A Mormon blogs about her neighbour the rabbi

A nice post about the Rabbi Gedaliah Anemer who died earlier this year and was for half a century was an important leader of the Greater Washington area.

And the obituary in the Washington Post:

Gedaliah Anemer, 78;
Chief rabbi of greater Washington
By Matt Schudel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 29, 2010

Gedaliah Anemer, 78, a rabbi who led the D.C. area's oldest and largest Orthodox Jewish synagogue and was considered the chief rabbi of greater Washington, died April 15 at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring after a stroke.

Rabbi Anemer (pronounced AIN-uh-mer) led the Young Israel Shomrai Emunah synagogue for more than 50 years and was instrumental in establishing a large Orthodox Jewish enclave in the surrounding Kemp Mill neighborhood of Silver Spring. Known as an inspiring teacher and spiritual guide, Rabbi Anemer founded the Yeshiva of Greater Washington, an Orthodox high school and center of Jewish studies.

He was an internationally respected authority on Jewish law and was the head of the Rabbinical Council of Greater Washington, an Orthodox body that supervises Jewish dietary and religious rules. He was considered the mora d'asra of the Washington area's Orthodox community, or the chief rabbi to whom all others deferred.

"When it came to communal issues, he was the ultimate decider," said Rabbi Ari Israel, executive director of the University of Maryland Hillel, a Jewish student center. "He cared for more than the letter of the law. He understood that the letter, spirit and personality of the law are all intertwined."

Rabbi Anemer came to Washington in 1957 to lead a Hyattsville congregation that later moved to Northeast Washington. In 1961, he settled in Silver Spring and began to hold services in his basement while continuing to lead his synagogue in the District. Because Jewish law prohibited him from riding in cars on the Sabbath, Rabbi Anemer walked almost seven miles each way to conduct services.

The D.C. synagogue was closed as the Silver Spring Orthodox community began to grow, and Rabbi Anemer established a Jewish school, or yeshiva, in 1964. The girls' school opened one year before the boys' school.

"I fondly call myself the first student," Sarah Maslow, an assistant principal at Reservoir High School in Howard County, recalled Wednesday. "He came to my parents and said, 'We need a first student.' "

Six-feet tall, with a big black hat, bushy beard and booming voice, Rabbi Anemer had a commanding presence. He taught advanced classes on the Talmud, or Jewish law, until his death at the yeshiva, where many of his students came to revere him.

"He demanded a lot from us, but he also had a great sense of humor," Maslow said. "He was a wonderful teacher."

In 1974, Rabbi Anemer's synagogue moved to its current location on Arcola Avenue, and the Kemp Mill Orthodox population expanded from a few dozen families to an estimated 5,000 residents today. "He was not only the pillar, founder and leader of the community but he pulled us all forward," said Israel, who grew up in Kemp Mill. "He started all that literally with his own hands." Gedaliah Anemer was born March 19, 1932, in Akron, Ohio, and began his religious training in New York City at age 9. Three years later, he entered Telshe Yeshiva in Cleveland, from which he graduated in 1952. Before coming to Washington, he led a yeshiva in Boston.

Survivors include his wife, Yocheved Bagley Anemer of Silver Spring; two sons, Zev and Yisroel Anemer, both of whom are rabbis in Brooklyn, N.Y.; two daughters, Ottie Kahana of Baltimore and Chaya Weber of Brooklyn; and a sister.

Rabbi Anemer was well known to other Orthodox leaders throughout the United States, Canada and Israel and was often consulted for his wide knowledge of Jewish laws and customs. To his followers in Kemp Mill, however, he remained the fatherly neighborhood rabbi who knew the name of every grandchild and who had an uncanny way of sorting out personal problems.

"It seemed like he could see every single person's needs, personally," said Maslow, who had known Rabbi Anemer since his arrival in Washington. "He deeply cared about each person. He deeply cared about the Jewish people. He deeply cared about a world where people did the right thing."

* * * *

And talking about being a Shabbos Goy, this picture just landed - from Flatbush NY:

Rabbi Yossi Braun - as you've never seen him before...

Thanks to Chabad blog "Circus Tent" (strange name), here is a photograph (circa 1990) of the recently elected member of the Crown Heights Beth Din, Sydney's Rabbi Yossi Braun. The post at that link also gives some interesting biographical details about the rabbi, his education and his family.

A "Chassidisher bochur" by all accounts. (The comments section touches upon the 'controversy' about what happened to the peyos.)

Community pranked by Yavneh year-12 students

One has to hand it to today’s youth – they sure come up with some smart ideas.

The above letter spread around town like wildfire on Monday and by the feedback received here at AJNWatch most were hoodwinked into believing that it was genuine.

And why not? Everything in that letter could have actually been stated by Roy Steinman and/or the school board. And no doubt they would, even there wouldn’t be the Mizrachi connection to Kosher Australia.

And after all, most of them do not deny that they quite happily partake in foods and establishments approved by Kosher veYosher. (We suggest that readers see for themselves next time they are out shopping at Kraus, Alex or Tempo etc.) 
 As we hear it, KV’s supervision is not aimed at the Adass or Yeshiva market but indeed the Mizrachi/Yavneh modern orthodox crowd, who seek more lifestyle opportunities to expand their eating practices.

The Galus Australis blog also features this clever hoax and has quite a few comments. Here is one that we thought was interesting:

Malki Rose says:
...A good chunk of people spent recent days wanting to congratulate either Mizrachi or Roy Steinman personally on a decision many of them referred to as “finally common sense has prevailed”, making reference to their joy at seeing the end of all the “political nonsense”.

