Emunah Magazine

Israel – In an unprecedented halachic ruling, Shas’ spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef has allowed a woman pregnant by artificial insemination to marry a man who is not the father of the developing child.

M., a 44-year old religious woman, decided to get pregnant through a sperm bank because she feared she would not be able to conceive if she waited any longer.

However immediately after her insemination she met a 50-year old widower and the two quickly decided to wed, after the latter accepted responsibility for the child.

The couple immediately ran into trouble: According to the Jewish halacha, a pregnant woman is not allowed to marry any man who is not the father for 24 months after the birth.

The ruling preserves the unborn child’s rights. Rabbis explain that if the woman becomes pregnant again within the two years that follow the birth, the mother may stop producing milk for the baby.

The couple appealed to the local rabbinate, but was forbidden to marry. They then turned to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who ruled that the mother may use milk substitutes to feed her child if she conceives again in the coming years.

Attorney Zuriel Bublil, who helped the couple with their appeal, was pleased with the result. “This is an unprecedented ruling that will help women coming to the end of their fertility,” he said.

“Rabbi Yosef dealt with halachic reality with great courage, in a matter that many feared to allow or even discuss. The couple wanted to bring the child into the world after they were already married, and their time was almost up.”

M. and her fiancé were married according to Jewish law on Sunday.

Source: Ynet

(June 30) — The son of a Hamas founder who became a spy for Israel is a step closer to gaining asylum in the U.S. after an immigration judge in San Diego today said he would not order him deported to the West Bank if he passes a background check.

Mosab Hassan Yousef, who spent a decade serving as a spy for Israel's Shin Bet security agency, helping target and kill militants with the Palestinian group Hamas, argued he would be killed if deported back to his homeland. The immigration judge, Rico Bartolomei, suggested he would reverse a February 2009 decision by the Department of Homeland Security to deport Yousef on the grounds that he was a danger to the U.S.

"During the hearing, Judge Bartolomei indicated that pending the background investigation not resulting in any flags, he would write a brief decision granting relief," Lauren Alder Reid, Justice Department counsel for legislative and public affairs, told AOL News.

"There is no guarantee," she added, saying the judge will await word from the Department of Homeland Security investigation to determine whether asylum is appropriate.

Yousef, 32, was cheered by supporters after leaving the hearing.

"I will keep fighting the ideology that is behind terrorists because I know how they think," he said outside the courtroom, according to The Associated Press.

Earlier this year, Yousef, who converted to Christianity, published a memoir about his 10 years as an Israeli spy, claiming to have been one of Shin Bet's secret weapons.

"Yes, while working for Israeli intelligence, I posed as a terrorist," he wrote on his blog last month. "Yes, I carried a gun. Yes, I was in terrorist meetings with Yassir Arafat, my father and other Hamas leaders. It was part of my job."

Yousef has won support from members of Congress and other officials, including former CIA Director James Woolsey, who has called him a "remarkable young man" who deserves praise for his "extraordinary heroism and courage."

Jewish tennis fans were able to watch Roger Federer on a full stomach thanks to the return of a pioneering food service at the Championships.

A kosher food stall is celebrating its second year at the tournament – serving up treats including the classic strawberries and cream.

The stall was set up last year by the Chabad of South London Campuses, a Jewish educational organisation with a centre in St George’s Road, Wimbledon.

It launched last year, when Rabbi Dovid Cohen sold kosher food from the driveway of a house near the All England Club.

This year the project has grown, with a stall in the car park of the Wimbledon Golf Club – near the tournament’s famous queue.

Mr Cohen said it was often hard to find good kosher food at major events.

He said: “There are many Jewish tennis fans who won’t have a source of hot food.”

He said non-Jews were also enjoying the the snacks on offer – which included burgers, sandwiches and ice cream.

Jerusalem has been reunited without gunfire, 43 years after the Six Day War — this time, by Yahoo!

Angering the international Jewish community, the Internet search giant recently enacted its own two-state solution by dividing Jerusalem into “East” and “West” on its Weather iPhone app.

