason to wreak havoc and inflict pain. Yes, such attacks can kill and maim, and thankfully, the Boston Marathon bombing, horrible though it was, did only limited physical harm considering the number of runners and the size of the crowds. It’s what comes after that shapes our lives even more. It’s how society reacts that affects not the hundreds directly harmed and the three killed, not the thousands of friends and loved ones, but the millions and hundreds of millions who were touched only through their sympathy.

The United States has had only limited experience with these attacks, whether foreign or domestic. While the Newtown massacre was a reminder that America is no stranger to homegrown gun violence, bombs designed to shock as well as kill are rarer. In fact, only in the past 50 years has American society slowly adjusted to the types of theatrical violence that the Boston bombing represented.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, repeated Cuban hijackings of U.S. planes led to the first installments of security layers at airports, including metal detectors. In 1993, the World Trade Center was shaken by a bomb detonated in one of its parking garages, killing six and wounding 1,000. In 1995, the Murrah office building in Oklahoma City was blown up, killing 168. And the September 11th death tally was nearly 3,000.

Each of these episodes changed daily life for everyone, and none more so than 9/11. From intensive security in many office buildings to much more intensive screening at airports, from a vastly expanded surveillance network of electronic communications to cameras in urban areas, which have allowed the Boston authorities to identify those suspects, our lives have been changed. The response to the hijackings of the 1970s seems almost quaint by today’s standards: metal detectors. Then, after several international episodes of bombs bringing planes down, authorities demanded that luggage be scanned. Still, while flying before 2001 was a hassle, it was not a security gantlet punctuated by fear.

The American response to 9/11 was both brutally effective in targeting those who did it – al-Qaeda and its state-sponsors, the Taliban – and ham-handed. Today, we feel its effects most when we travel, and the contrast between traveling from U.S. airports and other airports is visceral. Other countries have adopted similar screening techniques, but airports in Spain and Indonesia (both of which I flew out of recently) don’t exude the same degree of tension. In New Zealand, domestic flights are still like America of the 1970s.

That screening may be a small price to pay, but the widespread suspicion of Muslims has been a greater harm, as has the culture of classification and secrecy that grew rapidly in Washington just as the national security state did in the face of the Cold War.

The initial leap of some news outlets to Muslim-bait was also quashed, as the appetite for such easy blame appears to be fading. As it turns out, the two brothers are Muslim, but not Arab, not Iranian, and not affiliated with any known organized group. That says no more about Islam than Cuban hijackings in the 1970s said something about Catholicism, or than Timothy McVeigh and his Oklahoma madness said anything about Protestants.

In the reaction to the Boston bombings, we are seeing, at least for now, an outburst of balanced outrage. I lived in Boston for seven years in the 1990s. It was a tough place – not threatening, just tough. Removed from the years of busing that had brought out the us-versus-them worst, it wasn’t yet as gentrified and reborn after the multibillion-dollar Big Dig.

The DNA of cities takes a while to change, and you could feel in the many reactions from Bostonians that they were hurt, angry, and determined to catch whoever did it. But they were equally determined to keep going without making too many compromises about their lives. The city was shut down on Friday to make it easier for law enforcement to do their job, but for a very specific reason, not some generalized fear.

It’s been said for years that we have ample tools via law enforcement agencies to guard against attacks and pursue those who undertake them. The Boston response is classic law enforcement, with the FBI leading the way, the police doing the vital work, and untold numbers of volunteers and responders adding to the mix.

Terror is not an act per se; it’s the creation of fear via an act. It’s been said that Russia is relatively immune to terror, even after a number of gruesome and far more lethal episodes in recent years. In 2004, a school in Beslan was seized by Chechen fighters. When Russian troops stormed the school, nearly 400 people died. Yet that had little discernible impact on Russian attitudes or behavior.

Russians are largely impervious to the effects of terror attacks because they don’t expect perfect security. They expect a world fraught with peril, and probably too much, though their history suggests that peril is the norm. Hence random acts of terror don’t terrorize.