Many of them felt stupid and embarassed when they found out it was a prank. They no longer saw the letter as brilliant or clever or remotely funny. I think they felt disappointed that it hadn’t been so.… and concerned that the letter had caused many of them to ‘out’ themselves as closetted supporters of KVY.

Funnily enough, I received several very excited emails from brand new clients one after the other enquiring about making an order, just before I found about this and didn’t quite understand why the sudden interest in ordering from MWL.

Eventually I saw a copy of the letter and wondered if this had been why…

- Guess what? Yesterday afternoon all these “new” clients emailed me to say, rather apologetically, that they would not be seeking my services after all.

Interesting, if nothing else. I guess its back in the ‘kashrut closet’ they go….. at least until the adults come to the same conclusion as a group of 17 year old, alleged, children.

A story of one of the heroes of the holocaust, Rav Michoel Ber Weissmandl zt"l: "Had you cried earlier..."

A lesson that many parents should heed.
Cry now - or cry later...                   (Hat tip - SBA News list)

In his sefer Chaim Sheyeish Bahem, Horav Yitzchak Shraga Gross, Shlita, relates a story that occurred concerning Horav Michoel Ber Weissmandel, zl, the Nitra Rosh HaYeshivah, who was known for his tireless efforts on behalf of Klal Yisrael during and after World War II.

Two business partners came and shared with him an all too common tragedy. Each had a son who was prepared to marry out of the faith. The fathers, although no longer observant, maintained a "strict" outlook on assimilation. Shabbos and kashrus represent one thing, but to marry a gentile - that was the bitter end. Needless to say, they were beside themselves with grief.

Rav Weissmandel inquired about the Jewish education their sons had received and how much time the fathers had spent learning with their sons. Regrettably, the story was similar to what had happened to many of those who either settled in communities where there was no Jewish education, or who exhibited apathy and, at times, anger after the war which caused them to sever their relationship with Judaism as a religion.

Rav Weissmandel listened to their story and told them he would like to share a story with them.

After World War I, new territorial borders were set up between communities. In some instances, many regions that had originally been part of one country, suddenly were transformed into two countries.

In one city where there was a large Jewish population, the Jewish cemetery was separated from the rest of the community. Hence, the cemetery was in one country, while the "living" lived in another country. This caused a problem for the Chevra Kaddisha, members of the Jewish Sacred Burial Society. While they waited for all the red tape to be cleared between the two countries, the deceased would remain unburied, which is a violation of Jewish law. Finally, a special dispensation was made for the members of the Chevra Kaddisha whereby they could go right through without being subject to needless time-consuming inspections.

Once word got out regarding the special leniency enjoyed by the Chevra Kadisha, a group of gentile smugglers decided to take advantage of the "burial" laws. They filled a coffin with contraband, posed as members of the Jewish Chevra Kadisha, and smuggled goods into the next country, all under the watchful eye of the inspectors. This ruse went on for months, as the gentile smugglers made a thriving business out of their "burial society".

One day a young inspector became suspicious, because the pallbearers just did not give the impression that they were really sad. "Where are you going?" he asked.
"We are about to bury a fellow Jew in the cemetery," they responded.
"You do not look very sad to me. You have been joking and laughing the entire time that I have been looking at you. I do not think you are going to bury any body," the inspector told them. "Open the casket, so that I can see the body," he challenged.

"No, no, we cannot do that. It would be against Jewish law to open the casket," they countered.

The young officer did not believe them, and he decided to seek out his superior.

The smugglers became disconcerted and started to beg and plead with him not to make them open the casket. Now, the young inspector was convinced that they were lying. He called the lieutenant who had very little patience for this band of crooks.

"Open the casket now!" he said.

The casket was opened, and the deceased turned out to be expensive contraband.

The culprits began to cry and plead for mercy, "We made a mistake. It was the first time. We have to feed our starving families."

They promised that they would never do it again. All of the usual excuses were rendered to cover up their lies - to no avail.

The lieutenant turned towards them and said, "You are right that you will never do it again, because by the time you get out of jail, you will be too old to do anything. It is a shame that you cried too late. Had you cried before when you were carrying the casket, then you would not have had to cry now."

Rav Weissmandel completed the story and looked at the two men, saying, "I wish with all my heart that I could help you. Your tears are very moving, and I am sure they are from the heart. Regrettably, they are too late. Had you cried years earlier, when your sons were growing up, and had you been concerned for their Jewish education, then you would not have to cry now."

A meshugaas in our community. Why do Jewish parents give their kids weird names?

We have long wondered why so many Jewish parents think it is “cool” to humiliate and discomfit their children by subjecting them to outlandish and peculiar names. And this, despite being Jewish – which gives them twice as many opportunities to find a respectable 'normal' name for their newborn – from the vast array available for Australians and Jews.

Week-after-week birth notices in the AJN include strange, weird, odd, bizarre and sometimes absolutely idiotic names embossed upon the life of a tiny innocent baby who will have to hide, explain or change it at some stage(s) of his/her life. Why are so many parents subjecting their offspring to such an unnecessary burden? Isn't life complicated enough for the young ones? Why add to their issues?

One wonders if and what those parents were drinking or smoking when they came up with the inspiration to tag their child this way.

Here's our message to all new parents: You have a meshugaas for nutty names? Fine. Change your own and that of your spouse. But please, leave the little kids alone!

