Looking For That Special Chanukah Gift? Siman Tov Fine Jewelers See Ads On Pages 21, 23, 25, 39, 41 & 55 $1.00 WWW.5TJT.COM VOL. 9 NO. 10 15 KISLEV 5769 jkahu ,arp DECEMBER 12, 2008 INSIDE FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK GOING THE EXTRA MILE MindBiz BY LARRY GORDON Esther Mann, LMSW 28 Killing Two Birds Rivka and Rachel Hannah Reich Berman 31 “Rachel died. She was thousands of years apart, and Halachah Discussion buried on the road to Efrat, neither is understood by our Rav Shimon Isaacson 37 which is Bethlehem. Yaakov fragile human psyches that erected a monument on her yearn so desperately to grasp Response To Terror grave, which is the monument and understand. Lawrence Kulak 59 of Rachel’s grave until this How did our forefather day” (Bereishis 38:19). Yaakov deal with the prema- Dads Do Reading And last week Rivka was ture death of the woman the Rochelle M. Miller 66 buried along with her hus- Torah so clearly states that he band, Gavriel, after being loved with all his heart and murdered in Mumbai, India. soul? Rachel passed away at Pictured above are Zara, Eden, and Ruthie Hoffman (10th-, 8th-, and 6th- They were buried in the young age of 36 years. As graders at HAFTR) with their dad, Steven Hoffman. The four ran in the Las Jerusalem, on the Mount of Vegas marathon as part of Team Lifeline to raise money for Olives. These deaths occurred Continued on Page 4 Chai Lifeline. See Page 54 JEWISH LEADERSHIP HEARD IN THE BAGEL STORE Split Peas In Nitzan Feiglin To Go To Knesset Bat Mitzvah of Adina Feder. BY TZVI BEN BY LARRY GORDON See Page 77 GEDALYAHU The mighty Israeli govern- Nearly 50,000 Likud party ment lives in fear of Anita members gave the camp of Tucker, Rachel Saperstein, Jewish Leadership faction and others like them. These leader Moshe Feiglin a big grandmothers have tough victory in the Likud primaries talkers like Ehud Barak and Monday, when Feiglin placed Tzipi Livni petrified of what in the top 20, all but guaran- they might do next. So scared teeing him a seat in the next is the Israeli government that Knesset. Feiglin was voted they will do everything they Continued on Page 21 Moshe Feiglin Continued on Page 8 Stuart and Anita Tucker in Nitzan. Nikolsburger Rebbe visits Five Towns. THAT’S See Page 42 Finishing Up, Starting Over Small Knocks ENTERTAINMENT Halachic Musings Another Mother’s Musings B Y RABBI YAIR B Y PHYLLIS J. HOFFMAN LUBIN They knock on your door Many of my readers recall asking for funds. No, they are that during the summer not meshulachim from Israel. months my husband and I Nor are they the regular enjoy a nightly stroll on the fundraisers for our worthy Atlantic Beach or Long Beach hometown mosdos. They are boardwalk to relieve the ten- In memory of children from the neighbor- sions of the day and enjoy Herbert Kamlet. hood yeshivos who have been each other’s company while See Ad, Page 53 recruited by various tzedakah getting back to nature. The organizations to knock on cool summer breeze off the CANDLE LIGHTING Students and faculty of Yeshiva of Far Rockaway concluded their studies of doors and raise funds for the ocean’s edge, along with the Maseches Gittin on Thursday night, December 4, with a grand siyum Dec. 12 – 4:10 PM celebration. In all, 30 students of the yeshiva completed the tractate for the organization. comfort of spotting other Dec. 19 – 4:12 PM second time. Above, Rabbi Aaron Brafman (R) and Rabbi Arye D. Ginsburg enthusiastically take part in the dancing. Continued on Page 12 Continued on Page 14 2 December 12, 2008 5 TOWNS JEWISH TIMES 5 TOWNS JEWISH TIMES December 12, 2008 3 FROM THE EDITOR niously and piously buried there. Rivka ple through history. Who will ever forget Continued from Front Cover Holtzberg and her husband, Gavriel, the Holtzbergs or Leibush Teitlebaum Chabad sh’lichim in India, died in a (the grandson of the Sulitzer Rebbe in you know, she passed away while giv- spectacle that was broadcast around the Far Rockaway), or Rabbi Benzion ing birth to the last of the twelve tribal world in an instant. But now, two weeks Kruman, or Norma Shvarzblat- P.O. BOX 690 LAWRENCE, NY 11559 leaders, Binyamin. Such was the fate later, while the pain in our collective Rabinovich, or Yocheved Orpaz? 