But the holy city became one again this weekend, after pressures from the Israeli government and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, according to Rabbi Meyer H. May, executive director of the Center.

“We are gratified that Yahoo! recognized its mistake and moved so quickly to correct its weather site and app,” he said.

In mid-May, the Jerusalem weather information suddenly became blank, deferring to alternatives “West Jerusalem, Yerushalayim” and “East Jerusalem, West Bank.”

“Yahoo! does not have the authority to divide Jerusalem,” said social media expert Dr. Andre Oboler. “Facebook found that moving locations between Israel and Palestine caused a huge user backlash, and in the end they settled to let users choose where they were.”

Calls and emails to Yahoo’s media relations were not returned.

As part of the Orthodox Union’s ongoing commitment to strengthen the Jewish family, the OU recently conducted an online international survey on marital satisfaction in the Orthodox community. The anonymous Aleinu Marital Satisfaction Survey, which took place from January to March 2009, targeted the Orthodox community and focused upon the many facets of marital satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The survey was coordinated in conjunction with Aleinu Family Resource Center, a program of the Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles and the Rabbinical Council of California. Raw data were collected by OTX, a California institute of the behavioral sciences. The study expanded upon a similar project conducted in March 2008 by Deborah Fox, director of Aleinu Family Resource Center at Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles.

Dr. Eliezer Schnall, assistant professor of psychology at Yeshiva College, and Dr. David Pelcovitz, Straus professor of psychology and education at Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration, both of whom were responsible for analyzing the data, explain the findings and their implications in the pages ahead.

Analysis & Interpretation:What the Data Reveal
(Excerpted from remarks made by Dr. Eliezer Schnall at a presentation delivered at the Orthodox Union in November 2009.)

The survey attracted 3,760 respondents from around the world, a large number relative to similar studies of marriage and family. The vast majority of the respondents— 83 percent—were from North America, mostly from the United States. Some 11 percent were from Israel. Of the total respondents, 59 percent were women and 41 percent were men.

When asked to rate their marriages overall as “Excellent,” “Very Good,” “Good,” “Fair” or “Poor,” 72 percent of men and 74 percent of women rated their marriages as “Very Good” or better. In contrast, only a small minority— about 13 percent—responded that their marriages were “Fair” or “Poor.” Indeed, many studies—for example, data from the National Survey of Families and Households—indicate that frequent participants in religious services or activities experience greater marital contentment, and may even have lower risk of divorce, compared with others. In fact, almost 80 percent (of both men and women) in our sample said that their spouses meet their expectations. Furthermore, in a similar question, respondents were asked whether they would marry the same person if they could “turn back the clock,” knowing all that they do now. Most wives and husbands will be happy to hear that so many (74 percent) of their spouses would marry them all over again if they could.

Debra Umberson, a professor at the University of Texas, recently wrote that “as early as the 1950s, sociologists concluded that marital quality diminishes following the birth of the first child, and does not begin to improve until children leave the parental home.” Many in the academic world have taken note of this roller-coasterlike continuum of marital satisfaction, calling it a “U-shaped curve,” with the happiest subjects being newlyweds and those married for thirty years and longer. Norval Glenn, also of the University of Texas, referred to this Ushaped finding with this strong statement: “It’s as close to being certain as anything is in the social sciences.” Our study of Orthodox Jews, although cross-sectional, may be con sistent with these findings. Those married only one to two years, for example, reported higher marital satisfaction than those married ten to twenty or twenty to thirty years. (See graph on page 32.) However, those married thirty or more years reported higher satisfaction than those married twenty to thirty years.

Obviously, all is not rosy. Within Orthodox marriages there are certain stressors. What are they? Research on the general secular community has identified certain areas where conflict is common: children, money, household tasks, time, sexual issues, in-laws, and whether to have a child or to have another child. What were the most common in our Orthodox sample? The five areas most commonly identified as extremely or somewhat stressful were financial issues, lack of communication, problems with intimacy, lack of relationship or time together and conflicts with in-laws. Other problems that were identified include excessive time on the Internet, a twenty-first-century problem, and the use of “inappropriate Web sites,” a new manifestation of an age-old issue. Both of these problems seemed more stressful to those earlier in their marriages, as did decisions about use of birth control and dealing with possible infertility. Later in marriages, stressors such as family illness or behavioral problems with “off-thederech” children were more prominent.