Yet England, Spain, France and Israel have also been subject to domestic attacks, Israel especially, and they have managed to thread a path between changing their chosen way of life and increasing their vigilance. The Israelis have defied the worst of domestic attacks by refusing to stop living the way they wish. If a café was bombed, there was urgency to reopen quickly and collect contributions from patrons for a guard. Paris, London and Madrid all have had subway and train bombings in the past 20 years, but these have not lead to massive external changes in how their vital hubs were used daily. Instead, they led to far more camera surveillance and occasional police presence, much has been the case in New York City this past decade.

It’s too soon to say with certainty that the collective response to Boston indicates both a more mature and more effective phase in how we deal with danger. Yes, there will be changes to the marathon next year, in Boston, and then also in New York, London and wherever races are held. It may be harder to get near the finish line, but the danger won’t disappear. Someone can always find a way if what they want is to kill and maim. What can change is how much these acts matter to us, and how much strength we exude, not by reshaping our lives to prevent them but by defying them – by changing our lives so little.

Zachary Karabell is president of River Twice Research and River Twice Capital. A regular commentator on CNBC and a contributing editor for Newsweek/Daily Beast, he is the coauthor of “Sustainable Excellence: The Future of Business in a Fast-Changing World” and “Superfusion: How China and America Became One Economy and Why the World’s Prosperity Depends on It.”

(Reuters)

The word is almost a cold comfort in post-9/11 America — a way to describe the inconceivable, to somehow explain the twisted urge to commit mass murder. So when the bombs exploded in Boston, the word quickly became inescapable: “terrorism.”

Dictionaries, and people who study the age-old activity, define terrorism as the use of violence and fear to pursue political goals. But that definition may have expanded to fill a vacuum as the nation waits to learn a motive in the Boston Marathon explosions that killed three people and maimed scores more.

President Barack Obama chose not to use the word “terrorism” in his first remarks hours after Monday’s bombing. “The word has taken on a different meaning since 9/11,” Obama advisor David Axelrod explained on MSNBC.

“I’m sure what was going through the president’s mind is, we really don’t know who did this,” Axelrod said on Tuesday morning.

But, in the public discussion, there was already a palpable hunger for the term. “All the right words but one,” was the headline of an analysis by the Defense Media Network. “Only safe assumption: It was terrorism,” another editorial was headlined in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Within hours of Axelrod’s remarks, and with no suspects or motive announced, Obama said: “Any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians it is an act of terror.”

In times of tension and uncertainty, words can become malleable vessels — for cultural fears, for political agendas, for ways to make sense of the momentous and the unknown. In 2013 America, the word “terrorism” exists at this ambiguous crossroads. And the opinions you’ll find about it — this week in particular — often transcend mere linguistics.

Obama’s conclusion about bombs and terror made perfect sense to Jay Winuk, whose brother, a lawyer and volunteer firefighter, died on September 11, 2001 while trying to evacuate the World Trade Center after it was attacked by fanatical Muslims.

“Based on what we know so far, I do consider it an act of terrorism,” Winuk said Wednesday, before news broke of a possible suspect in the case. “I don’t know that for me personally, political motivation is part of the equation.”

“Whoever did this, it seems clear that their intention was to harm, maim, kill innocent people en masse who are going about their normal activity. To me, that’s terrorism,” said Winuk, a co-founder of “My Good Deed,” a group that has established 9/11 as a national day of service.

But that definition was a bit premature for the high school seniors in Reba Petraitis’ contemporary history class at Kent Place School in Summit, N.J.

Petraitis is part of the 4 Action Initiative, which responded to 9/11 by developing a statewide curriculum for teaching children about terrorism. Her class studies the many definitions used by various U.S. agencies and international governments and formed its own definition, which includes the intent to “intimidate, provoke a reaction or further an agenda.”

On Wednesday, the students weighed Obama’s remarks but were still not ready to call the Boston attack terrorism. Yet they understood why so many people were using the word, Petraitis said.

“When it comes to attacks like this, American people can relate to the word ‘terrorism,’” one student told the teacher, according to him. “People can’t fathom that somebody could so something as awful as this, so they latch onto it,” another student said.

Petraitis said another student noted that after four Americans were killed at the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya, shortly before the presidential election, the Obama administration received heavy criticism for not using the word “terrorism.”

Obama’s administration faced similar criticism for describing the shooting spree that killed 13 people at the Fort Hood military base as “workplace violence.” The suspect, Nidal Hasan, had exchanged emails with the Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who endorsed terrorism.

