Appropriate outdoor activities for the Nine Days

Go to the park, with wi-fi, log on to the news. It’s suitably depressing. Save the Israeli news for Tisha b’Av.

Have a picnic in Central Park with your family them check out a free museum.

I adapted a picture of the Jews going into captivity at Churban haBayis for BackGround picture on my computer screen for duration of the 9 days.

um uhh go hiking

How about checking out the Holocaust Memorials? There’s the one at Battery Park City and the one in Sheepshead Bay.

Another idea would be to see if you can speak with survivors. I’d like to start a program where descendants of Jewish victims of Arab anti-semitism can speak. I can speak to the struggles faced by Jews in Syria and Yemen on a firsthand basis. Our story is one that needs to be told somehow. IY”H, I plan on speaking this week with a friend’s grandparents, who were Sephardic Survivors of the Shoah, whose story goes unnoticed and forgotten in many cases. The Nazis, y”s, destroyed countless Sephardic communities in Greece, Salonica, Monastir, Rhodes, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and other such places in the Balkans, where such greats as the Binyamin Ze’ev, Pele Yoetz, Hakham Salomon Gaon, and others hailed from.

My grandparents did, and I have direct testimony to their struggles and persecutions. I can also speak of many other persecutions, sometimes endured at the hands of reshaim.

This is a period for edifying one another and embodying ahavat yisrael. We have enough enemies from among the goyim. This is why I believe one Jew hurting another Jew is one of the saddest things that goes on. We need to stand together and accomplish our collective tafkid as a nation and as an am segulah. Sephardic, Ashkenazic, Reform, Conservative, Litvish, Chasidishe, etc. ought to make no difference. Regardless of whether Jews lived under Muslims or Christians, there was persecution, and I am called to make my family’s story known. I know where exactly my ancestors came from in Syria and Yemen (too bad I can’t know where my Syrian ancestors originally lived in Spain and Portugal), and to make the horrors they endured known to the world is one of my goals in life. I’d also like to learn more about my mother’s family’s Bnei Anusim roots (as many as 30% of Southern Italians have Jewish ancestry, and many of them are returning to the Jewish People) and make the story of the Jews of San Nicandro and other places in Italy known. We are living in remarkable times, where all of the dispersed seed of Israel, no matter how distant they may be, are being drawn back into klal yisrael.

going to a park is a great idea. Any quality time spent with family is beautiful and should be taken advantage of to the fullest. a picnic lunch, a ball, a jumprope, skip-it, etc…are fun things to do in the park. Think about it, with all our busy schedules, when was the last time you played jumprope or ball with your kids? (rhetorical question) Enjoy it! I plan on going to the park with my kids, parents and grandparents so we can all spend time together!

ANON – I was merely suggesting that generic ideas are better than specific locations. Parks are good, as are forest areas, the beach, window shopping. If you have kids, jungle gyms or indoor play parks are also good

rd- “Reform, Conservative…” these people are kofrim. they are not a branch/sect of yiddishkeit. they dont practice judaism.

Reform and conservative Jews are not kofrim. The Chazon Ish was clear that they are Tinok shenishbu. They don’t know any better. You are so smug and if everybody isnt as frum as you, they are kofrim and reshaim. They are Jews as much as you are. As the Ramban says they may be shogeg but the way you talk about fellow jews are Mazid. And during the nine tug! Hashem yerachem.

mz- i dont know which chazon ish you are speaking about, but i dont understand how anyone nowadays can be considered so . TS”N means they cant/dont know beter, due to a lack of coming in contact with frum jews. that doesnt apply to most reform and conservative jews.

i am not being smug. my level of religious practice and adherence has nothing to do with their status. actually, you are accusing me of something for absolutely no reason, and are being cheshed bikshairim. and during the nein teg. wow.

mz- ill try to look it up. acc. to R chaim soloveitchik one neednt be kofer in HKBH on purpose to be an apikores. “nebach an apikores is oicht an apikores”. if one doesnt believe in the ikrim, he is a kofer. i dont see the pitiful state of our ability to be mekarev them makes the ois-apikorsim.