What about some other ways of breaking our sample into subgroups? Respondents with household incomes between $25,000 and $50,000 reported significantly less stress from an “offthe- derech” or “at-risk” child compared with those earning $100,000 or above. This may be consistent with other research identifying higher risk among more affluent adolescents. Those divorced and now remarried also identify more stress from “off-the-derech” children than those in a first marriage. Moreover, while conflicts with in-laws tend to be more problematic in first marriages, financial issues come to the fore more prominently in cases where there was a divorce and a remarriage.

Ba’alei teshuvah report greater marital stress from the following: “at-risk” children, conflicts regarding chinuch of children, lack of communication, lack of relationship and intimacy, religious differences, finances and lack of social network. But a word of caution is in order: In large samples, even small differences can be statistically significant. Thus, while these findings likely did not occur by chance, the absolute differences between ba’alei teshuvah and others regarding these stressors were not huge. However, the implications are nonetheless important. As rabbis, mental health professionals, community leaders or even as caring relatives and neighbors, we need to show special sensitivity to those issues that may especially impact ba’alei teshuvah.

If we’re going to take the findings of this survey to the next step, one of the important questions to ask is, “Where do Orthodox people get their ideas as to what they should expect in a marriage?” Respondents were asked this very question and were invited to select as many responses as they wished. Interestingly, those married less than five years are far more likely to be looking to religious figures to guide their expectations. At the same time, though, it’s remarkable how very few of those married thirty years or more mention rabbis as a source for their current expectations— only about one in ten.

Those married for less than five years are also more likely to mention “family,” “community” and “friends” as sources, a valuable piece of information in terms of possible points of intervention. And finally, although the absolute numbers are not huge, it’s noteworthy that those married less than five years are far more likely to consider Hollywood, magazines and other sources from popular culture to guide their expectations in marriage, perhaps not the wisest choices. 

Note: In the question-and-answer session that followed, Dr. Schnall discussed methodological issues and limitations associated with this and other study designs. Relatedly, he pointed out that the current research included analyses that adjusted for such potential confounders as gender, income and education.

IMPLICATIONS:What the Data Mean
(Excerpted from remarks made by Dr. David Pelcovitz at a presentation delivered at the Orthodox Union in November 2009.)

We live in an age where, unfortunately, many people who are dating have the bizarre view that life is without stress—that somehow they’re going to get a “Problem- Free Mate.” The reality is that every marriage will have stress and conflict; and, as this survey attests, the conflicts in Orthodox Jewish marriages are pretty similar to those found in marriages in the general public. What is most important is educating the public about how to negotiate the inevitable stresses because these stresses have to happen. Dr. John Mordechai Gottman, one of the leading evidence-based experts on marriage, finds that if couples don’t fight at all, it’s actually a risk factor for a marriage. Couples have to fight—that’s the way the inevitable differences are resolved. But couples need to learn how to fight.

It’s important to realize that everyone’s level of marital satisfaction dips—especially as couples experience the stresses of raising children and financial pressures. However, as one experiences that dip in marital satisfaction, it is essential to understand that it is normal, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

The training implications derived from the survey are also important. Effective premarital training programs (or chatan and kallah classes) can really make a difference. Catholic countries that require a premarital counseling program before a priest will marry individuals tend to have lower divorce rates than similar Catholic countries that don’t have such a requirement. The need for such training is clearly emerging from the survey’s data.

One area in particular that is important to address is stress related to intimacy issues. Close to half of the respondents cited some problems with intimacy issues and lack of sexual education. There isn’t necessarily a language on sexuality that we’re teaching to couples. Moreover, there’s something missing in the way we convey values about sexuality to our children.

