I had to re-post this New York Times article, because it’s just such a sad and horrible story…

But first, my brother Ronald’s astute response to the article: “Malawi will probably get appointed to the UN human rights commission for this. Iran is on the women’s rights council. It’s such a joke that we’re members of the UN. That building would be a great location for upscale apartments.”

Followed by a response from my friend Tara: “Or the UN is a joke, not our membership therein. Still, I’m in agreement about the apartments. Not that Manhattan needs another building stacked with units carrying hefty pricetags.”

But coming back to my original purpose, please read the following heart-wrenching article:

Gay Couple Convicted in Malawi

By BARRY BEARAK

Published: May 18, 2010

JOHANNESBURG — A gay couple in Malawi were found guilty on Tuesday of unnatural acts and gross indecency, the consequence of their holding an engagement ceremony in an insular nation where homosexuality is largely seen as nonexistent or something that must be suppressed.

Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 33, and Steven Monjeza, 26, face up to 14 years in prison. A magistrate said he would sentence the men on Thursday.

The case has drawn worldwide attention as another example of the broad anti-gay sentiment in Africa. A law recently proposed in Uganda calling for homosexuals to be executed in some cases stirred so much ire in the West that a presidential committee recommended withdrawing it from Parliament.

Malawi, a deeply impoverished, landlocked nation of 14 million, has also received international condemnation for prosecuting the two gay men. But most of its leaders — political and religious — have reacted with defiance. Last month, President Bingu wa Mutharika was quoted as calling homosexuality “evil and bad before the eyes of God” and an act “we Malawians just do not do.”   Continue reading…

(This post was originally written for Jewlicious.com).

If you’re like me, and grew up attending a central New Jersey Reform Hebrew school, you probably never heard more than two sentences about Shavuot during your 10 years of sounding out the Aleph-Bet, memorizing Torah portions and crafting various art projects.

A slab of cheese. Wikimedia Commons.

It was the forgotten holiday — the holiday that occurred after Hebrew school classes were already over and paled in comparison to festivals like Pesach, Rosh HaShanah and dare I say it: Chanukah. Even I, the quintessential high school geek and model Hebrew school student, could not tell you that Shavuot was a commemoration of the day God gave the Ten Commandments to the Jews on Mount Sinai, until I began my reporting position at The Jewish Week.

While I credit my Hebrew school for giving me my fundamental interest in Judaism, I hope that their curriculum has been updated since my years there. And though I personally don’t like cheesecake, I now understand why our traditions encourage us to eat dairy on this day — because God had not yet delivered the laws of kashrut, of properly slaughtering and consuming meat.

For all of you New Yorkers reading this, the 92nd Street Y in Tribeca is hosting an interesting event tomorrow geared toward young people, reminding us why we celebrate this holiday in quite the fun, creative evening.  From 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday, the Y is inviting young people to do a bit of Torah study and exploration, followed by the opportunity to partake in improvisational reenactments of the Shavuot stories and then concluding with a tremendous wine and cheesecake pairing. And the whole night only costs $15.

According to the event website, the menu will include:

Lemoncello paired with Caramel Cheesecake
Coffee Liqueur paired with Chocolate Cheesecake
Beer paired with Nutmeg infused Cheesecake
Matcha tea paired with Lime

…Too bad I don’t like cheesecake…Am I the only one???

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Sharon Udasin is a staff writer at The Jewish Week. Follow her on Twitter or e-mail her at sharon@sharonudasin.com.

Israel’s Radiation App

Apple has banned an Israeli cell phone application its creator says screens for radiation.

(Originally posted on Jewlicious.com)

When Jason Paul recently graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree in communication, he says he attempted to pursue what he calls a more “convential” writing job — applying to a grand total of 180 publications throughout the country.

Jason Paul, LivingCraigslist

But as J-School grads like myself are all too often aware, journalism jobs are quite few and far between (and yes, I am still quite thankful to the journalism powers-that-be that I’m one of the lucky ones — for now).

So Jason apparently decided to screw it all and go out on his own adventure, which I’m guessing will probably bring him a hefty book contract somewhere in the near future and more publicity than he expected. Jason decided to live his life entirely off Craigslist, the Web site that allows people to post jobs, sell their old wares and find romance, among thousands of other uses.

On his blog,  LivingCraigslist.com — which is cutely designed to look exactly like Craigslist itself —  Jason posts several updates each week about his adventures traveling all over the country, finding jobs, housing, food, friends, dates and other necessities exclusive through Craigslist.