“The problem we have is that the term has been so freighted with politics, it’s taken on a life that it probably really shouldn’t have,” said Andrew McCarthy, a former U.S. attorney who prosecuted the terrorists responsible for the 1993 Trade Center attack and is now a senior fellow at the National Review Foundation.

Without the context of Fort Hood and Benghazi, McCarthy said, how to define what happened in Boston “would have been a big nothing.” He agrees that the Boston attack was terrorism, noting that the bombs were filled with nails and ball bearings to cause maximum carnage.

And yet, he said: “Terrorism has to have a logical purpose.”

Part of the reason Boston feels like terrorism without knowing the motive is that bombs were used, rather than the guns used in recent mass murders, like the movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colo.

“A bomb is an indiscriminate weapon,” McCarthy said. “A bomb is not exclusively the weapon of terrorists, but it’s the most emphatic weapon of terrorists. It’s the one where there’s no doubt about it.”

“A place like Aurora, if you ask me, that’s terrorism,” McCarthy continued. “But at the same time, a lot of these mass shootings have not been in the context of something that clearly could have been linked to the war we’ve been in the last dozen years.”

He was speaking of the “War on Terror,” a phrase popularized by the administration of President George W. Bush after 9/11. It was a war against a specific enemy: fanatical Muslims who proclaimed a strategy of terrorizing innocent people.

There have been no proclamations about the Boston bombing, no hint of why the perpetrator detonated homemade devices amid thousands of people. Yet there is a widespread feeling that it must be terrorism.

“There is a lot of confusion. People are struggling with that,” said Mary Fetchet, founding director of Voices of September 11, which provides programs to help 9/11 families and others affected by traumatic events.

On Wednesday, Fetchet was in Arizona to work with those affected by the 2011 Tucson shooting spree, in which a gunman tried to assassinate former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others.

Things like the Giffords shooting and the Newtown, Conn., school massacre were not terrorist acts, Fetchet says, but the needs of those survivors — and those who lived through the Boston marathon bombing — are the same. No one word or label will change that.

“People saw things they should never see in their lives,” Fetchet said. “To see that and respond to that, it affects you for a lifetime.”

(AP)

Dear Michael:

We were very saddened by your nationally-syndicated talk-radio show this past Monday, April ninth.

On your show, heard by eight million people on almost 200 radio stations, you viciously attacked the most fundamental commandment of the Jewish religion—Ritual Circumcision, Bris Milah.

Bris Milah initiates the Jewish child into the Covenant of Abraham and entitles him to participate in all the 613 commandments of the Torah—Without Bris Milah, the Jewish child is a religious cripple. To the religious Jew, for whom serving G-D is the only activity that gives meaning to his life, being uncircumcised is a great tragedy.

By spreading the lie to eight million people that Bris Milah is physically and psychologically harmful, you did serious harm to thousands of Jews who accept your word as if it were holy writ.

Sadly, many religiously-ignorant, innocent Jews will follow your lead and abandon BrisMILAH, the Covenant between G-D and the Jewish People.

You have now joined the infamous ranks of the Jewish Quislings and the enemies of the Jewish People: The Greeks, the Romans, the Crusaders, the Russian communists, and…the Nazis—yes, the Nazis—all of whom made it their special mission to ban Bris Milah, the foundation of the Jewish Nation.

Your pious protestations that you were not going after Bris Milah in general; that you were merely calling for the elimination of a procedure—Metzitzah b’Peh—which, in your “holy” and very ignorant opinion, had become outdated, was exposed as a lie on your show the very next day—Tuesday—when you agreed with your caller, Rachel, that ALL Bris Milah should be stopped, because you considered it the physical an psychological mutilation of a helpless child, similar to the genital mutilation of Moslem girls

You pitiful attempt to quote the Old Testament, in order to bolster your arguments, demonstrated conclusively, to any authentic scholar knowledgeable in Jewish Law and Custom, that you are a Jewish ignoramus.

For thousands of years brilliant Jewish sages, such as Maimonides, have mined the rich heritage of the written and oral law (the Talmud and commentaries), in order to develop the corpus of Jewish Law and custom as it is practiced today.

Your contention that we should transform our Laws and customs to suit today’s “modern times” smacks of political correctness, which you have always opposed.