As mentioned earlier, the survey also reveals some fascinating findings on at-risk kids and on ba’alei teshuvah. We find evidence of “affluenza” in our data, that is, an increased risk among youth in the more affluent segments of the Orthodox world—a phenomenon that is equally true in the general population and about which much has been written. Dr. Suniya S. Luthar, professor of psychology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, finds that when you compare wealthy adolescents to adolescents from lower socio-economic backgrounds, there’s about triple the rate of depression, a higher rate of substance and alcohol abuse, and a higher rate of anxiety problems among the wealthy adolescents—which is totally contrary to what one would expect.

Dr. Luthar identifies the causes of the pathologies behind “affluenza,” all of which have implications for the Orthodox community as well. The first is that in more affluent neighborhoods, it’s never enough just to be average. I, for example, rarely hear a father come to shul on a Shabbat morning and say, “You know, my kid got in the fiftieth percentile on the SATs.” One just doesn’t hear that. Secondly, Dr. Luthar notes the tremendous time pressure in families. Oftentimes parents, even though they are physically present, they are not there. They’re there, and they’re not there. In the age of the cell phone and the BlackBerry, this is a very real issue. We know that there’s a direct linear correlation between parents really being present with their children, really being there as opposed to being distracted, and the likelihood that their children will grow up to actualize their dreams and aspirations, and not succumb to negative influences. Finally, Dr. Luthar claims that affluent children very often are not asked to go beyond themselves to give to others. There is, generally speaking, no required helpfulness in their homes. True, some students engage in communal service to be able to add volunteer work to their college applications. However, research shows that when a student has to do the service for school, it does very little good. When giving to others and getting past oneself is something required of adolescents, when it’s part of the culture, youth tend to come alive, and the probability of their becoming at-risk is significantly diminished.

All of these observations obviously require much more explanation and analysis. This article is hopefully the first of many on the important points brought out by the survey.

While there are no hard data, there is certainly a perception that there seems to be more and more divorces taking place in our community. On a positive note, however, what this survey shows is that even with the rising divorce rate within the Orthodox community, the overall message is positive: Our satisfaction rates are quite high. When filling out this survey, most people are saying, “Well, you know something? If I had to do it over again, I’d marry the same person.” If seven out of ten people are saying that, that’s pretty good. Of course, our work is not done; we should always strive to improve. Gathering and analyzing data is an important first step, but we must follow up by training rabbis, educators and the community. 

In an unprecedented show of transparency, New York City Councilman David Greenfield released a full list of organizations that he was responsible for funding in this year's budget, which was passed by the City Council yesterday.

Most of these groups applied for funding before Greenfield was elected to office, as the deadline for funding was a full month before Greenfield was elected. While Greenfield's top budget priority this year was the successful six million dollar restoration of Priority 7 vouchers benefiting 2,200 children, Greenfield was also able to secure funding for many worthy groups in his community. "I am proud that in ten short weeks I was able to bring back over $500,000 in direct funding to outstanding non-profit groups in my district," said Greenfield. "I am even prouder that I was able to fund more groups than ever before in this year's budget, despite the overwhelming budget deficit."

Next year, Greenfield plans on opening up the process even more by working with all groups that are interested in receiving city funding starting in January of 2011. "It doesn't matter how big or small you are. If you do outstanding work, we want to help you," explained Greenfield. "That's why next year we will host an open meeting for all groups who are interested in applying for funds from the city. The days of groups receiving funding based on back-room political deals are over. We are funding groups based on one criteria: merit."

