Archive for September, 2009

Moving On To The Next Tragedy

Not forgotten: A woman who lost a firefighter friend in the 9/11 attacks touches a plaque honoring him at a local firehouse. Getty Images

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Eight years after the Twin Towers crumbled over downtown Manhattan, rescue worker Charlie Giles still wakes up regularly with nightmares of the North Tower collapsing on top of him, enveloping his body his flames and in suffocating debris. One night recently, he even woke up to find himself throwing things.

“I said to my wife, ‘He’s in our room, he’s in our room,’” Giles remembers. “She said, ‘Who’s in our room?’ I said, ‘bin Laden.’”

Giles, now 42, was the director of Citiwide Mobile Emergency Medical Services during the time of the Sept. 11 attacks, and on that day alone he personally treated 14 victims of the attacks. Since that fateful day, Giles has accumulated 15 medical diagnoses, 30 medications and 17 hospitalizations — as well as an intense phobia of airplanes that prevents him from flying anywhere.

Debilitated by both the permanent physical damages and pervasive mental health problems from 9/11, both victims and first responders rely on a dwindling but crucial set of private foundations and government-funded programs that help cover their daily expenses. But in both the Jewish community and in all of America, 9/11-focused charities and support groups have become few and far between, with the exception of tiny scholarship funds named for individual victims. 

“There are very few organizations still providing funds/financial assistance to persons impacted by 9/11,” said Scottie Hill, director of the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring and Treatment Center at Mount Sinai Medical Center. “Most of the organizations in the NYC area, including the primary source of financial assistance in recent years (New York Disaster Interfaith Services), have shut down their programs due to termination of funding.”  Continue reading…

At New Shul, Beyond Apples And Honey

Soapbox preacher: New Shul Rabbi Dan Ain, who brought his High Holy Days message to Washington Square Park, will be installed this week. Michael Datikash

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Decked out in brown suede Nikes, distressed denim jeans and black Ray-Ban sunglasses, Rabbi Dan Ain stood atop a “kosher” soapbox in Washington Square Park Monday afternoon, extolling heresy and encouraging his listeners to break from tradition during these 10 days of awe and repentance.

“You guys didn’t expect a rabbi to stand up and talk in Washington Square Park,” he said.

At a first glance, most passers-by thought they were about to hear yet another testifying Evangelical minister. But Rabbi Ain, 32, sported a blue button-down bowling shirt with a bright yellow “Rabbi Dan” nametag embroidered above the pocket and a swooping New Shul logo silk-screened across the back.

Throughout this week, he has been delivering short soapbox talks just south of the Washington Arch, to discuss how we can reconnect with our thoughts and reinvent our spiritual selves during the days between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. Meanwhile, the New Shul is hosting a nearby House of Awe and Repentance Café, with a variety of interactive multimedia displays, creative modes of repentance and a wine-coffee bar tended by Rabbi Ain himself.  

“I think we need this time at the end of the year to reconnect with who we want to be,” said the rabbi … Continue reading…

Video of Rabbi Ain’s talk:

From Here To Eternity, On Facebook

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Every year, we welcome the New Year with the proverbial yet fatalistic saying, “On Rosh HaShanah, it is written. On Yom Kippur, it is sealed.”

This year, as these two sentences come to mind once again, I think about a more modern page that we write and edit and then seal with an inadvertent yet morbid permanence — the Facebook profile. 

A few weeks ago, I found out through the viral social networking Web site, Facebook.com, that a 22-year-old sorority sister of mine named Lindsey Goldhagen had died of an infection, after fighting through what we all had thought was a successful battle with liver cancer. I didn’t know her well — she was a freshman when I was a senior at Penn — but the death of such a vibrant young woman who was ready to offer so much to the world really hit home. 

As soon as the news surfaced in the realms of Phi Sigma Sigma e-mail listservs and Facebook “News Feed” streams, friends of Goldhagen immediately began posting flurries of “wall” notes onto her profile page — no, not notes to her family, but messages directly to her. 

