$1.00 WWW.5TJT.COM !jna dj VOL. 6 NO. 36 5 SIVAN 5766 JUNE 1, 2006 INSIDE From The Editor Larry Gordon 6 Aliyah Chronicle Shmuel Katz 19 Now I Know Why Hannah Reich Berman 32 The 15-Minute Chef Jamie Geller 36 MindBiz Esther Mann, LMSW 47 Concert Chairmen Joseph Frager and Paul Brody. See Page 38 Bar Mitzvah of Sholom Kanner. Simchas: See Pages 45 & 78 Mesivta Ateres Yaakov Honors. See Page 44 CANDLE LIGHTING June 1 – 8:01 PM June 2 – 8:02 PM June 9 – 8:06 PM Torah Scrolls by C.H. Nathan. This and other Judaica works are available at www.judaicartexchange.com 2 June 1, 2006 5 TOWNS JEWISH TIMES 5 TOWNS JEWISH TIMES June 1, 2006 3 4 June 1, 2006 5 TOWNS JEWISH TIMES 5 TOWNS JEWISH TIMES June 1, 2006 5 al wandering—the doing little or noth- ing—became a thing that identified a certain type of individual, and the com- mitment to aimlessness became the aca- P.O. BOX 690 LAWRENCE, NY 11559 demic equivalent of pursuing an 516-984-0079 advanced degree in absolute confusion [email protected] [email protected] about what to do with one’s young life. LARRY GORDON I believe that being in school is like Publisher/Editor oxygen for children up until the age of ESTA J. GORDON about eighteen. Remove them from Managing Editor Only For The Children school, and you are removing their sup- YOSSI GORDON ply of oxygen. As you can see, the result Director of Sales Too many children who belong inside mer yeshiva student myself, and as a is the creation of a very dangerous situa- CHANA ROCHEL ROSS the walls of yeshiva classrooms have casual observer of what is currently tak- tion. A child needs help breathing in the Editorial Assistant apparently either been maneuvered out ing place in our Jewish communities. As tools and ingredients that form and result SIDI BARON, YAKOV SERLE, JERRY MARKOVITZ or have voluntarily opted out, and that is far back as I can recall, there were always in an adult life. You know what happens Sales Representatives the primary cause of a situation that is kids who dropped out from yeshiva for when someone is deprived of oxygen for SHMUEL GERBER already of crisis proportions. Some will one reason or another. In the yeshivas I too long a period of time. Chief Copy Editor say that our yeshivas’ inability to handle attended, there were very few such kids But, you’re thinking, not all these MICHELE JUSTIC, YEHUDIT SANDERS Copy Editors a certain type of child has left them with over the years; but they did exist, and we kids who are out of school simply opted CONTRIBUTING EDITORS no choice but to insist that, for the bet- were aware of them. And it really didn’t out. Many of them were asked to leave Irwin Benjamin ter good of the majority of yeshiva stu- make a big difference how we as or, as it’s more commonly referred to, Hannah Reich Berman dents, some of these kids just not attend. teenagers viewed the role of school in our they were thrown out of school. Even if Rabbi Arye Z. Ginzberg Frequently, decisions of this type young adult lives. that’s the case, there is still no reason Yochanan Gordon Michele Herenstein may solve just part of a problem while I recall viewing those situations as for them not to be in some kind of Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky leaving unanswered what this child is unfortunate, and understood that no school environment. This means that Esther Mann supposed to do with the remainder of matter how much I may have disliked the child or teen can be in any number Rochelle Miller Arye Nisonson his or her adolescent educational school, felt uninterested in what the of specialty yeshivas or even, if need be, Paula L. Simmonds years. When these children cannot rebbi was teaching, or been complete- in public school (if absolutely no yeshi- DOV M. GORDON find an alternative educational institu- ly bored with some of the subjects in va can be found). This idea of living and Operations Director tion in which they are welcome and school, this was the place that I being on the street should be both intol- IVAN NORMAN, IRA THOMAS comfortable, the result is too often the belonged and I had a commitment to erable and unacceptable to all. Staff Photographers realization of a parent’s worst night- stay the course and see high school Still, for some reason we accept the FRANKEL & CO., CREATIVE DESIGN LLC mare, and a serious collective prob- through to its conclusion. situation as it is. I can recall that the few Design & Production lematic