The list of groups that Councilman Greenfield funded in this year's budget follows in alphabetical order:

Agudath Israel of America Community Services

American Friends of Chasdei Lev

American Friends of Mishkan Yecheskel

American-Italian Coalition of Organizations

Bensonhurst Council of Jewish Organizations

Bonei Olam

Boro Park Community Council

Brain Tumor Foundation

Brooklyn Chinese-American Association

Brooklyn Housing and Family Services

Chai-Life Line 

Chaverim of Boro Park, Williamsburg

Central Jewish Council

Communal Services for Bobov

Congregation Bnai Yosef

Congregation Divrei Yisroel and Bas Melech

Congregation Kehal Premishlan

Congregation L'man Achai

Emergency Parnassa Initiative

Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst

Gan Yisroel

Igud L' Hachzokas Torah

Imagine Academy

Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services

Masbia

Medicare Rights Center

Metropolitan Russian-American Parents Association

Midwood Development Corporation

Mifal Tzeduka V'chesed

Mosad Harim Levin

Ohr Halimud – The Multi-Sensory Learning Center

Parkville Youth Organization

Reach for the Stars Learning Center

Senior Citizens League of Flatbush

Shmira Civilian Volunteer Patrol of Boro Park

St. Athanasius Golden Age Club

St. Athanasius Youth Program

Tomche Shabbos of Boro Park and Flatbush

United Chinese Association of Brooklyn

United Talmudic Academy

Yeled V'Yalda Early Childhood Center

Yeshiva Beth Hillel of Krasna

Yeshivath Kehilath Yakov

Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association of Boro Park

CHICAGO — Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan has written the leaders of more than a dozen major U.S. Jewish groups and denominations seeking "repair of my people from the damage" he claims Jews have caused blacks for centuries.

Farrakhan sent the letter along with two books from the Nation of Islam Historical Research Team that the 77-year-old minister said prove "an undeniable record of Jewish Anti-Black behavior," starting with the slave trade and Jim Crow laws.

"We could charge you with being the most deceitful so-called friend, while your history with us shows you have been our worst enemy," he wrote.

Farrakhan has long accused Jews of wrongdoing in speeches, but he has rarely addressed Jewish groups so directly in writing.

The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group which distributed copies of the letter, said in a statement Tuesday that Farrakhan's "anti-Semitism is obsessive, diabolical and unrestrained. He has opened a new chapter in his ministry where scapegoating Jews is not just part of a message, but the message."

In the letter, dated last Thursday, the Chicago-based Nation of Islam leader said he sought a dialogue with Jews. He sent the letter to groups including the Orthodox and Reform movements, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and the American Jewish Committee, a New York-based advocacy and humanitarian nonprofit that spearheads inter-religious dialogue.

"This is an offer asking you and the gentiles whom you influence to help me in the repair of my people from the damage that has been done by your ancestors to mine," he writes. "Your present reality is sitting on top of the world in power, with riches and influences, while the masses of my people … are in the worst condition of any member of the human family."

In the past, Farrakhan's most inflammatory comments have included referring to Judaism as a "gutter religion" and calling Adolf Hitler "wickedly great." Recently, he has railed against the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which he claims is conspiring to trap the U.S. in a war with Iran.

Farrakhan echoed similar comments last Saturday in an Atlanta speech titled, "Who Are the Real Children of Israel?"

He did not respond to several messages seeking comment Tuesday. Farrakhan has over the years denied claims of anti-Semitism, arguing his remarks are often taken out of context and that criticism of Jews in any light automatically earns the "anti-Semite" label.

Source: AP

NEW YORK — A noted singer of Jewish music is headed for prison after being convicted of stealing $36,000 from a New York City woman who says the money was meant to buy Torah scrolls.

His family now lives in Israel.

Source: AP

MORRISTOWN, N.J. — Three of New York's five organized crime families came under the microscope for alleged illegal gambling activities Monday, the result of investigations that have produced more than 50 arrests reaching to the top rungs of one organization.

In New Jersey, the son of a legendary Philadelphia mob figure and two men believed to head the New York-based Lucchese crime family were among nearly three dozen people to plead not guilty to racketeering for allegedly running a multibillion-dollar offshore gambling operation.

Meanwhile in Brooklyn, District Attorney Charles Hynes announced the indictment of 17 reputed members and associates of the Gambino and Genovese families who allegedly ran several Internet gambling rings that took in $20 million annually in bets.

"Illegal sports gambling is a cash cow for organized crime, and this case shines a bright light on the connection between the two," Hynes said about the New York arrests.

