Kol Hamevaser Kol Hamishtakker Looking for something fashionable, as well as Planning a getaway to the beautiful continent of Contents Frum this season? Miami, but unsure if men will be crashing your Volume IV, Issue 5 March __, 2011 / __ Adar Bet 5771 Editorial Letters-to-the-Editor Get your SHVIMKLEID,pool party? the Purim Staff necessary accessory to any aidel General Jewish Though This magazine contains words of Torah. Editors-in-Chief Availablemeidel’s in jet black, swim dark black, wardrobe. and deep black. Please treat it with proper respect. Sarit Bendavid Shlomo Zuckier Associate Editors Ilana Gadish Jonathan Ziring Layout Editor Miriam Seidman Staff Writers Daniela Aaron AJ Berkovitz Ariel Caplan Chana Cooper Jake Friedman Ori Kanefsky Chesky Kopel Danielle Lent Toviah Moldwin Eli Putterman Kaitlyn Respler season? Danny Shulman Yaakov Taubes Zuchstu eppes fashionable, un frum oich, di Webmaster Planirtstu a getaway tzu di sheineh continent Ariel Krakowski fun Maimi,kumen ober un bistu crashen unsure dein oib pool menner party? vellen Cover Design Koif ein SHVIMKLEID,shvim vardrobe! di necessary Yehezkel Carl accessory far yedereh eidel meidel's S'iz faran in jet shvartz, dark shvartz, un deep shvartz. 2 www.kolhamevaser.com Volume IV, Issue 5 Volume IV, Issue 5 www.kolhamevaser.com 3 Kol Hamevaser Kol Hamishtakker six months in Damascus studying is!” study with the noble Sheikh Anwar handful of institutions. “I don’t The Year in Syria: What Happens Arabic, where she became involved al-Awlaki, and I’m very happy know what everyone is complaining with a number of Islamist youth In other cases, I discovered, there.” When I asked Haroun about,” said Halim, an alumnus of organizations. “When my daughter staying in Madrasah works out if he plans to spend the rest of his Madrasat Dau’ Sa’eed [Yeshivoh of When Our Mohammedan Cousins got back from Syria, she was doing better, for both students and life in the Salafi world [yeshivishe Happy Light]. “When I was in Syria, all these rituals, reading this parents. Rather than living close velt], his answer was emphatic: all we did was go to bars and pick ‘Flip Out’? political stuff. All she talks about is to home, living a life that others “Certainly! It is impossible to truly up chicks on Ibn Yehuda Street. I how she wants to be like Wafa Idris may see as an attack on the existing be a good Muslim in America – guess it depends on what place you [Baruch Goldstein]. Okay, she community’s interpretation of a country founded on greed and go to. Like, those guys at Tareeq ad- BY: Omar ibn Fara’ al-Wuroud “The Year in Syria is [kehilloh] in the United States. an al-Qaeda sleeper cell – well! I wants to pray [daven] more. Okay, Islam, students can live their own selfishness, a country ruled by ash- Diraasah [The Way of Learning], I an opportunity for students Some, surprised at these radical put my foot down right there, I can she wants to wipe the Zionist Entity lives and still remain connected Shaytaan ar-rajeem [ha-soton ha- guess they’re pretty weird.” to reconnect with Islam, grow ‘conversions,’ will dismiss the tell you.” off the face of the earth and become with their families, long-distance. gadol]. Being Salafi [yeshivish] is he year in Syria – once spiritually and study Qur’an and newly-returned as shallow and a shaheedah [martyr] while she’s Each encounter becomes a rare the only way to be true to myself, to As we have seen, there is no T Dealing with skeptical family the privilege of a select few, this fiqh [halakhah] in a traditional insincere, others will see the at it. Kuwayyis [Okay]. But what and joyous reunion, rather than Allah subṣānah wataṣāla, and to one way that the Syria Experience members is particularly difficult for ‘religious gap year’ has become all atmosphere,” explains Sheikh changes as too much, too soon. will it be next? That’s what worries an incessant and harrowing war- my Muslim brothers and sisters.” affects an individual. Some will go, those students that come from less but ubiquitous among high school Mahmoud Yassin, head Imam Ahmed Baklava, a brother who, me. What if she decides to become of-cultures. One student who When I asked about his plans for come home, and settle comfortably religious backgrounds. Manhattan- graduates in America’s Modern [Rosh Yeshivoh] of the Madrasah like most of his classmates, spent Sufi [hassidish], allah maṣak has taken this path is Haroun Ibn the future, Haroun told me that he into the American Islamic lifestyle; based outreach institution Naar at- Islamic communities. The article [Yeshivoh] Naar al-Quds [Light a gap year in Syria, feels that the [chas ve-shalom]? And then I’ll Bundikiyya, a brother from Kansas would like to settle down and raise some will be changed forever. Ta’allum [Fire of the Learning] has which you are about