Would you now also agree with Liberals and Progressives that the American Constitution should be “reinterpreted” to suit left-wing sensibilities?

Yes, Michael, we do make legitimate adjustments in Jewish Law and custom, as times dictate. But these changes are done most carefully in the manner dictated by our Torah “Constitution.” We don’t make these changes lightly, and we never accept proposals for change from dilettante Jewish ignorami.

“Getting with the times” has always been the battle cry of the assimilationists who sought to make Judaism politically correct. Where are they today?

Gone, without a trace, lost among the nations of the world!

Where are the Jews who have held on loyally to the Torah and to G-D for thousands of years, under all kinds of persecution?

Doing quite well, thank you!

p.s. Maybe the British knew more than they realized when the banned you from entering their country.

–William The BrisMILAH Anti-Defamation League

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Why are you not up in arms, New York Times and Washington Post? Why so quiet, Cleveland Plain Dealer and Sacramento Bee? Weekly newspaper editors, students at the Columbia School of Journalism, government employees who have quietly revealed wrongdoing to reporters – why are you not raising hell about what is happening to Fox News investigative reporter Jana Winter?

Winter is currently facing a jail sentence for refusing to reveal the sources who provided her with alleged Aurora shooter James Holmes’ notebook, which he had sent to a psychiatrist and which was”full of details about how he was going to kill people.” Holmes’ defense attorneys subpoenaed Winter to testify about who told her about the notebook and a Colorado judge has said that he will rule on April 10^thwhether Winter must reveal her source or face jail time for refusing to testify.

Winter’s dilemma should not just trouble just her colleagues at Fox News – it should trouble every single American who values the First Amendment, freedom of the press and the free exchange of dialogue between the media and those who supply journalists with information.

That Winter is even in this position should send a chill down the spine of anyone who has ever read a piece of investigative journalism.

Chances are that nearly every reporter who has received a Pulitzer has benefited from a source who has leaked information. From Woodward and Bernstein, who met with a mysterious source named Deep Throat in a garage, to a local zoning board official who is privy to municipal corruption in a small town, conversations between journalists and unnamed sources lead to investigative articles that shed light on the very things those in power would rather not reveal. Off the record conversations – or “leaks,” as they may be less pleasantly called — are the bricks and mortar of what you read when you crack open a newspaper.

Every single time I have spoken to a reporter off the record, I have done it with confidence, knowing that there are fewer things more sacrosanct than the understanding between a journalist and a source regarding those conversations. If sources who provide journalists with information in the public interest have to fear that judges could compel the release of their identities, such exchanges would be dramatically curtailed — to the great detriment of the public good.

Imagine if a judge had forced Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to reveal the identity of Deep Throat, who corroborated so much of their research into the Watergate scandal. Mark Felt, the associate director at the FBI, would likely never have risked his career, his family’s safety and the opprobrium that came with notoriety to leak information to the Washington Post. The arc of history would therefore have been very different indeed.

And that is why the case of Jana Winter is so fraught with peril for every single one of us – journalist, source and reader alike.

If a judge in Colorado, with its Shield Law protecting journalists from revealing their sources, can compel Winter to testify, no source will ever be fully comfortable speaking to a reporter again. A wall of silence will go up to shield corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and police officers from being investigated by an independent press corps because those who may want to shed light on wrongdoing will be cowed into silence by a judicial system that will place careers and personal safety in peril.

Those of us who speak to reporters off the record should be comforted by the fact that Winter may choose jail time over testifying about her source. But should we really weigh whether a reporter would choose confinement over testimony before revealing pertinent information to that reporter? How many of us would place our livelihood in the hands of a reporter who would have to choose between leaving his family and entering a jail cell on our behalf and ruining his career by revealing a source’s identify?

James Holmes’ attorneys are fighting for their client’s life, as they should. But the Colorado judge who is deciding whether to compel Winter to testify may set a precedent that can ruin many more lives in the process. There is no excuse for any of us who have ever picked up a newspaper or turned on the news to be silent as the court is deliberating Jana Winter’s fate.

Julie Roginsky is a Fox News contributor and political and media consultant.

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The challenge of day school affordability is not just an economic but an existential one; it is about the continuity and vitality of the next generation of Jews. While enrollments are at an all-time high, so are tuition bills.