Five separate indictments charge 17 people with crimes including illegal gambling, loan sharking and extortion. Prosecutors allege they took bets through three websites, cell phone text messages, telephone and paper betting tickets.

The New Jersey indictment, handed up in May, centered on a gambling operation that allegedly processed $2.2 billion in wagers over a 15-month period and was run by the Lucchese family in New Jersey, whose members sent a percentage of profits to their New York bosses as a tribute.

Bets were recorded and processed using password-protected Web sites and a wire room operation in Costa Rica, according to prosecutors. One gambler bet more than $2 million in a two-month period, they said.

Though prosecutors do not consider him the highest-ranking crime family member arrested in the sweep, Nicodemo Scarfo Jr. carried the highest name recognition into court in Monday. His father, Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo, is serving a life term for running the Philadelphia-Atlantic City mob in the 1980s.

The younger Scarfo, 45, of Ventnor near Atlantic City, served four years and seven months in state prison in the mid-1990s for racketeering. He was sentenced in 2002 to 33 months of federal time for illegal gambling after losing a court battle to suppress gambling records FBI agents secretly obtained from his computer.

Scarfo's attorney, Donald Manno, did not comment on the charges Monday.

Among Scarfo's co-defendants are Matthew Madonna of Selden, N.Y., and Joseph DiNapoli of Scarsdale, N.Y., whom prosecutors say were part of a three-man ruling panel that controlled the Lucchese family's criminal activities from New York. First Scarfo and then Ralph Perna of Wyckoff, in northern New Jersey, ran the family's operations in New Jersey, prosecutors allege.

The New Jersey indictment also indicates an alleged alliance between organized crime and reputed members of the Bloods street gang to smuggle contraband into East Jersey State Prison with the help of a corrections officer, who also has been charged.

Three of the 35 New Jersey defendants did not appear Monday, including alleged Bloods gang member Dwayne Spears, who is in jail in Pennsylvania. While most defendants remained free on bail, Spears' brother, Edwin, whom prosecutors said once bragged of being a "five-star general" in the Bloods, was ordered held pending a bail hearing.

Monday's proceeding was perfunctory, with each defendant entering a plea and waiving the reading of the charges, but the sheer number of defendants kept Manahan busy for more than two hours.

The New Jersey Nets celebrated an important milestone in the construction of the Barclays Center basketball arena near downtown Brooklyn on Tuesday, as concrete began pouring for the foundation of the 18,000-seat facility.

Nearly 700 cubic yards of concrete from two plants was delivered to the site in 80 concrete-mixing trucks, according to Bob Sanna. He is a vice president with Forest City Ratner, which is developing the Atlantic Yards project at the site that ultimately also is scheduled to include thousands of condominiums.

“Over the next few months, we will continue with the mass excavation, underground plumbing and electrical work, along with ongoing foundation work,” Sanna said.

Arenas of this size typically take about 24 months to build, and the Nets hope to have the building ready to open by mid-2012. If that happens — and the weather temperatures would have to cooperate this winter so concrete can still be poured — then the team could meet its goal of moving into the Barclays Center in time for the start of the 2012-13 season.

The Nets are moving to the Prudential Center in Newark this fall for at least two National Basketball Association seasons, after previously playing in the Meadowlands for 29 years.

WASHINGTON – President Obama's US Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan cracked a Jewish joke Tuesday after receiving some pointed questions during her confirmation hearing from Republican senators.

When Kagan was asked where she was on Christmas, the day of an aborted airline bomb attempt, she replied to an explosion of laughter: "Like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant." 

Kagan also told US senators of the significance of the State of Israel to her during her confirmation testimony Tuesday.

"I don't think it's a secret I am Jewish. The state of Israel has meant a lot to me and my family," she said.

Her comments came in response to criticism of her praise of former Israeli supreme court president Aharon Barak, whom Republicans have criticized as
being activist and raising doubts about how strictly Kagan would interpret the US Constitution if confirmed.

"I admire Justice Barak for what he's done for the state of Israel and ensuring an independent judiciary," she said.

