Life In Jerusalem 5786
Dear Editor:
I thought I would share a typical day in my life in the Holy Land. I have a choice to wake up with the birds talking incessantly back and forth at 5:30 a.m. or the garbage trucks that come daily to pick up the garbage in the big metal cans, which make a lot of noise. I prefer the birds. The shower generally has plenty of hot water in the spring, summer, and fall. By November, we have to turn on the heater and wait ten minutes before taking a shower. Coffee can be drunk on the mirpeset (balcony) if one has one. It is so peaceful (after the garbage trucks go by) to sit there! A neighbor has a piano and sometimes practices. My day has begun!
Each day I have the choice to attend shiurim or do volunteer work. There are plenty of opportunities to do both! There is learning at Beit Knesset Yeshurun, Beit Knesset Hanasi, as well as many other places. Sometimes it’s difficult to choose. I enjoy Shira Smiles on Tuesdays at Beit Knesset Hanasi. She discusses the parsha and has many sources to share. I like that it is interactive and she welcomes participation. Yeshurun has learning on Mondays from 10 a.m.–12 p.m., sometimes until 1 p.m. Before Rosh Hashanah, we did Hataras Nedarim. Three rabbis came to hear our declaration. I had never done it before!
On Thursdays I volunteer at the mitbach with Chabad. We serve cooked food to anyone who comes in. The food generally comes from the army. We get to know the regulars and they are usually happy to see us. Alex, a Chabadnik, sometimes brings his children to help. He puts on tefillin for those men who request it. During Elul he blew shofar every day. I look forward to greeting people and getting to know them. One man comes with his mother. Alex plays Jewish music. We are on hiatus now during the chagim. I also visit two Holocaust survivors, and I enjoy that as well. Sometimes I go shopping with them.
Speaking of shopping, that is also an experience. We have two supermarkets in our neighborhood. They are called “Super,” not makolet. Sometimes you ask for one thing and, if you don’t know the Hebrew word, you might get something else. Before Pesach, I asked for karpas and got celery! If you need to return something, be prepared for an argument with the clerk, explaining why you are returning it. Sometimes it’s not worth the trouble!
We have a cleaners that is run by an older woman named Ronit. She takes your clothes but does not give a receipt. She puts your name on a piece of paper and staples it to the clothing. When you return to pick up, she somehow locates your clothing without any numbered receipt! I don’t know what her system is. The challenge is when you bring a tallis in for cleaning. Since there are so many taleisim, it might take some time to find your own. My husband watched her patiently go through many taleisim until she found his.
Laundry we do at home in our washing machine. The sun dries our clothes on the mirpeset, usually in one day, so we have no need for a dryer.
Walking the streets of Yerushalayim, one often hears music. Today, we came home from a program and happened upon a Hachnasas Sefer Torah in memory of a fallen soldier. There was live music, dancing, and plenty of food. It was open to the community. Bus rides are quite an experience, too. As the bus goes careening down the street, one is likely to fall, if not for passengers who catch you. People are willing to give you a seat if you have a cane or look older than they are. I got on a bus going in the wrong direction. When I got to the last stop, the driver suggested that I remain on the bus and return with her in the opposite direction.
Arabs work alongside Jews in the “Super,” pharmacy, bank, and health clinics. The signs are in Hebrew and Arabic on the buses and streets of the city.
There are plenty of museums in Yerushalayim, including a Museum of Islamic Art. There is a Gush Katif Museum, a Knesset Museum that just opened, and a Museum of Tolerance, to name a few.
I hope you will consider visiting Israel sometime next year. There are many opportunities to volunteer — from tying tzitziyot for chayalim, to making sandwiches, cooking for families of chayalim, working on farms, etc. Learning opportunities are also in abundance. There are plenty of places to shop and find bargains. Israel needs that, too! If you need a place to stay for a few days, we have a second bedroom with its own mirpeset.
Lehitraot!
Rachel Epstein
Melania, Melania
Dear Editor:
Melania, Melania! What’s wrong with you? Haven’t you been reading my articles (albeit some of them have been skipped) about sartorial missteps? Remember when I wrote about your Hoss’s (Bonanza reference) hat at the inauguration? What would possess you to put on another huge hat when meeting King Charles and family? The hat would have been perfect for me since I have a huge head (filled with useless information). As a matter of fact, I recently visited a hat store in the Five Towns, where the store owner immediately realized I wasn’t from “them there parts.” Nevertheless, she politely informed me that the plain black hat that I chose cost as much as my one month’s heating bill.
