Well, I found a new apartment.

Yet it was quite a difficult — and unexpected — struggle to get there. An almost movie-worthy scenario!

I wonder if finding an apartment in Israel is any easier — probably not. I also wonder if I can write a single blog post without mentioning Israel — probably not.

But anyway, back to New York. Keep in mind, I’m going to have to change a lot of the names and places that appear in this story to protect both my own safety and the identity of the brokerage firm, who have dealt with the situation very professionally in the end. After fumbling around on CraigsList and contacting 489859458 real (and fake) brokers, I finally found an apartment I liked Wednesday, and luckily it was on the market through a big, reliable brokerage firm — we’ll call it “NY Broker Firm.”

For some reason, however, I was suspicious of the specific broker with whom I was dealing, partially because he failed to answer any of my calls, e-mails or text messages promptly, as most eager-to-rent brokers would. So naturally, being a reporter, as soon as I got home that evening, I Googled this guy — we’ll call him “Boris” for the time being. Immediately, I found out that Boris was arrested last year for a couple different things, related to business fraud. Clearly, I didn’t want this guy having my social security number or my parents’ identity (because obviously, with the copious amounts of money I make as a journalist, I require guarantors for any lease. Well maybe not for an apartment lease in Sierra Leone, no offense to Sierra Leone.

So basically, my immediate next thought was to contact his team partner — we’ll call him “Ed” — who was significantly higher up in the company’s hierarchy than Boris. When my father found out about this, he was enraged and told me I was inappropriately overreacting and putting a guy’s job on the line for no reason. I’m sorry dad, but I don’t agree. You’ve always taught me to be fastidious about protecting my identity — and yours — and I was just doing what you’ve always told me to do. It was certainly not in my best interest to give a fraud felon access to my finances.

Up until I warned them, Ed and the entire company were unaware of Boris’s criminal past — though I don’t understand why because it’s the first thing that comes up when you Google his name. But regardless, Ed was going on vacation, so he put me in touch with another boss, whom we’ll call François. Eager to help, François contacted me nearly immediately to arrange a meeting so that we could move forward with the apartment. Meanwhile, Boris finally got back to me and was also asking me to come into the office.

I got to NY Broker Firm’s office at about 12 last Thursday, and as I entered the waiting area I saw Boris sitting in the glass-paneled conference room on my left — he gestured toward me, and then asked me to come in and close the door behind me. Stupidly, I consented. As soon as the door was closed, Boris began confronting me in a very threatening manner, tell me that he had found out through Ed that I had told the bosses he had been arrested. In retrospect, I tend to doubt that Ed actually told Boris the information, and I’m assuming Boris was just lying through his teeth to fish for information out of me.

But I didn’t think of this at the time and therefore didn’t deny what I did, and Boris continued his angry rant, telling me that while he wasn’t fired, his job had almost been on the line. “How could I do this to him?” he went on, claiming that the person in the Google stories was not him by pulling out a (presumably fake) driver’s license that had a different first name, with “Boris” as his middle name. Meanwhile, to this day, I’m nearly 100 percent sure that he, as his character would suggest, was lying because the Boris from the newspapers had the same master’s degree and worked in the exact same fields and the exact same places to the “t” as this Boris.

But after getting out of that uncomfortable situation, I ended up sitting down with François to make my deposit I the apartment I had loved, and I thought that everything was OK. Apparently, though, after NY Broker Firm investigated Boris that same mid-day, they discovered that yes, he was that same fraudulent Boris from the newspaper articles — and they fired him, which I found out a few hours later back at work, when I searched the NY Broker Firm Web site agents out of curiosity. Immediately, I was frightened (/hyperventilating in the work hallway) because I realized that Boris had all of my contact information, the address of the apartment I was moving to, as well as possibly my father’s Social Security number. Clearly, I could not keep this apartment. But the money had already been paid.

Thankfully, Lior came to my rescue and helped me negotiate with NY Broker Firm because obviously I was just upset and confused about this whole mess and had no idea what I was supposed to do. What’s funny is that François claims that Lior was fighting with him, but clearly, François had never been involved in Israeli bargaining — in Israel that’s not yelling, it’s normal conversation. So thank you, thank you, thank you to Lior. In the end, it turns out that the big boss of NY Broker Firm called me to thank me for notifying them about Boris, and he apologized to me profusely for the lack of professionalism. And on Friday, François and his partner were able to find me another apartment! Cheaper, in fact!

Obviously, this time I’m not revealing the address, but hopefully I’ll be happy there. Better be worth all the time and energy that went into this hunt.

Friend Jay Feinberg, Save A Life

Jay Feinberg: His Gift of Life’s new Web application seeks an increase in the 2,000 transplants it has facilitated since 1991.

by Sharon Udasin

In these days of tracking Tweets and finding Facebook friends, one organization is using the social media craze to try to save lives, through the click of a mouse.

The Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation is launching a new Web application this week (www.giftoflife.org)  to recruit new donors to their 130,000-member database, hoping for a rapid increase in the over 2,000 transplants already facilitated by the organization since 1991. And in the face of economic struggle — Gift of Life lost more than $2 million in the Bernard Madoff scandal — it is asking people to create accounts, to spread the word and most of all, to pay for their own $54 cheek swab tests. Continue reading…

Israel Posts Pope Status Updates

by Sharon Udasin

As Pope Benedict XVI paid his first official visit to the Jewish state, the Consulate General of Israel in New York launched a Facebook application geared particularly toward Christian audiences, which employs photographs and multiple-choice quiz questions to test users’ knowledge of Israel. Through “Holy Land Trivia: From Creation to Creativity,” the Consulate hopes to expose people to Israel’s historical gems, from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to the Bahai Gardens in Haifa and the Bauhaus architecture of Tel Aviv. At the end of the quizzes, users receive their tabulated scores and have the opportunity to share the application with their Facebook friends and view further information about the places. This project is just one of many efforts of the Consulate to bolster Israel’s public image through social networking and other online mechanisms.

“The Pope’s visit gives us the opportunity to expose people to Israel’s historic locations as well as the modern Israel and all its many important sites,” said David Saranga, consul for Media and Public Affairs.  “Many people hear about Israel and the Holy Land in an abstract sense and we want to help develop their connection to the real place.”

The application is available through the Consulate’s Facebook page at www.israelfm.org/facebook.

Strength In Numbers

Elana Silber, Sharsheret executive director, left, and the group’s founder, Rochelle Shoretz, herself battling breast cancer. “What young women need is the ability to connect with young women with the same experience,” Shoretz says.

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

When Sarah tested positive for the BRCA1 breast cancer gene five years ago, her decision to have both her breasts removed was a simple one ‹ her mother had died of the disease at the devastatingly young age of 42 and her grandmother at 49.

 Luckily, Sarah discovered a network of young Jewish women who had tested positive for the same gene, had gone through the same prophylactic double mastectomy procedure and had made it through the grueling recovery period with young children at their sides.

Through a New Jersey-based national organization called Sharsheret, she and thousands of other women have found valuable genetic counseling and personal connections, as they go through the hardest moments of their lives. Continue reading…