"He was central in creating an independent judiciary for Israel and in ensuring that Israel – a young nation, a nation threatened from its very beginning in existential ways and a nation without a written constitution – he was central in ensuring that Israel, with all those kinds of liabilities, would become a very strong rule of law nation," she continued.

But she stressed that she would not look to his judicial method as a model, saying her admiration didn't stem from his judicial philosophy or specific decisions.

Kagan called Barak "my judicial hero" and said he was the judge "in my lifetime whom I think best represents and has best advanced the values of democracy and human rights, of the rule of law and of justice" when introducing him before an awards ceremony in 2006. The comments, which she delivered while dean of Harvard Law School, have been widely cited at the hearings, which began Monday, by Republicans.

At another point, she noted, "I gave introductions to many, many people. If any of you came to Harvard Law School, I would have given you a great introduction too."

In the fall of 2006, Sony Pictures chairman and CEO Michael Lynton and his pal Gary Ginsberg, now an executive vice president of Time Warner Inc., began working on a list of the 50 most influential rabbis in the U.S. The friends devised the following unscientific criteria to rank the leaders, whose specialties range from kashrut to Kabbalah: Are they known nationally/internationally? (20 points.) Do they have political/social influence? (20 points.) Do they have a media presence? (10 points.) Are they leaders within their communities? (10 points.) Are they considered leaders in Judaism or their movements? (10 points. ) How big are their constituencies? (10 points.) Have they made an impact on Judaism in their career? (10 points.) Have they made a greater impact beyond the Jewish community and their rabbinical training? (10 points.) NEWSWEEK published that first list around Passover, 2007, with this caveat: “Is the list subjective? Yes. Is it mischievous in its conception? Definitely.” Now in its fourth year, Lynton and Ginsberg’s list includes eight fresh names and a new rabbi in the top spot.

-As the leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, Krinsky is the contemporary face of the Hasidic branch. (2009 Ranking No. 4)

-Yoffie represents 1.5 million Jews in more than 900 synagogues in his role as president of the Union of Reform Judaism. (2009 Ranking No.

-Founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, Hier is No. 3 for his tireless work combating issues such as anti-Semitism, bigotry, and hate. Hier’s many connections with major world leaders, politicians, and entertainment-industry bigwigs give him an international platform from which to speak on various matters affecting the Jewish people. (2009 Ranking No. 2 )

-A leading authority on the future of Jewish philanthropy, Charendoff serves as president of the Jewish Funders Network, an international organization of family foundations, public philanthropies, and individual funders. (2009 Ranking No. 3)

-Having just completed his term as the only rabbi serving on President Obama’s White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Saperstein continues to act as a major influence in Washington in his role as director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. (2009 Ranking No. 1)

-Calling himself “America’s Rabbi,” Boteach continues to share his views on marriage, parenting, and relationships with the world, appearing on counseling various celebrities in their times of crisis and releasing his most recent book, (2009 Ranking No. 7)

-Kula, a bestselling author who serves as co-president of CLAL (the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership), is nationally known for his commitment to reshaping America’s spiritual landscape. (2009 Ranking No. 10)

-Under Ellenson’s leadership as president, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion continues to develop, train, and support the dynamic Jewish leaders of tomorrow. (2009 ranking No. 5)

-Wexler continues influencing generations of Jewish students and scholars as president of American Jewish University. (2009 Ranking No. 6)

-As program director for Magen Tzedek, the ethical kosher seal, Allen is changing the way the world thinks about and the ethical issues surrounding the hechsher. (NEW)

-Herscher is the founder, president and CEO of the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. (2009 Ranking No. 9)

-Lamm is the chancellor of Yeshiva University in New York City. (2009 Ranking No. 14)

-Considered by many to be the No. 1 pulpit rabbi in America and a major leader of the Conservative movement, Wolpe is the rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. (2009 Ranking No. 11)

-Berg is known as the world’s leading authority on the Kabbalah movement. (2009 Ranking No. 13)