This brings me to Melania’s second faux pas: a canary-yellow gown with a pink belt? No one looks good in that shade of yellow — not even a canary. I remember growing up, I had a bright-yellow knit sweater that I was forced to wear every cold day — about 180 of them — for six winters. Needless to say, I couldn’t carry off that color, and I’ve hated that hue ever since. However, I wish I had had Princess Kate’s champagne gown for my son’s wedding.
All of this clothing talk brings me to my description of the opera-length gloves, tiaras, and gowns worn in the new “Downton Abbey” movie. Of course, I only go to a movie like this because of its historical nature. My two friends and I were the only members of the audience for that matinee. I have no clothing advice to give the characters, but if they want any financial advice, they know where to get hold of me — after the chagim and after I take off my tiara, $135,000 earrings, and purple hat. Yes, that’s me under the hat.
Debbie Horowitz
Honor Our Fallen And Confront Rising Violence
Dear Editor:
Staff Sgt. Chalachew Shimon Demalash, 21; Maj. Shahar Netanel Bozaglo, 27; Maj. Omri Chai Ben Moshe, 26; Lt. Ron Arieli, 20; Lt. Eitan Avner Ben Itzhak, 22; and Lt. Eran Shelem, 23. Holy souls taken too early — killed last week protecting the Jewish people and Eretz HaKodesh. Instead of criticizing others for writing about Charlie Kirk, maybe Mr. Hecht should dedicate some of his column to the IDF soldiers who fell in battle the previous week.
Conservative talk-show host Michael Savage has a saying, “Liberalism is a mental disorder.” QJL’s own R’ Yoel Schonfeld wrote about Charlie Kirk. Hundreds of rabbis throughout the country spoke about the assassination in their sermons. A 31-year-old father of two very young children, sitting in a chair holding a microphone, is murdered by a left-wing nut job. This is normal? The left has no empathy. To be criticized for writing about a major American event — during the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, a time for teshuvah — what can I do to be better? There is no introspection at all on the left — zero, none.
They double down with the dictator, fascist, Hitler, “threat to democracy” rhetoric. The violence is out of control. President Trump has had two assassination attempts on his life. ICE agents literally put their lives on the line every day to remove illegals that Joe Biden let into this country. Coming into this country illegally is a crime; you get deported. When you call ICE agents “Gestapo,” you put a target on them and their families. One person tried to kill ICE agents last week in Dallas. He missed and ended up killing one illegal and wounding two others. There are violent protests against ICE agents all over the country.
I will borrow something I heard from Dennis Prager and add to it a little. He said, “George Soros is a Jew, yet I have nothing in common with him.” So are British PM Keir Starmer, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff, and Jamie Raskin. Ben Shapiro, Josh Hammer, and I have nothing in common with any of them. They all hate the State of Israel and now want its destruction. They want Western civilization to crumble. If you are a Democrat Jew, you pray in the temple of the Democrat Party, and in the front is a large pagan idol of “progressivism.” You klap Al Cheit on Yom Kippur for what? Look at the Torah reading on Yom Kippur at minchah. Everything the Democrat Party stands for is an abomination to G-d. It is contradictory to be a Torah-observant Jew and a Democrat. The Democrat Party is amoral and evil. There isn’t a single cultural issue on which the Democrat Party’s stance is one that we can all rally around.
Shalom Markowitz
Sukkos: The Uniqueness Of Every Generation, Connected To The Past
Dear Editor:
Regarding the Exodus from Egypt, the Torah addresses B’nei Yisrael many times as “you,” directly in the second person — sometimes in the singular, other times in the plural, but nonetheless in that context. For example, in the first of the Ten Commandments, Hashem states, “I am Hashem your G-d who took you out of the land of Egypt.” The Torah states, “And Hashem took us out from there,” seen as part of the chain of continuity of the Jews. Just as Hashem protected and preserved the Jewish people as they exited Egypt, so too throughout history every Jewish individual is a direct descendant and recipient of those seminal events. Hence, the words of the Mishnah, quoted in the Haggadah: “In every generation, a person must see himself as if he exited Egypt.”
Additionally, Hashem took us all out, for without that Exodus — as the Passover Haggadah states — the Jews would still be enslaved by Pharaoh in perpetuity. So the word “you” applies to each and every Jew in every generation.