And what about all those 'androgynous' names, where one cannot make out if the newborn is a male or female!? 

Meanwhile to give you some of idea of the unusual names acquired by the newest members of Melbourne's Jewish community, here's a selection from the most recent edition of the AJN: Sienna, Coco, Winter Star, Hudson, Eden-Eddie (for a girl), Eden Mikey (for a boy).

We invite readers to add their favourite strange names from future and past issues (especially Sydneysiders, as we rarely see that edition of the AJN), via the comments area.

We found that the following article, by one of our favourite journalists, Lawrence Money of The Age, very pertinent to our theme. (BTW, what's a sensible chap like him doing at THAT paper?)

Welcome to the nutty name generation

Lawrence Money  THE AGE

When playing the nutty name game, spare a thought for the one who will carry it for life.

'IS THAT a misspelling or did your parents make a blue?'' I asked Micheal, a waiter at Melbourne's RACV Club. He glanced at his brass name badge and smiled a smile that told of a lifetime of torment. ''Parents,'' he said. ''I think mum must have still been feeling the effects of the anaesthetic.'' Micheal was not sure if his mum wanted ''Michael'' but he's been Micheal for 30 years now, a veritable pioneer of the nutty name generation.

Thirty years ago nutty names were an oddity, now they are almost compulsory. You get your nutty spellings of standard names (Filip, Robburrt, Peetar) and then you get your nutty spellings of nutty names (Gharddio, Wawldogger, Mooneigh). You can only imagine what waiters' name badges will look like when this generational wave comes through.

Look, it's understandable, I guess. Excited first-time parents, enthused by the latest name fad. But they don't appreciate that here is a decision that will stretch on long after they themselves are gone. That poor 50-something Lillbetgh Smith may feel some small animosity at the funeral of her dear papa after half a century of hell and a possible 40 or more to go? (Why, dad, why??)

Years ago as In Black and White columnist on the old afternoon Herald, I found that nutty names were of a different nature. Rather than crazy spelling they were often vocationally weird. For example, the systems manager of the Melbourne Fire Brigade in the early 1980s was a bloke named Bernd Pohl. Mr Oosting was a Dutch-born beekeeper in Tasmania. I came across a bloke named William Clyde Main, a Ringwood sewerage contractor. He was listed in the Yellow Pages as W. C. Main.             [More here]

Rupert Murdoch - a great friend of Israel and the Jewish people

About time he took over Fairfax media...

No ceasefire means no peace in war on Israel
Rupert Murdoch   The Australian October 16, 2010

THE Anti-Defamation League was founded in 1913 in response to something we cannot imagine in America today: the lynching of an innocent Jew. In the century since then, the league has fought anti-Semitism wherever you have found it. You have championed equal treatment for all races and creeds. And you have held America to her founding promise.

So successful have you been, a few years ago some people were beginning to say, "Maybe we don't need an ADL any more".

That is a much harder argument to make these days.

My own perspective is simple: we live in a world where there is an ongoing war against the Jews. For the first decades after Israel's founding, this war was conventional in nature. The goal was straightforward: to use military force to overrun Israel. Well before the Berlin Wall came down, that approach had clearly failed.

 Then came phase two: terrorism. Terrorists targeted Israelis both home and abroad from the massacre of Israeli athletes at Munich to the second intifada. Terrorists continue to target Jews across the world. But they have not succeeded in bringing down the Israeli government nor weakened Israeli resolve.

Now the war has entered a new phase. This is the soft war that seeks to isolate Israel by delegitimising it. The battleground is everywhere: the media, multinational organisations, non-government organisations. The aim is to make Israel a pariah.

The result is the curious situation we have today: Israel becomes increasingly ostracised, while Iran - a nation that has made no secret of wishing Israel's destruction - pursues nuclear weapons loudly, proudly and without apparent fear of rebuke.

For me, this ongoing war is a fairly obvious fact of life. Every day, the citizens of the Jewish homeland defend themselves against armies of terrorists whose maps spell out the goal they have in mind: a Middle East without Israel. In Europe, Jewish populations find themselves targeted by people who share that goal. And in the US, I fear that our foreign policy only emboldens these extremists.

There are two things that worry me. The first is the disturbing new home that anti-Semitism has found in polite society, especially in Europe. The second is how violence and extremism are encouraged when the world sees Israel's greatest ally distancing herself from the Jewish state. When Americans think of anti-Semitism, we tend to think of the vulgar caricatures and attacks of the first part of the 20th century. Now it seems that the most virulent strains come from the Left. Often this new anti-Semitism dresses itself up as legitimate disagreement with Israel.

In 2002, Harvard president Lawrence Summers put it this way: "Where anti-Semitism and views that are profoundly anti-Israeli have traditionally been the primary preserve of poorly educated right-wing populists, profoundly anti-Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities. Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent."

Far from being dismissed out of hand, anti-Semitism today enjoys support at both the highest and lowest reaches of European society from its most elite politicians to its largely Muslim ghettos. European Jews find themselves caught in this pincer. We saw a recent outbreak when the European Trade Commissioner declared that peace in the Middle East is impossible because of the Jewish lobby in America. Here's how he put it: "There is indeed a belief - it's difficult to describe it otherwise - among most Jews that they are right. And it's not so much whether these are religious Jews or not. Lay Jews also share the same belief that they are right. So it is not easy to have, even with moderate Jews, a rational discussion about what is actually happening in the Middle East." He did not suggest the problem was any specific Israeli policy. The problem, as he defined it, is the nature of the Jews. Adding to the absurdity, this man then responded to his critics this way: anti-Semitism, he asserted, "has no place in today's world and is fundamentally against our European values".