When we leave this world, we are survived not only by our closest family and friends, but also by our Facebook accounts — a Web interface that today’s 20- and 30-somethings spend hours with every day.

“Linds, you were a great inspiration to more people than you could possibly ever imagine, myself included,” says one post to Goldhagen’s wall. “Your courage and ambition are things that I definitely admired in you. You’ll be greatly missed. Rest in Peace.”  Continue reading…

Schindler’s Apprentice

Leon Leyson: Oskar Schindler “was an extraordinary human being, not just for us but for everyone who was in his company.”

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

More than 60 years ago, little Leon Leyson steadied himself on top of a box each morning, climbing the makeshift step stool to operate the controls of a metalworking lathe machine that towered over his skinny 13-year-old body. 

Today that pint-sized worker is 80, the youngest survivor of Oskar Schindler’s factory in Krakow, the workplace that saved more than a thousand Polish Jews from death. He shared his story with New Yorkers for the first time Tuesday evening, at an event organized by Chabad-Lubavitch of Midtown. Only after Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List” premiered in 1994, did Leyson begin speaking about his experiences working in Schindler’s enamelware factory and how he and some of his family members were able to survive the Holocaust.

n Leyson’s opinion, “Schindler’s List” paved the way for the slew of World War II resistance films that have become popular in Hollywood today — films like “Defiance,” “Valkryie” and “Inglourious Basterds,” which tell of survival rather than victimization. “Defiance” particularly strikes a chord with Leyson because he grew up very close to the story’s location, he said.

“Ever since Schindler’s List came out things turned a little bit,” Leyson told The Jewish Week prior to the event. “There was more interest generated in those events like Schindler, those people who rescued Jews. Rescuers didn’t come out and admit what they had done until Schindler’s List came out.”  Continue reading…

Pink Slips At Birthright

by Sharon Udasin

In an attempt to redirect the organization’s focus on local Birthright alumni communities, Birthright Israel NEXT — the post-trip programming wing of Birthright Israel — has laid off six of its employees, several of whom held high-ranking managerial positions, The Jewish Week has learned.

The layoffs in the New York-based national office included two individuals from the communications department, one person from programming and three from the community initiatives sector, said Rabbi Daniel Brenner, executive director of NEXT.

Last year, only 24 percent of NEXT’s budget was allocated for local programs in its five pilot cities, but this year, 33 percent of the budget will go to its seven smaller branches, according to Rabbi Brenner.

“The restructuring is being done in an effort to create a more efficient structure for us to meet our goals in the coming year,” he said. “Generally, we’re reducing the size of our national staff. We’re going to put more resources into local offices.”  Continue reading…

Kosher App-etizing

The new “Cookshelf” kosher cookbook application.

by Sharon Udasin

Want to add a little spice to your great-grandmother’s century-old noodle kugel?

There’s an app for that.

Just in time for the holidays, the team at Web design firm Appsolutemedia has launched a $4.99 iPhone/iTouch application called “CookShelf,” the touchscreen wireless “Kosher Cookbook” that provides over 300 step-by-step recipes, a shopping list generator and 52-week meal plans.

Thus far, the recipes are all by local Jewish chef Gloria Kobrin — an experienced food writer and instructor — but CookShelf will soon incorporate other material as well, according to Alex Libkind, the CEO of Appsolutemedia. While traditional Jewish fare like chicken soup and roasted potatoes are certainly available, the application aims to diversify the kosher repertoire, providing recipes for international favorites like hoisin spare ribs (using beef flanken) with apricots, and chicken satay with peanut chutney.

“You won’t find a cholent there at this point,” Libkind said. “We’re moving away from the gefilte fish and kugel markets to the sushi and more advanced palates.”  Continue reading…

‘No Cookie-Cutter Bar Mitzvahs Here’

Elani Hillman plays with a Jewish star toy as he prepared for his bar mitzvah with tutor Aliyah Cheskis-Cotel.

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Waiting for his teacher to begin his first bar mitzvah lesson, 12-year-old Jacob Mussen made handprints in a special bed of movable metal pins and then watched colored droplets creep down the sides of a liquid motion toy.