to read is an of Jerusalem], located near spiritual growth of some brothers end up with some Persian majnoun City currently residing in Yemen. a family [build a bayis ne’eman] Whatever they choose, what they begun sponsoring events for newly investigation of the phenomenon Damascus. Like many Shuyūkh [bochurim] and sisters [girls] is [meshuggene], a ṣojjat ul-islaam Haroun spent a year at a ‘Modern’ someday, or alternatively die do with their lives is ultimately up religious college students and originally published in Al-Mu’alliq, [Rashei Yeshivoh] of the Madaaris poorly managed and in some cases [Rebbe] for a son in law!” Many of Madrasah in Aleppo, Tariq ’Asad gloriously in the name of Allah, to them. It is our responsibility to their families to help bridge this the fictional student newspaper [Yeshivos] which cater to young even dangerous. He related to me the other parents at the gathering make sure that they are welcomed gap. I spoke to several irreligious “The kids you saw two years ago drinking of the nonfictional al-Yamamah American Muslims, Sheikh Yassin a recent encounter with one such were similarly distressed. Clearly, as members of our community – parents at one of these events. University.1 It is reprinted himself hails from a Modern sister. “Last week I went on a date it is high time for some qualified ‘Araq [schnaps] and jamming to Oum Kul- and of our families. For as it says “Our family isn’t what you’d call here for the edification of those background. “We can relate to with this girl I knew back in high organization like Naar at-Ta’allum somewhere, “if you accept people the most religious [frum],” says thoum [The Beatles],now drink Turkish unfamiliar with the Year in Syria our ṣullāb [talmidim], because we school who just got back from a to step in and help these parents for what they are, they will come to Aïda Obrafirdei, a professor of – and perhaps those unfamiliar know what it’s like to come from year at Turuq Hikmah [Ways of understand the decisions that their coffee and listen to Sufi dhikr [niggunim], accept you” [made-up possuk]. with American Islamic culture in an environment that’s far from Understanding],” Ahmed told me, Oriental studies at New York children are making. because music and alcohol are haraam The author of this article, general. Throughout the material traditional Islam. And we can relate “and when I saw her, she was in a University and mother of four. “I ibn Fara‘ al-Wuroud, is a nice guy. which follows technical jargon to this incredible experience of burqa – head to toe. Talk about mean, we sent the kids to Islamic Among the students who ‘flip [assur].” He has many friends, who are and specialized vocabulary will learning al-‘uluum al-‘islaamiyyah a blind date! Anyway, after about schools, we celebrate Eid [Pesach], out’ is another group – those who subhaanahu wa ta’aala. members of all sorts of odd religions. be explained by way of bracketed [limmudei kodesh] for the first an hour of awkwardly sitting in sometimes I go to Masjid [shul] choose not to return to the United [Path of a Lion], before moving He bears no malice towards Jews elucidations, wherever such time in a brother’s life – really the lobby of the Sheraton making on Friday…that’s about it. Well, States at all. They stay in Syria to to the more hard-line Madrasat Haroun’s story or Muslims, he wishes to promote explication appears appropriate. learning without any distractions small talk, I realized that it wasn’t halfway through his first semester learn, or go elsewhere in the Middle Bint al-‘Ein [Yeshivoh of Daughter notwithstanding, the Year in [be-hasmadah]. That’s when her at all, it was actually her sister. at NYU, my oldest. Yousef, decides East. This has understandably of the Eye] in Northern Yemen. Syria has created deep rifts within mutual understanding and love You may have noticed them you first come to the realization Imagine that – her sister. Well you he wants to go to Syria for a year. led to even greater friction with Haroun has a healthy relationship our communities. A growing throughout (wo)mankind, and he in your local Mosque - young that we are all children of Allah see, I couldn’t tell, through all that And we gave in, finally, after a lot of some parents – parents who had with his parents, Bustaan and number of parents are afraid of the would prefer not to receive any brothers [bochurim], standing out [Hashem], subṣānahu wataṣāla fabric! I thought this kind of thing begging on his part! Now he’s back a specific vision, now shattered, Warda, whom he visits regularly ‘radicalization’ effect of the Syrian death threats or letter bombs, if it’s like a sore thumb, the ones who take [yisborach], and you see the beauty only happened in Jewish stories.” home and he won’t listen to music, for their children’s future.