Of course, he has kept his job.

Unfortunately, we see examples like this all across Europe. Sweden, for example, has long been a synonym for liberal tolerance. Yet in one of Sweden's largest cities, Jews report increasing examples of harassment. When an Israeli tennis team visited for a competition, it was greeted with riots. So how did the mayor respond? By equating Zionism with anti-Semitism and suggesting that Swedish Jews would be safer in his town if they distanced themselves from Israeli actions in Gaza.

You don't have to look far for other danger signs: the Norwegian government forbids a Norwegian-based, German shipbuilder from using its waters to test a submarine being built for the Israeli navy; Britain and Spain are boycotting an OECD tourism meeting in Jerusalem; in The Netherlands, police report a 50 per cent increase in the number of anti-Semitic incidents.

In Europe today, many of the most egregious attacks on Jewish people, Jewish symbols and Jewish houses of worship have come from the Muslim population. Unfortunately, far from making clear that such behaviour will not be tolerated, too often the official response is what we've seen from the Swedish mayor, who suggested Jews and Israel were partly to blame themselves. When Europe's political leaders do not stand up to the thugs, they lend credence to the idea that Israel is the source of all the world's problems and they guarantee more ugliness. If that is not anti-Semitism, I don't know what is.

That brings me to my second point: the importance of good relations between Israel and the US. Some believe that if America wants to gain credibility in the Muslim world and advance the cause of peace, Washington needs to put some distance between itself and Israel.

My view is the opposite. Far from making peace more possible, we are making hostilities more certain. Far from making things better for the Palestinian people, sour relations between the US and Israel guarantees that ordinary Palestinians will continue to suffer. The peace we all want will come when Israel feels secure, not when Washington feels distant. Right now we have war.There are many people waging this war. Some blow up cafes. Some fire rockets into civilian areas. Some are pursuing nuclear arms. Some are fighting the soft war, through international boycotts and resolutions condemning Israel. All these people are watching the US-Israeli relationship closely.

In this regard, I was pleased to hear the State Department's spokesman clarify America's position this week. He said the US recognises "the special nature of the Israeli state. It is a state for the Jewish people." This is an important message to send to the Middle East. When people see, for example, a Jewish prime minister treated badly by an American president, they see a more isolated Jewish state. That only encourages those who favour the gun over those who favour negotiation.

 Ladies and gentlemen, back in 1937, a man named Vladimir Jabotinsky urged Britain to open up an escape route for Jews fleeing Europe. Only a Jewish homeland, he said, could protect European Jews from the coming calamity. In prophetic words, he described the problem this way. "It is not the anti-Semitism of men," he said. "It is, above all, the anti-Semitism of things, the inherent xenophobia of the body social or the body economic under which we suffer."

 The world of 2010 is not the world of the 1930s. The threats Jews face today are different. But these threats are real. They are soaked in an ugly language familiar to anyone old enough to remember World War II. And these threats cannot be addressed until we see them for what they are: part of an ongoing war against the Jews.

Rupert Murdoch is chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, publisher of The Australian. This is an edited extract of his speech to the Anti-Defamation League in New York on Wednesday

Promoting surrogate Kaddish services?

From JL:

I just picked up this week's issue of the AJN and felt uncomfortable seeing how the Yeshiva is promoting a "Kaddish Reciting Service".

 Sure, I understand the need for this in a situation where the niftar doesn't have a male relative who can say Kaddish for him or her. But surely promoting such a service to all is only encouraging and giving comfort to individuals who, without it, would feel a religious and/or traditional obligation to attend Shul during the year of mourning or on a Yahrzeit but now find a "charitable" and respectable way of getting out of fulfilling a halachic requirement towards a parent or relative.

 I think that the Rabbonim at the Yeshiva must reconsider whether encouraging Kaddish-by-proxy is appropriate. It wasn’t so long ago when most - even non-religious - Jews attended Shul daily during a time of mourning. I feel that it would be far more appropriate for the Yeshiva to be encouraging that practice to return.

 Thanks for giving me the opportunity to express my opinion, and I’d be happy to hear what others have to say about this.                                                                               John L

Beautiful story about the Munkatcher Rebbe: "Just One Blast"

This story has  had a fair bit of 'airplay' in the last 12 months - but there are still many who haven't heard it. And even those who have will still find it heartwarming when rereading.

"Just One Blast!"

"Der Heiliger Munkatcher Rov"

By Hirshel Tzig

This heartwarming yet chilling story was told by Rabbi Baruch Rabinovitch of Munkacs, father of the present Munkacser Rebbe, about his late father-in-law, Rabbi Chaim Elazar Spira (1871-1937), known as the "Minchat Elazar."

For a period of time, Reb Baruch and his wife lived in Warsaw. Later, when the Minchat Elazar became ill, he begged them to come back to Munkacs, in Czechoslovakia, which they did.

Rabbi Baruch had a son named Tzvi Nosson Dovid. Baruch would often recall that his father-in-law loved this boy—the Minchat Elazar's dear grandchild—in an "exaggerated way," in part due to the fact that they had waited a long time to have that first child. He would play with and "spoil" the child, and Hershele would sit on his grandfather's lap at the Shabbat gatherings.