That is why securing greater government support for our schools is an absolute priority focus for communal organizations. This is done by both advocating for greater support for our schools in Albany and establishing relationships with our elected officials who represent the areas where we live and work.

Groups like the OU-Teach NYS Initiative, UJA-Federation of New York, Agudath Israel of America, the Board of Jewish Education and Torah Umesorah have proven to be great advocates for schools in need. For years we have proposed or supported bold proposals that would deliver new aid to day schools and their families. But in today’s tough economic times, new initiatives are merely academic discussions.

Thus, we have turned our advocacy efforts to the resources and funding streams that currently exist in New York State and, in particular, to expanding support from a government program you probably have never heard of. There are approximately 400,000 students attending private schools in New York State and private-school students account for 13 percent of all students throughout New York. However, the private school community receives only 1 percent of the funding that goes toward education. This seems patently unfair, and it is.

Since 1974, New York law has imposed several requirements on our schools, including, among other responsibilities: reporting student enrollment and faculty employment numbers each year; administering tests to students in elementary school and high school; reporting which students graduate each year; and verifying that all students are vaccinated.

These Mandated Services Reimbursements (MSR) were accompanied by a promise to reimburse private schools for the cost of compliance, estimated at $90.4 million for this school year. For thirty-three years this promise was kept. Then, faced with a budget shortfall in 2007, the state abandoned the idea of full reimbursement and cut MSR by a hefty amount. Although we have collectively managed to get MSR restored to its full funding level, the state still owes the private school community over $30 million for the years that our schools were underpaid.

Another type of service mandated by the state is the Comprehensive Attendance Policy (CAP), which requires private schools to report student attendance for every grade by every class period. CAP requirements first took effect in the 2003-04 school year and cost private schools $38 million that year alone. Unfortunately though, New York State wasn’t nearly as accommodating in its payments of CAP as it was with MSR.

From the start, the state ignored its obligations to reimburse private schools for CAP. For the 2003-2005 school years, the Education Department did not allocate any CAP funding, claiming the schools failed to submit student attendance data. In fact, the Education Department could have gathered attendance data from the private schools’ Mandate Services Reimbursement forms. Since then, the state has continuously under-funded CAP. Currently, the private school community should be receiving $58 million in CAP funding – but received $33 million last year.

In addition, the continued underpayment for CAP has resulted in a deficit of over $210 million. That’s a lot of money that would go a long way if it were allocated to the private schools. MSR and CAP are real funding streams that go directly to each school that complies with the reporting, which includes most private schools. They go straight to the school’s bottom line and relieve a large part of the financial burden every school faces.

Last October I was privileged to have been hired by the Orthodox Union, in anticipation of its merger with Teach-NYS. This merger combined the resources of two organizations with long records of accomplishment in the field of education, one across the nation and the other in New York. To further the reach and impact of these two organizations, we partnered with many different Jewish schools across the religious spectrum. No private school is immune from the issue of rising payrolls and tuition costs and this was one issue that could unite schools of all religious philosophies. What we established was a tremendous partnership with many schools, representing thousands of children across New York State.

In early March our coalition, along with UJA-Federation of New York, took more than forty participants representing Jewish schools across the state on a mission to Albany to advocate on the front lines for increased finding for our schools in the form of CAP and Mandated Services and Security funding. We met with fifty-three elected officials, including the leadership of the Senate and Assembly as well as Governor Cuomo’s senior advisers. Our message was united and clear – private schools save New York State millions of dollars and we want the funding we are mandated to receive.

Albany’s budget negotiations are reaching their conclusion in these final weeks of March. It is crucial that all who care about the viability and affordability of our schools contact their legislators and urge that MSR and CAP funding must be fully restored and that a payment plan must be enacted so that the schools can receive the full funding they deserve.

Jeff Leb.

Jeff Leb is a political strategist and community activist who serves as the Director of Political Affairs for the OU-Teach NYS Initiative – an organization whose sole purpose is to fight for the needs of private school parents. Jeff is the co-founder of the JCC of Marine Park, Brooklyn and also acts as the Treasurer of the Peninsula Library Board in the Five Towns and is a staunch advocate for the needs of the Jewish community.

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