Jacob, who has graphomotor dyslexia as well as obsessive- compulsive disorder, is taking private classes with Aliya Cheskis-Cotel, a New York Jewish educator who provides bar and bat mitzvah lessons to students who might otherwise opt out of this rite of passage. After working full time at a Jewish day school, Cheskis-Cotel first tutored a child with Asperger’s syndrome 17 years ago, and from then on began working individually with special needs students, reluctant adults and overachieving tweens. 
Cheskis-Cotel is by no means alone in her efforts, as educators focus more and more on accommodating special needs in Jewish communities all over the country. In New York, tutors like Cheskis-Cotel and institutions like the JCC in Manhattan, Congregation B’nai Jeshurun and Congregation Habonim are among a growing number of resources for special-needs youngsters seeking a Jewish education.

Nonetheless, the beginning of the school year, when other parents face an array of choices, can be a particularly challenging time for parents of special-needs children, who frequently are turned away from Jewish day schools and congregational schools that lack the resources to serve them properly. While awareness of special populations’ needs has grown, particularly with recent films like “Praying With Lior” about the bar mitzvah of a Down’s syndrome boy, supply of appropriate programs is a long way from satisfying the increasing demand, experts say.

“There is a big proliferation of kids with Asperger’s and learning disabilities,” Cheskis-Cotel said. “Twenty years ago people just told those kids that they should just sit in the back of the classroom, and nobody helped them.”  Continue reading…

Bringing More To The Table

The kosher chicken case at the new Whole Foods market on the Upper West Side. courtesy Whole foods

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Just in time for the Jewish new year, local food vendors are pumping up their kosher offerings.

Two weeks ago, Whole Foods Market opened a new Upper West Side location, where staff members pay added attention to the needs of the largely observant local Jewish community. Meanwhile, the owners of Kosher.com have re-launched their Web site, spruced up with blogs, recipes and cooking shows in addition to the food orders. And in Midtown, several new kosher restaurants have just opened, including Schnitzel Express, Lunchbox and a revamped Mr. Broadway now acceptable to the Health Department.
At the new Whole Foods, located on the corner of Columbus Avenue and 97th Street, Andrew Roberts, the grocery’s regional prepared foods coordinator, is diverging from the Whole Foods norm. Unlike at the other stores, where kosher products are mostly mixed among others, Roberts has sectioned off an area for kosher prepared foods only, next to the store’s regular dairy section.

“We’ve consolidated all the kosher products,” Roberts said. “I’m also taking a look at opening this up a bit more to vendors suggested by people in the neighborhood.”
Thus far, the prepared foods are dominated by two brands — Foremost Fresh Caterers and Zayda’s — and include a variety of Mediterranean salads, as well as ratatouille and traditional Ashkenazi foods like kugel and mushroom barley soup. 

As with other Whole Foods, the new store adheres to specific ethical standards, such as the Animal Compassion Act.  Continue reading…

Momo Returns

by Sharon Udasin

After splitting from Birthright Israel two months ago, he’s back.

Shlomo Lifshitz — more commonly known as “Momo” — is president and founder of Oranim Educational Initiatives, formerly the largest Birthright Israel trip provider. Personally greeting each one of his nearly 50,000 travelers at Ben Gurion Airport, Lifshitz was a visible presence on each trip, where he eagerly promoted personal messages like “make Jewish babies” — messages that clashed with the more low-key approach of the program that is committed to offering free 10-day trips for young diaspora Jews.

Now, as the winter trip season approaches, Momo is launching his own remake of the famously free trips, going after the same population that Birthright targets — and even courting some of the same funders. This is the first time in Birthright’s 10-year history that a provider has broken away and launched its own free trip.

He’ll formally introduce Oranim’s revamped agenda during a live Webcast on Sunday.
Though Oranim’s free trips will largely resemble those provided by Birthright, Lifshitz has decided to make a few key changes. He’s opening up registration to Jews up to the age of 30 (Birthright’s age limit is 26), with priority given to those over 23 and a focus on networking young professionals within similar careers.  Continue reading…