In the final year of his life, the Minchat Elazar took the shofar on the first day of the month of Elul and tested it to see whether it was in good condition. Hershele was in the room and was visibly excited by the shofar and its sounds.

He asked his zeide (grandfather) for one more blast, and his zeide gladly obliged. From then on, for the remainder of the month, this became a ritual; the Rebbe blowing the shofar once each day for little Tzvi. On the day before Rosh Hashanah, Hershele was there, awaiting his daily blast, but he was disappointed.

"Today is the day before Rosh Hashanah," his grandfather explained. "Today we do not blow the shofar. Tomorrow morning, we will blow the shofar in the synagogue."

The child did not comprehend the reasons. He knew no reason. He kicked and screamed, "Just one blast! Just one blast!"

After a while, the grandfather softened at the sound of his favorite grandchild crying, and he took the shofar and blew one blast.

On Rosh Hashanah, the custom in Munkacs was that the Rebbe spoke before blowing the shofar. That year, the Rebbe went up before the ark, opened it and said: "Master of the Universe, I have to repent. It's written that on the day before Rosh Hashanah one mustn't blow shofar, yet I did."

He began to sob uncontrollably and called out: "Master of the Universe, do you know why I transgressed this custom? It was because my young grandchild lay on the floor begging and crying that I should only blow one blast of the shofar for him. My heart melted, I couldn't bear to watch him cry like that, so I blew once for him, though I shouldn't have.

"Tatte (Father), how can you stand by and see how millions of Your children are down on the floor, and crying out to You, 'Tatte, just one blast!  תקע בשופר גדול לחרותינו "Sound the blast of the great shofar which will herald the final Redemption!'?  Even if the time is not right for it yet, even if the time for Moshiach has yet to arrive, Your children cry out to You: how can You stand by idly?!"

Rav Baruch Rabinovitch

Rabbi Baruch cried as he recounted the story, and recalled how at that time the entire crowd cried along with the Rebbe. The sounding of the shofar was delayed, and for a long time. "They could not regain their composure... loud wailing was heard throughout the synagogue..."

Kaporos-on-Wheels

What will those smart Yanks think of next?
Could be an idea for some entrepreneur here as well....

Some good words about...Haredim

Further to our post about the amazing activities of New York`s Satmar Bikur Cholim, a reader from Jerusalem forwarded the following article - published some years ago in the Jerusalem Post - by their late and great columnist Sam Orbaum.

NOT PAGE ONE: 
Jerusalem Post

Some good words about...Haredim
By SAM ORBAUM

Let's talk about the haredim...No, wait! I've got some nice things to say.

It is easy to play devil's advocate with the haredim, because for all the justifiable harsh criticism they earn, there is so much goodness to report. Strictly "Not Page One" stuff this is, for good news is no news.

Every time a journalist writes a negative piece about them, we hear the same refrain: "Sure, bash the haredim. Why don't you ever write anything nice about them?"

OK. Here goes.

Their charity, social consciousness, good deeds, communal welfare and human kindness may be unparalleled among the communities of this country.

From birth through to death, you can be helped by one do-gooding haredi concern or another. There's a wealth of well-established, nationwide organizations like Yad Sarah, providing free medical equipment for all who ask. Children with Down's go to Shalva, with cancer to Zichron Menahem.

My sister was once laid up with a broken leg, and haredim came to her home with cooked meals. Free, of course - though they gratefully accepted a donation to keep the service going for others.

The kindly folks at Ezer Mitzion run a fleet of more than 30 ambulances - free, of course - to transport children suffering from cancer, from anywhere in the country to the Children's Hospital in Petah Tikva. While undergoing treatment, the patient and his family can stay at the nearby Ezer Mitzion Convalescent Home.

The list of gemahim - free loan organizations - is endless.
And there are the little people.

Yeshurun, a Habad-affiliated restaurant in Tel Aviv, feeds any beggar who walks in.
Remember Bella Freund? A haredi woman, she leapt into an inflamed lynch mob attacking an Arab terrorist who had stabbed two boys in Jerusalem a few years ago. For half an hour she protected him with her own life, physically absorbing the assaults herself, motivated by her religious convictions.

I'VE had occasion in the last few years to be in a hospital, and that is where the haredim are most outstanding. Making no noise about it, they simply go about helping people.

They didn't ask first who I vote for, what shul I go to, or whether I write negative articles about their community.

Every day, a happy haredi lady from Ezer Mitzion - she's fulfilling a major mitzva, which is why she looks so happy - goes room to room offering cooked meals to families attending patients. These ladies do not make a point of reminding their benefactors that the food is provided by those nasty haredim; they wish you "bon appetit" and "be healthy," and they're outta there.

Arab patients at Hadassah-Ein Kerem sometimes get upset when Ezer Mitzion passes them over - but why aren't there Arab gemahim?

Fridays are a favorite day for people scoring mitzva points. A bent old man distributes little hallot with a mumbled "Gut Shabbos"; someone brings around Shabbat candles for the women; performing the mitzva of visiting the sick, some haredim just make the rounds and offer a word of encouragement.

A couple of times I asked what group or sect they represent, and all I got was a shrug or a smile. Decency for the sake of decency alone.

The highest form of mitzva is giving of yourself anonymously. With not even a thank you as payment, the reward is knowing you've helped your fellow man.

In my case, I was a fellow man who has been critical of these very people (but we agreed not to get into that). No matter: They had what I needed.