The rules he sets out for himself:

“>    I will start with $2,500 that I’ve saved during college
>    I will have a car, a phone, a computer and cameras to document the trip
>    I am not allowed to live out of my car
>    I am not allowed to live with someone I know for longer than a week at the beginning of each city
>    I am allowed one large bag containing clothes and a few staple foods
>    I am not allowed to initiate contact with someone unless it is through an online interaction”

Oh and by the way, we have confirmation that this guy is, in fact, Jewish, as documented in his first foray into the world of Southern Baptism.

“I never expected to sit in the front row of an all-black Baptist church, but I just couldn’t say no,” he writes. “I should say, I have never been to church—not unless you count touristy experiences or the one time I played my violin at someone’s wedding. I am Jewish and proud of my religion.”

I look forward to speaking to Jason further and intend to write a more detailed article about his project in an upcoming issue of The Jewish Week. Stay tuned!

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Sharon Udasin is a staff writer at The Jewish Week. Follow her on Twitter or e-mail her at sharon@sharonudasin.com.

At Sixth Street, Jew vs. Jew

State Supreme Court judge rules in favor of new members, for now, in their battle against old-timers at East Village shul.

In the fight for control at the Sixth Street Community Synagogue, Round One has gone to new members who say they’re trying to rejuvenate the Orthodox East Village shul.

Nearly three months after longtime congregants said they prevailed in an election of new board members, New York Civil Supreme Court Justice Carol Edmead ruled at an April 20 preliminary hearing for a Temporary Restraining Order against the old-timers. The ruling reinstates the previous synagogue board — a mix of old-timers and those who sided with the new members — pending further review in a hearing later this month.

The battle at Sixth Street first  surfaced three months ago when longtime members tried to strip the new ones of their voting rights — claiming that they neither attended services nor lived in the neighborhood. The new members — some of them recruited by Rabbi Simon Jacobson, whose Meaningful Life Center is housed at the shul — shot back that they were reviving a shul on its last legs.

At the end of the Feb. 7 election, a board comprised entirely of old members — led by 2nd Avenue Deli owner Jack Lebewohl — claimed victory.

fter the election,  “the new members … went to a judge and said these guys basically violated their own constitution,” said Matthew Pace, the former and now reinstated chairman of the board, who sides with the new members. “They ran a sham election and it should be overturned.”

“Jack [Lebewohl] has created an ‘us against them [situation],’” Pace continued. “Whereas, the other side just wanted to be involved.”  Continue reading…

Vacation In Israel, Come Home Cured

Patients consult with a doctor in the waiting room of Assuta Medical Center in Tel Aviv, which has become one of many Israeli hu

Sharon Udasin, Staff Writer

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Rachel and her partner had been contemplating artificial insemination for years, but they didn’t actually go ahead with the process until Rachel came to Jerusalem from New York for a one-year teaching fellowship. After some encouragement from another couple that had gone through the process, the decision was clear: they would create their child in Israel, at Hadassah Medical Center in Mount Scopus.

“I wanted a Jewish donor who lives and serves in Israel, and has his family living there, so that if my child ever wishes to search for the donor someday, my child will be led to Israel, which is religiously and ideologically important to my wife and me,” Rachel told The Jewish Week, asking that her real name be withheld for privacy. “Israel is renowned for its fertility treatment, and they don’t play around. They want and plan to get you pregnant as soon as possible, without dragging it out to make more money off of you like they do in the U.S.”

After five trials of regular intrauterine and intracervical insemination, and the assistance of the Gonal-F fertility drug, Rachel, now 14 weeks pregnant, finally conceived at one-fourth to one-fifth of the cost of a similar process in America.

Israel has seen a surge in medical tourism for various procedures in the past few years, yet thus far, experts say that the clientele remains largely concentrated among former Soviet countries and some African nations, where treatment facilities are still inadequate. But in recent years, Israel has begun to broaden its reach to couples like Rachel and her partner, slowly attracting customers from Western European countries and North America. While the medical care in Israel equals or even sometimes exceeds that of the United States and Western Europe, the cost of procedures remains significantly cheaper.

“Medical tourism in Israel has been around for about 17 years, but only in the last year or two has it become part of the Ministry of Tourism’s agenda, the Ministry of Finance’s agenda,” said Ira Nissel, CEO of International Medical Services (med-international.com), which has been guiding medical tourists through Israel for five years — reviewing pathologies and consulting multiple specialists. “We’re trying today to put Israel on the map. But in comparison to India and Costa Rica, the prices are a far cry from what you’d expect there.”