The Torah states that the Israelites should live in the sukkah on Sukkos, “so that your (future) generations should know that I caused Bnei Yisrael to dwell in booths when I took them out of the land of Egypt” (Vayikra 23:43). Why, in regard to Sukkos, does the Torah speak of B’nei Yisrael as “them”?
Sukkos celebrates Hashem’s protection of B’nei Yisrael in the desert and also the uniqueness of that particular generation. This was the Dor De’ah — those who left Egypt, saw the miracles as they left, and received Hashem’s protection in the Midbar. It is also the generation that entered the barren wilderness, trusting in Hashem’s protection. As the prophet Yirmiyahu states, “You followed Me into the desert, into an unsown land.” In the Sinai wilderness, they also faced trials and tribulations unlike other times in history. As the Torah states, B’nei Yisrael tested Hashem ten times in the wilderness. Thus, the Torah refers to that generation as “them,” since this generation was unique.
Perhaps, just like the Dor HaMidbar, each generation in history is also unique. Every generation of Jewish history has its own struggles and challenges. In our own generation, Jews live with triumphs and challenges exclusive to this era: the growth and survival of the Jewish state while facing continual dangers and threats from enemies; and challenges of alienation, assimilation, and antisemitism.
Every generation is part of that chain of tradition that commenced at the Exodus and was forged at Har Sinai. At the same time, each generation is unique. Hence, Hashem took us out of Egypt and protected “them” — our ancestors in the Sinai wilderness.
Larry Domnitch
Chamberlain Redux
Dear Editor:
It’s tragically clear now how the carnage of World War II began. It is happening again.
Leftist, deluded dupes are shaking hands with a monster undeterrable from evil — again today. The leftist “Islamozombie” leaders are handshaking and backslapping with imperialist Islam — an Islam whose history shows, over and over, that it is unrelenting, unapologetic, and genocidally psychopathic.
History shows many wars with Islam in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia — and now on every continent — for 1,400 years. It shows imperialistic Islam’s ongoing, intermittent genocides against nonbelievers. It predicts imperialist Islam will set the deluded, smug “leftozombies” ablaze wherever and whenever they get the upper hand in their cities and unveil their taqiyya as the theater for idiots that it is.
And communism’s Putin, Jinping, and Kim Jong Un couldn’t be happier. When Islam breaks and enslaves the West, the communists will swoop in for the final kill and pulverize Islam.
Britain, Belgium, Australia, and Canada have just launched World War III as surely as Chamberlain’s 1938 handshake with Hitler launched World War II. Hitler and Islam and communist psychopaths know their plan. The deluded, antisemitic, peace-obsessive, compulsive, raging overgrown adolescents of the West have no clue.
Unless Israel, America, and the few but powerful, morally sane world leaders plow through this delusion to defeat imperialist Islam, there will be global carnage and cultural devolution the likes of which the world has never known.
I also understand now the evolution of utter hopelessness about the world’s idiots and satans that drives morally sane visionaries into partisan underground battle.
Howard Neiman, Ph.D.
Political Poet
15 MPH Scooter Rule Puts Safety First For Our Families, Schools, And Shuls
Dear Editor:
As a longtime Queens resident and active member of our community, I want to thank Mayor Eric Adams and the New York City Department of Transportation for their decisive action in setting a citywide 15-mph speed limit for e-bikes and e-scooters, which goes into effect on October 24. This long-awaited measure will make a tangible difference in daily life, especially for seniors crossing Main Street, children walking home from school, and families navigating busy corridors like Union Turnpike and Queens Boulevard.
By aligning the speed limit for all micromobility devices, this new rule creates a safer, more predictable environment for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers alike. It also follows successful examples abroad — including the European Union’s 25 km/h (about 15.5 mph) standard for pedal-assist bikes — showing that New York is adopting proven global best practices.
Importantly, this action will also enhance safety near our many yeshivah campuses and shuls, where children and families are often walking to and from classes, tefilot, and community programs throughout the day — areas that have long needed stronger traffic protections.
I urge the City Council to support the mayor’s broader legislative agenda to address the root causes of reckless e-bike riding and to continue prioritizing education and infrastructure that benefit all New Yorkers.
Thank you, Mayor Adams, for listening to residents and taking meaningful steps to protect our quality of life while keeping New York City moving forward.
Sincerely,
Shabsie Saphirstein,
Kew Gardens Hills