PRECEEDING my bone-marrow transplant, the hospital requested several dozen donations of platelets (thrombocites). It's quite an imposition, to find that many people to go all the way to the hospital, get tested, and then return to be jabbed in each arm and thus kill an hour or so. Many acquaintances, religious and secular, responded to my need.

As we struggled to fill the quota of donors, word got around, somehow, to haredi circles. Two carloads of yeshiva students went to the hospital and rolled up their sleeves for me.

I managed to contact one of them, and asked why. "Oh, we like doing it," he answered cheerily. "We do it all the time."

Absolutely unbelievable.

The other day, I went to Kupat Holim Meuhedet in Ramot for a blood test.

I was too late; Asher, a haredi man behind the counter, said I should return the next day, and told me until what time. But he erred, and the following day, I was again too late, by a few minutes.

It turned out, though, that he was more haredi than mindless pakid: "Oy," he said, crestfallen, "it's my fault."

He asked the nurse to draw my blood, and - get ready for this - he took the vials, hurried to his car and drove into town to get my blood to the laboratory in time.

To a religious man, this was the right thing to do.

It was mind-blowing.

There's a common thread that runs through these tales of the unexpected, and it gives me an idea:

Draft every single haredi, man and woman, old and young. Put them not in the army, where they're of little use, but in the hospitals.

In that altruistic way, even the most anti-Zionist among them could justify serving the nation; the boiling resentment toward them would be stifled; the savings to the health-care system would be enormous; the sick would benefit from the world's most overstaffed, caring, devoted hospitals.

They could replace the legions of foreign workers tending to the frail and infirm. At no cost. To the benefit of everyone. To the betterment of Israeli society.

Who, then, could say a bad word about the haredim?

THE SHOPPING BAG LADIES

We received this submission from a New York reader and feel that it is an appropriate read for the Aseret Yemei Teshuva.

Hi AJN Watch.
I am a fan of your blog who lives in New York.

Knowing of the wonderful work of the Satmar Bikkur Chilim here, I thought you may be interested in publishing these 3 items (written by non-Satmars) which I found to be quite touching.

Wishing you and all your readers a Gemar Chasima Tova

                                          Michal Shapiro, Kew Garden Hills, NY

THE SHOPPING BAG LADIES
Malky Lowinger  [Am Echad Resources]

The first Satmar Rebbe, Rav Yoel Teitelbaum זצ''ל

It's 8:00 A.M. at the Satmar Bikur Cholim kitchen on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, and the place is already a beehive of activity. Svetlana and "the Rebbetzin" are stirring huge pots of chicken soup. Esther and Leah are chopping fresh vegetables. The answering machine light blinks urgently.

Mrs. Teitelbaum, petite and middle-aged, is clearly in charge. She sits down at her desk and listens to her messages. The Brody family called at midnight. Their daughter is being discharged from NYU; cancel her food package. Joseph from Long Island will be hospitalized for a week and he needs diabetic-safe food. If it's not too much trouble, says Mrs. Heller, could the salad for her father be prepared without tomatoes today?

Here at Satmar Bikur Cholim, established by the Satmar Rebbetzin in 1957 to provide assistance to the sick and the needy, and funded by private donations, nothing is too much trouble. The group happily and proudly offers a variety of services, though the ladies of Satmar are best known for their food packages, and especially their chicken soup.

The Bikur Cholim kitchen is located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the epicenter of the Satmar Chassidic sect. A tightly-knit, thriving community with highly disciplined religious standards, the Satmar are best known to most Jews for their unyielding stance against Zionism. Though they forcefully reject the Neturei Karta's public coddling of Palestinian terrorists, they nevertheless consider the establishment of a Jewish State before the Messiah's arrival as wrong and as a dangerous affront to the other nations of the world. Yet on this particular morning, political philosophy is the furthest thing from anyone's mind.

Ruchie, Layalah, and Frumie are assembling the food packages. The Bikur Cholim kitchen, a model of cleanliness and efficiency, is their pride and joy. One can actually imagine eating off the floors here. The activity is non-stop. Fruit and vegetable salads are lovingly placed into plastic containers, fresh rolls and cake packed into bags. And the soup, the famously delicious chicken soup, is carefully ladled into thermos containers, to maintain its heat, flavor and, presumably, curative properties until it reaches its intended recipients.

Each day, the volunteers assemble a hundred and fifty customized hot and wholesome meals, which are then distributed to Jewish patients, regardless of level of observance or affiliation, at fifteen metropolitan area hospitals. The recipients, many of whom have never eaten a kosher meal before in their lives (and many more of whom insist that the Satmar Bikur Cholim packages are helping to bring about their speedy recovery) are brought to the Satmar ladies' attention through family, friends or the hospital chaplain.

No computer sits on Mrs. Teitelbaum's desk, and no high-tech machinery graces the kitchen. Yet the place is a model of order and efficiency. Mrs. Teitelbaum laughs at the suggestion of storing the daily information in a database. She points to her head. "The best computer in the world," she says, with an old-world wisdom that has quite apparently served her well thus far.

At ten o'clock, a new team of volunteers bursts in the door. The women doing the cooking and packing are dressed in housecoats and turbans; the new group is smartly turned out in designer suits and stylish wigs. They're all ready to spend the day in the big city.

"I volunteer my time once a week," says Rivka, in a chocolate-colored tweed suit, "but some of the women volunteer two or three full days every week year in, year out." The food is carefully packed into shopping bags and last minute instructions are delivered. Twenty five women then pile onto the Bikur Cholim bus, eager to be on their way to performing a very special mitzvah.