The quality of medical care in Israel, combined with an ideal vacationing environment, is drawing more patients to visit Israel for their procedures — most commonly for oncology, cardiac and in vitro fertilization procedures, according to Nurit Agiv, medical tourism executive at Assuta Medical Center in Tel Aviv. Residents of former Soviet countries, she noted, can easily visit Israel for these procedures because they no longer need a visa to travel there.

“A lot of the doctors had their fellowships here in the United States,” Nathalie Steiner, vice president of marketing at a new medical tourism initiative called Global Health Israel (globalhealthisrael.com), a subsidiary of her father Moshe Steiner’s larger medical equipment distributor, Israel Scientific Instruments, told The Jewish Week during a recent visit to New York. “And compared to India and Costa Rica, you can go out and eat at a lot of good restaurants — it’s a Western culture here.”

Steiner, who is limiting the focus of her fledgling company to IVF procedures for now, aims to target American insurance companies, self-insured private companies and uninsured Americans, who might enjoy the added benefit of a vacation in Israel. Nissel, who says his company has been bringing in patients for IVF treatment for years, estimates that between 85 and 90 percent of these tourists are from former Soviet countries, where IVF is often unavailable, as opposed to Israel, where women can undergo the procedure through age 42.

“You are not sick when you have IVF, so you can enjoy the country,” Steiner said, noting that IVF treatment in most Israeli hospitals will cost tourists approximately $4,000, about a third the cost in the U.S. And while in Israel, tourists can rely on companies like hers to arrange airport transportation and accommodations.

The lighter financial burden can be a huge attraction.

“It’s not the bargain rate of India, but it certainly has a top-notch medical system,” said Laura Carabello…   Continue reading…

Cuts Could Hit Autism Programs

Shining A Light On Older Teens With Autism

Dr. Fred Volkmar discussed the challenges in working with young adults with autism at recent conference here. Michael Fine/UJA-F

In the last 10 or so years, autism has exploded into the national consciousness. For parents with young children, the terms “autism spectrum disorder” and Asperger’s syndrome have become part of a new vocabulary to describe children who seem withdrawn, uncommunicative, anti-social or slow to pick up on social cues.

While the vast majority of the attention given to autism has focused on very young children, teenagers with the condition who have to navigate the difficult transition into adulthood seem to have received short shrift. For them, the passage can be a particularly trying time, as they struggle to achieve academically, adapt socially and excel in new careers — independent from the arms of the local school districts that oversee their care until age 21.

To shine a light on this underserved population, UJA-Federation of New York convened an autism symposium on April 22 that focused on adolescents emerging into young adulthood with a wide range of spectrum disorders, and how the community can better respond to meet their growing needs. The diagnosis rate of autism has surged in the past couple of years, rising from approximately 1 in 150 in 2007 to 1 in 110 in 2009, according to a Center for Disease Control journal publication presented at the conference by Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp, medical epidemiologist and chief of developmental disabilities at the CDC.

But research on the disorder has thus far focused primarily on children, leaving those who are striving to become independent young adults largely out of the picture.

“Sometimes in adolescence kids take off for the better; sometimes kids take off for the worse,” said Dr. Fred Volkmar, director of the Yale Child Study Center and a speaker at the conference. He laments the lack of resources that focus on autistic young adults. “This is unfortunate because this is often the group of people that want help the most.”

The conference stemmed from the UJA-Federation’s ongoing effort to promote research and community action for people with mental disabilities. In recent years the charity has poured about $7 million into the effort, channeling money from its Caring Commission to agencies such as the Jewish Childcare Association, the JCCs of the Greater Five Towns, Manhattan and Mid-Westchester, the Riverdale Y, the Samuel Field Y, the Sid Jacobson JCC and Westchester Jewish Community Services, among others. The money began flowing after a federation-sponsored study in 2006 analyzed the recent increase in autism cases and the impact of the disorder on the Jewish community. Agencies were then asked to develop programs to meet the growing need.

“A lot of our work has been focused on those young adults with autism who are not eligible and for whom there is no special funding,” said Anita Altman, deputy managing director of government and external affairs at UJA-Federation, who works with city and state governing bodies to bring public funds to the programs. “There’s very little money that goes into these kinds of services.”   Continue reading…