516-984-0079 [email protected] of Rachel that she could not be buried The events in India two weeks ago, [email protected] with the other matriarchs and their just like that premature death that LARRY GORDON ESTA J. GORDON husbands in the Cave of the Patriarchs occurred on the roadside in Bethlehem Publisher/Editor Managing Editor in Hebron. Yaakov had to make do with a few thousand years ago, are now Their sacrifice, like YOSSI GORDON, YOCHANAN GORDON a makeshift burial site on the side of defining moments in so many of our Sales Managers the road where Rachel both gave birth Mama Rachel’s, has lives. We are a people whose history is CHANA ROCHEL ROSS and died. punctuated with tragedies and loss on Editorial Assistant There was obviously something become a milepost on both a personal and communal level. SIDI BARON extra special about our matriarch Every now and then there is a loss of YAKOV SERLE Rachel and all that she endured— the long-distance life that has an impact on some seg- JERRY MARKOVITZ including stepping aside for her sister, ment or even at times on all of K’lal Sales Representatives Leah, experiencing difficulty having journey of the Jewish Yisrael. It’s been written here and else- SHMUEL GERBER MICHELE JUSTIC Chief Copy Editor Copy Editor children, and then dying in isolation people through history. where that the miraculous survival of and at such a young age. Whatever it little Moshe Holtzberg can be inter- CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Irwin H. Benjamin, Hannah Reich Berman was, she apparently made quite an preted as an indication to us on some Anessa V. Cohen, Rabbi Aryeh Z. Ginzberg impression on us all, as evidenced by level that there is still some hope and a Toby Klein Greenwald, Michele Herenstein the consistent and persistent efforts to future that lies ahead. Rabbi Yair Hoffman, Miriam Horowitz make her burial site an imperative stop souls is still raw and penetrating and And there is also another sign of Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky Shmuel Katz, Phyllis J. Lubin, Esther Mann for so many of us when we travel to while the families of all the victims hope—that is, the changes that have Rochelle Miller, Martin Mushell, Naomi Ross Eretz Yisrael. mourn, their sacrifice, like Mama once again occurred around the burial Rabbi Avrohom Sebrow, Eli Shapiro, Ari Sher But Rachel Imeinu died quietly on Rachel’s, has become a milepost on the MICHAL WEINSTEIN, BINYAMIN RHODES the side of the road and was unceremo- long-distance journey of the Jewish peo- Continued on Page 7 DOV GORDON Staff Graphic Artists IVAN NORMAN, IRA THOMAS Staff Photographers FRANKEL & CO. Design & Production TALIYE CORLEY Art Director SUZETTE LEE Assistant Art Director The Five Towns Jewish Times is an independent weekly news- paper. Opinions expressed by writers and columnists are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher. We are not responsible for the kashrus or hashgachah of any product or establishment advertised in the Five Towns Jewish Times. FEATURES Around The Five Towns 42 Book Review Fern Sidman 24 Classified Ads 74 Daf Yomi Insights Rabbi Avrohom Sebrow 62 Five Towns Simcha Jeff Neckonoff 77 Insights On The Torah Rabbi Yanki Tauber 36 Chevrah Lomdei Mishnah 34 Letters To The Editor 39 Luach 15 MindBiz Esther Mann, LMSW 28 Quick & Kosher Jamie Geller 40 Real Estate Anessa V. Cohen 32 That’s The Way It Is! Hannah Reich Berman 31 4 December 12, 2008 5 TOWNS JEWISH TIMES 5 TOWNS JEWISH TIMES December 12, 2008 5 6 December 12, 2008 5 TOWNS JEWISH TIMES FROM THE EDITOR Continued from Page 4 site of Rachel Imeinu in Bethlehem. In the aftermath of the Oslo accords signed in 1993 between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the plan was for all of Bethlehem—including Kever Rachel—to be handed over to Arab control. The decision by the architects of Oslo, as well as Prime Minister Rabin and then–Foreign Minister Peres, was that it would be more prob- lematic for Israel to maintain control over the site. Who needs Bethlehem, they argued, where only Palestinian Arabs reside anyway? And as long as it’s really an It could be argued that she was as alone then as she had been after Yaakov buried her on the side of that road all those years ago. Arab town, why do we need to antago- nize them by holding on to this little stone structure that such a small per- centage of our population regards as important and an even much smaller number bothers to ever visit? But there was an uproar that ensued. How could the State of Israel forsake Mother Rachel? The Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi at the time was Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, who appealed directly to Prime Minister Rabin to not abandon our mother Rachel. I don’t know what Rabin or Peres or the Oslo gang was thinking at the time, but they conceded the inter- national Jewish world that much. We could have Rachel’s burial site in Israeli sovereign territory, but as far as Bethlehem was concerned, that was going to be all.