As the bus makes its way onto the Williamsburg Bridge, the Bikur Cholim women settle down to their routines. Reizie takes a cellphone from her pocketbook. "This is when I call in my fish and grocery order," she explains. Matti takes out a siddur and begins her morning prayers. Chaya and Estie begin an animated conversation. "Did you hear that Suri made a shidduch last night?"

 These women are Bikur Cholim veterans; they've been making the rounds at the city's hospitals for years. The names of New York's most prestigious medical centers easily roll of their tongues. Matti's been visiting Beth Israel and "Joint Diseases" for thirteen years. "That's my route twice a week," she says. Reizie lays claim to Lenox. And Leah reveals that she visits Mount Sinai "with a shopping cart. The doctors, the nurses, they all know my shopping cart. It's famous."

 "We really get to know the patients," explains Sally, who visits Memorial Cancer Center every Thursday. "And the ones who go home to recover," she says, in Yiddish-influenced English, "we keep in touch with them too." It's not easy maintaining friendships with the critically ill, though, Sally confides, "especially when some of them never make it home at all."

"I lost two patients last week," she adds quietly. "It was very hard for me." For a moment it's easy to forget that Sally is just a visiting volunteer, and not "her" patients' doctor.

Reizie leans over to make a point. "We're not Satmar," she says, indicating her two sisters who accompany her every week. "But this group is so wonderful that we felt we had to join." Her first experience with Bikur Cholim wasn't easy. She was asked to fill in for a volunteer who unexpectedly took a day off.

Destination? Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. "I saw a lot of pain and suffering that day," she recalls. The experience was harrowing, but it left an indelible positive impression. "I'll never forget the way the patients' eyes would light up when they saw me," she says. "I honestly don't know what they look forward to more, the chicken soup or just having someone to talk to."

The bus weaves through the traffic along First Avenue, dropping off the women at each one's designated location. Sally gets off at Memorial carrying several shopping bags. They are surprisingly heavy, but she manages well. She has her routine. She drops off her jacket in the coat room and stops by the Rabbi's office to ask if any new patients have been admitted. As she passes the visitor's lounge, she scans the room and her trained eye settles on a middle-aged man sitting alone in a corner. He looks Jewish and seems worried. As Sally approaches, he looks up and sees her food-laden shopping bags. "Satmar?" he asks.

Sally smiles. She's used to this. Her shopping bags, like Leah's cart, are famous.

Moments later this virtual stranger is confiding the details of his wife's illness to Sally, who listens intently and sympathetically, showing familiarity with the medical jargon. Over time she's become something of an expert in medicine. She offers the man a food package and he happily accepts. His wife isn't able to eat anything, but he's starving and will have it for lunch. "And what about tomorrow?" Sally prods gently. "And by tomorrow your wife will probably be able to eat jello and clear broth. I'll order it for you." And she quickly scribbles a note onto her card. Later she will call Mrs. Teitelbaum, who will store this information on the computer in her head.

Sally makes her way across the floor. She greets the interns and nurses, who seem to know her well. Many of the patients are too ill to accept guests; some are fast asleep. But their families are delighted to talk to someone who isn't dressed in hospital scrubs. On the eighth floor she visits an Israeli family who have been here for three months with their eight-year-old son.

"It's been very difficult for them," Sally explains. "Things are always up and down."

After chatting with the family for several minutes, Sally goes on to the outpatient clinic, where some chemotherapy treatment is administered. Bikur Cholim has customized packages for this unit too. She fills the communal refrigerator with sealed bags of sandwiches, salad, and desserts. Then she waves at Jeremy, speaks to Yossele, and exchanges pleasantries with a young mother whose daughter is busy playing with a doll house. Here, most of the children have lost their hair, yet no one seems in the least self conscious. They just go about the business of being kids, despite the massive weight hanging precariously over their heads.

The Bikur Cholim bus will be returning to Williamsburg at two o'clock, bringing most of the volunteers back home. Sally, though, won't be on it. "I like to stay here a bit longer," she explains, "and spend some extra time with the children."

Outside the hospital, life in the big city marches relentlessly on. Everyone seems entirely preoccupied, oblivious to the troubles of those who are hospitalized in their very midst, within these massive medical facilities. On the corner there is a newstand. The day's headlines, three inches tall, scream "Yankees Win!" Derek Jeter is pictured, grinning from ear to ear. Someone is pouring champagne over his head. A city of nine million people pays tribute to its heroes.

It's probably safe to say that Sally, Reizie, and Matti don't know a shortstop from a shortcake.

But that's okay. We all have our heroes.

Satmar's Sisters of Mercy

By Jonathan Mark 

Hospitalized, the author meets the Boo Radleys of New Yawk up-close and very personal

The Satmar chasidim are the Boo Radleys of our town. Like that character in "To Kill A Mockingbird," they scare the neighbors and frighten the horses. They hide but don't seek. They're quaint but not cute. In a narcissistic city, they refuse to flatter. Jewish families visit Williamsburg, Va., but not Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They don't want visitors and don't have gift shops.

Yet once when I was in the hospital, a Satmar woman came every morning with hot soup, freshly cooked chicken, homemade applesauce and marble cake. She was shy and of indeterminate age. She didn't know who I was, just that there was a Jew on the eighth floor.