situation which does not Somehow, over the last 10 years or times my friends either cut school or cut TALIYE CORLEY reflect well on all of us as members of so, it became okay to beg off from out early on some days, they were always Art Director a community renowned for chesed, attending yeshiva and “opting out” for a in fear of being caught on the street by The Five Towns Jewish Times is an independent weekly news- paper. Opinions expressed by writers and columnists are not outreach, and caring for our fellow young life filled with aimlessness, misdi- truant officers and either reported or necessarily those of the editor or publisher. We are not Jew, no matter what their age. rection, and a year or so or more of somehow labeled as truants. This classi- responsible for the kashrus or hashgachah of any product or establishment advertised in the Five Towns Jewish Times. I can only comment on these matters doing and accomplishing almost noth- fication would be recorded on a school as a parent of yeshiva students, as a for- ing. Even more than that, the intellectu- transcript and would not necessarily 6 June 1, 2006 5 TOWNS JEWISH TIMES bode well for future references or, once through some kind of series of parenting you rethought the direction you wanted courses. That suggestion might be a lit- your life headed in, if you wanted to pur- tle extreme and even unnecessary. I real- sue some level of advanced education. ly do not know how to score or analyze Frankly, I wasn’t really certain that a parent’s performance, but I believe there was such a thing as being brand- that since all people were once children ed a truant, until years later when I themselves, they learned how to be a spotted a patrol car on a street in parent from their parents, and their Brooklyn, and on the side of one of its mother and father learned the parenting doors were the words “City of New ropes from their own parents, and so on York Truant Officer.” So I really never down the line. understood, and still don’t understand, Certainly the parenting courses being how kids today can just take them- offered so widely these days cannot do selves out of school and say that school anyone any damage. There are, of course, is just not for them. situations in which extenuating circum- I’m trying to say two things here. One stances invade the family infrastructure, is that having teens and others drop out and in these instances an intervention of of school and get into trouble on some some sort may be helpful and even neces- level has always happened and will most sary. Looking around, however, I cannot likely continue to happen. An educator I accept at face value that parenting in gen- spoke to last weekend told me that his eral has broken down so completely that research had shown him that the very attendance in these courses should be a same things drew kids out of the main- prerequisite to allowing children to be stream in the European shtetl 60 and 70 registered for yeshiva. and even more years ago. Kids were The events that occurred last week were drawn and taken by the ideas of the tragic. They were the worst display of the New World—new ideas, “enlighten- system breaking down and failing some ment,” and other things that caught young men. No one is comforted by the their fancy or enchanted them. fact that similar events occurred 10 or 20 The second thing, and perhaps more or more years ago. But they do happen, and important, is that even though these they are no less sickening. Each time we things have happened and continue to witness or hear about them, we have to happen, our objective as a public and steel and strengthen our resolve and as a community has to be that these become more determined than ever before types of situations should not develop to reach out and help open our minds and and should be nipped in the bud when- arms and not let up or forget about what ever possible. these young people—our children—may At the forum in Far Rockaway last be enduring. We can’t stop it completely, week, one of the speakers made the but that doesn’t mean we can’t try. ❖ point that every parent registering their Larry Gordon can be reached for comment at child for yeshiva should have to go [email protected]. 5 TOWNS JEWISH TIMES June 1, 2006 7 Thoughts From The Peanut Gallery BY DEBBIE BINDLER AND It is one thing to make suggestions, FAYA COHEN but quite another to do the hard work of implementing them.