Yeshiva To Parents: Filter The Internet

Administrators at Tiferes Yisroel yeshiva in Flatbush are demanding that parents install a Web filtration system on their computers to restrict and monitor Internet behavior as a prerequisite for student enrollment, a daily paper first reported this week.

A letter circulated among parents insists that if parents cannot “avoid” having the Internet in their homes at all, then they must purchase a subscription to WebChaver, through which they choose a “chaver” — or friend — of their choice to receive e-mail updates with details about the family’s Internet usage.

“They really just want to monitor the parents,” one father told The New York Post. “I’m not paying $60 a year so they can monitor me. I don’t go to that school – my kids do.”
It is unclear whether the school intends to monitor the behaviors of children or of their parents or of both, based on the stories and blog posts circulating.

“One thing is certain about all teenagers,” said David Bryfman, director of the New Center for Collaborative Leadership of the Board of Jewish Education of New York, who has written about kids and Internet use. “If you want them to do something – ban it! The more inaccessible you make something for our increasingly savvy teens the more they will treat it as a challenge and try and circumvent any software that we might put in place – and eventually they will find a way.”

Bryfman said that other schools ban the Internet completely, which he opposes. “Cyberspace, virtual worlds and social networking have unlimited potential in educational settings that educators and educational institutions are only beginning to realize,” said Bryfman.

A call to the yeshiva for comment on Monday was not returned in time for publication.  Original version…

‘PunkJews’ Get Their 15 Minutes

Evan Kleinman and Saul Sudin during shooting of “PunkJews.” courtesy of Evan Kleinman

Unkosher Wheels, Friendly Faces

Baruch Herzfeld, the self-proclaimed “new rebbe” of Williamsburg.

Beneath the canopy, passersby can visit a large black vending machine labeled “Bike Shop,” whose rotating carousel features $55 U-locks, $5 handlebar grips and $2 tire patch kits, among other life necessities like a $33 used BlackBerry.

“I’m trying to take a lot of what’s good about the chasidim, which is how they help each other out as a community, and bring it across multiple communities – not just shared solely amongst the Jews but also reach out into the greater community of Williamsburg hipsters,” said proprietor Baruch Herzfeld, 38, an Orthodox Jew from Staten Island who runs a cell phone business in the neighborhood. “People can socialize around their bicycles.”

Behind the vending machine is the larger Traif Bike Gesheft storefront, decorated with a Magen David shaped out of adjoining rubber chickens, artistic graffiti and a Yiddish message reminding Satmar residents to come borrow bicycles. Next to the vending device is Herzfeld’s “slot machine” ATM, which doles out cash in $10 increments but sporadically dispenses a random $20 to lucky withdrawers.

The shop proper is home to the Time’s Up! cycling club, where neighborhood residents – both hipster and Satmar – come on Sundays and Wednesdays to take free bike repair classes with volunteer instructors.

“The bike shop I envisioned wasn’t even a shop, it’s more of a community building operation,” Herzfeld said.

The Time’s Up! organization was actually at the center of a December 2008 clash between clown-cloaked cyclists and angry Satmar residents, who objected to new city bike lanes that began routing scantily clad cyclists through their parking spaces and school bus paths. Even more recently – December 2009 – cyclists decided to repaint 14 blocks worth of bike lanes that the city had removed from Bedford Avenue, in response to Satmar complaints. Yet Herzfeld stresses that his bike shop has only brought residents closer together, and he sees no division between the two populations.  Continue reading…

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Also posted on Jewlicious.

On Jewcy now as well.

I know it’s over a month past the Olympics, but I have just recently become obsessed with Matisyahu’s song “One Day,” which was apparently an official NBC Olympic theme song and appeared in many TV spots and commercials. Wish I knew this during the fact so I could’ve written an article about it. Don’t know how I missed the boat on this one.

Sometimes I lay / under the moon / and thank God I’m breathing.
Then I pray / don’t take me soon / cause I am here for a reason.
Sometimes in my tears I drown / but I never let it get me down
So when negativity surrounds, / I know some day it’ll all turn around
-because-
All my life I’ve been waiting for / I’ve been praying for
For the people to say / that we don’t wanna fight no more
There’ll be no more wars / and our children will play
One day…

Not Immune From Mumps

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Stemming from an initial mumps outbreak that wreaked havoc at a Jewish camp this summer, 247 New York City residents plus 131 other state residents have since contracted the disease, which remains mostly contained among fervently Orthodox adolescent boys in pockets of New York, New Jersey and Quebec, according to official reports from the New York City and State Departments of Health.

The trigger case occurred back in June, when an 11-year-old boy returned to his Sullivan County summer camp after traveling in the United Kingdom, where an ongoing outbreak has now reached about 4,000 cases, the Centers for Disease Control reported.

From there, the mumps spread to 24 other boys at the camp and continued to plague their local communities when they returned home, and the median age of patients remains around 14. But perhaps the most frustrating news to some parents is that most of the affected patients had received their proper two-dose vaccination as children — 83 percent, according to the CDC.

“This is a very confusing issue not only for ourselves but for providers and parents,” said Cindy Schulte, vaccine-preventable disease surveillance officer at the New York State Department of Health. “If you have a population that’s fairly well but unevenly vaccinated, by logic, you’re going to end up having some disease in the effective population.” The Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine has an 85 to 91 percent efficacy rate among those who take the proper doses, she said.  Continue reading…

Writing the following article was of particular interest to me because I really enjoy riding my bike down in this area — specific path: down either Riverside or East River Park, over the Brooklyn Bridge, south on Adams or Jay Street, west on Dean Street, through/around the western bend of Prospect Park, out the southwest exit and down Ocean Parkway till I hit the Coney Island boardwalk. And the best part of the boardwalk is, of course, Ralph’s Italian Ices.

Turning back to this story, I’d like to thank Marty Markowitz for giving me a half hour of his time on the phone.

Song And Dance Over Brighton Beach Concert Band Shell

An artist’s rendering of the proposed band shell at Asher Levy Park. At issue in the controversy is a city law that prohibits amplified sound within 500 feet of religious institutions.Courtesy Brooklyn Borough President’s Office

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Members of two Brighton Beach shuls just want to be able to hear themselves pray. 

And they say the Brooklyn borough president’s plan to erect a 5,000-seat amphitheater in their neighborhood’s 22-acre green refuge — Asser Levy-Seaside Park — will soon impinge on their right to daven in peace and quiet.

The two synagogues, Temple Beth Abraham and Sea Breeze Jewish Center, are each within a few hundred feet of the proposed band shell, and their leaders are urging thousands of Brighton Beach-Coney Island residents to protest the project.

In January, Borough President Marty Markowitz launched a $64 million campaign to overhaul the current playground with handicap-friendly equipment, build a new irrigation system with flood-free walkways and most controversially, replace the veteran concert venue with a state-of-the-art covered band shell. 

A neighborhood legacy that dates back to 1875, Asser Levy park was named for the first Jewish policeman in North America — a Portuguese man who had fled from Brazil to New Amsterdam back in the mid-1600s. Markowitz hopes that the renovated music space and playground will revitalize the park, which in his opinion has become under-utilized in recent years. 

“Asser Levy will remain a park,” Markowitz told The Jewish Week. “First and foremost it is a park. There has always been a band shell there, what we’re doing is bringing the band shell up to date.” Continue reading…