 I didn't need her food but didn't say so because I liked seeing her in the mornings. She was from the Ladies Bikur Cholim D'Satmar, a group of women who cook and deliver food to some 70 patients daily in more than two dozen hospitals from Staten Island to Washington Heights. Almost none of the patients served are Satmar.

About 15 "ladies" leave Williamsburg every morning in a van that takes them and their bags full of meals to the hospitals. More often than not they return to Williamsburg by subway, and a long ride it is from most hospitals. The Ladies Bikur Cholim visits six days a week in rain, heat or sleet. The day after 9-11, they crossed the closed bridges by hitching rides in Jewish ambulances.

"This started with the Satmar rebbetzin [the late Feige Teitelbaum]," said one Satmar lady who wouldn't tell me her name. "She started this after the war, from her own little kitchen. She herself took the soup on the subway. Then she took on a helper, and more helpers.

"It was after the war. Almost everybody [in Williamsburg] was a Holocaust survivor. No one had families. She was like a mother. She heard someone was sick, she made soup. Do you know Satmar?"

I didn't want to say that I knew Satmar all too well from their battles with other Jewish groups. After all, she was coming to me in gentleness, and I wanted to be gentle in return.

I told her my grandparents had a bungalow on the banks of a Catskills lake. The lake was surrounded by tall pines that reflected in the water. On the far side of the lake was a Satmar colony. At dusk we could see the lights in the windows and hear voices muffled across the water. That summer I often though that as different as the Satmars were, we enjoyed the same godly beauty. They must have loved the lake as I did.

"We shared a lake," I said.
"In the summer we go to the country," she said.

That was as personal as the conversations got.. The Satmar women avoided personal questions. "We just try to make the patients feel happy," she said.

In emergency rooms, everything earthly - your keys, shoes, wallet, the computer disk in your shirt pocket - is put into a bag called "Patient's Belongings." In the John Lennon exhibit in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the final item was Lennon's "Patient's Belongings" bag from Roosevelt Hospital, for in the end, no matter who you are, that's what it comes down to.

To the Satmar ladies, all the feuds and misunderstandings of this world go into that bag, that bag that no patient needs. So why talk of earthly things, of old fights or affiliations?

She said, "a Yiddishe neshoma is a Yiddishe neshoma," a Jewish soul is a Jewish soul. If a patient was happy to get Satmar's kosher home-cooked food, then they could be Reform, gay, Republican, Democrat, Zionist, intermarried. It didn't matter, these ladies would deliver.
After getting out of the hospital, like a Hansel or a Gretel, I followed the crumbs back to 132 Ross St. in Williamsburg, a cellar several steps down from street level where the Ladies Bikur Cholim D'Satmar have their office and kitchen.

Throughout the day, Satmar women from the neighborhood would bring in a big sheet of sponge cake, or a large tub of homemade applesauce made in their private kitchens.

In the Ross Street kitchen, Mrs. W. answered the phones and penciled in the information from individuals who alerted her to a Jewish patient somewhere in a hospital. She had no computer to help her keep track of the many patients. She kept the names of her many volunteers in raggedy cloth-covered loose-leaf.

"We're here from 8 in the morning to 6 at night," she said. "Not me, maybe" - she has 12 children, after all - "but someone is here. Other than Shabbos [Sabbath] and yontif [the holy festivals] there's no such thing as a day off. On a short Friday, do you know what it means to deliver to hospitals and be back to make Shabbos? And these are women with large families."

Mrs. W. explained, matter of factly, "this is what we do. The whole Satmar community is based on chesed [mercy]. We help people and Hashem [G-d] should help us."

I said, "I'm sorry I never brought soup to you, if you or someone in Satmar was sick."

"No one should be sick," said Mrs. W. "G-d forbid. We should always be able to help each another."

None of the Satmar women would allow me to know their names or to take their picture, yet we were strangely intimate, these women and I. After all, we Jews are more sweetly intimate than we suppose. There are people in our community whom we barely know, but we can walk into each other's shivas [houses of mourning] without explanation. If one of us dies, we volunteer to wash each other's bodies. If sick, we bring soup to Jews we never met before.

We may never speak again, these Satmar women and I, but it was as if we shared the same lake, a piece of G-d's beauty, the water rippling flowing from one side to the other.

JWR contributor Jonathan Mark is Associate Editor of
the New York Jewish Week.

 An Ode To Satmar Bikur Cholim

By 5TJT Staff      September 08, 2010

When Leah’s little boy, Yossi, was diagnosed with a dreaded illness, she found herself spending many hours at the clinic while he was undergoing chemotherapy treatments. Being the creative sort, she spent the time writing a tribute to the Satmar ladies. Her words are poignant and inspiring. They also offer a glimpse into the vital services of what this organization is all about.

Do not worry, do not fear,
Satmar Bikur Cholim is here,

The refrigerator is full at dawn
And is replenished before noon.

Delicious nutritious sandwiches in store,
Vegetables, fruit, soups, and more.

French fries, cooked cereal, blintzes, and what-not,
Milchig or fleishig in a thermos that’s hot.

Twenty-four/seven, day and night
Their work knows no respite,

They truly understand our plight,
They give us koach, they give us might.

It’s my job to appreciate,
In a small way to reciprocate,

I loudly proclaim three cheers,
For the Satmar Bikur Cholim volunteers.

May the New Year bring only good health and happiness to all of Klal Yisrael and may the wonderful women of Satmar Bikur Cholim and their supporters be blessed with all that is good.