-Telushkin is an internationally known bestselling author and speaker. (2009 Ranking No. 15)

-In his role as CEO of the Orthodox Union Kosher Division, Genack has steadily supervised and maintained the organization’s stringent kosher requirements throughout a series of recent scandals. (2009 Ranking No. 17)

-As president of the CCAR (Central Conference of American Rabbis), Dreyfus represents nearly 2,000 Reform rabbis. (2009 Ranking No. 18)

-A leading Modern Orthodox rabbi who heads the Hebrew Institute if Riverdale, N.Y., Weiss recently caused a stir in the Orthodox community with his controversial decision to grant his student, Sara Hurwitz, the title of “rabba.” (2009 Ranking No. 38)

-Wohlberg is president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the international association of Conservative rabbis. (2009 ranking No. 19)

-Gutow is president and CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the public-policy and community-relations coordinating agency of the American Jewish community. (2009 Ranking No. 20)

-As founder and president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Eckstein is recognized as the world’s leading Jewish authority on evangelical Christians. (NEW)

-As senior rabbi for Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in New York City, Matalon presides over a congregation of more than 1,800 families. (2009 Ranking No. 16)

-In his role as president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Ehrenkrantz is recognized as a leading expert in issues pertaining to the Reconstructionist movement and American Jewish history.

-Lookstein is principal of New York’s Ramaz School and rabbi at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun. (2009 Ranking No. 22)

-Kleinbaum is senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, the world’s largest synagogue for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered Jews. (2009 Ranking No. 25)

-Moline, the spiritual leader of Gauds Achim Congregation in Alexandria, Va., is also the Rabbinical Assembly’s newest director of public policy. (NEW)

-Wernick is the newly appointed executive vice president and CEO of United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. (NEW)

-As dean of Hebrew College’s Rabbinical School, Green is internationally recognized as an authority on Jewish thought and spirituality. (2009 Ranking No. 27)

-As senior rabbi for New York’s Central Synagogue, Rubinstein presides over a congregation of more than 1,700 families. (2009 Ranking No. 12)

-As senior rabbi for Washington’s largest synagogue, Washington Hebrew Congregation, Lustig presides over a congregation of more than 3,000 members. (2009 Ranking No. 26)

-Founder of Los Angeles’s progressive spiritual community, IKAR, Brous has received international attention and acclaim for her leadership and impact within the Jewish community. (2009 Ranking No. 31)

-In addition to serving as senior rabbi at Chicago’s Anshe Emet congregation, Siegel is also nationally known as the co-chair of the Heksher Tzedek Commission. (NEW)

-As the associate dean of the Simon Weisenthal Center and its Museum of Tolerance, Cooper is internationally known as an activist for human and Jewish rights. (2009 Ranking No. 29)

-Known as the first rabbi to host the pope at his Park East Synagogue in New York, Schneier is also the founder and president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation. (2009 Ranking No. 36)

-Buchwald is the founder of the National Jewish Outreach Program, which aims to address issues such as intermarriage and Jewish assimilation. (2009 Ranking No. 35)

-Hurwitz rose to national attention when Rabbi Avi Weiss (No. 18) bestowed her with the title of “rabba.” She is considered the first Orthodox woman rabbi ordained in the United States, and in this role she has had an impact on the roles considered acceptable for modern Orthodox women. (NEW)

-As executive director of the Jewish Outreach Institute, Olitzky is one of the leading rabbinical advocates for outreach to interfaith and unaffiliated families in America. (2009 Ranking No. 34)

-Artson is dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University. (2009 Ranking No. 40)

-Considered a leader in the Conservative movement, Levy is a nationally recognized speaker and author as well as founder and leader of the Los Angeles-based Jewish outreach organization Nashuva. (2009 Ranking No. 39)

-In addition to being considered one of the leading voices of the Conservative movement, Schulweis is internationally known for founding Jewish World Watch. (2009 Ranking No. 21)

-Schneier is president and founder of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, which seeks to strengthen relationships between ethnic communities in the United States. (2009 Ranking No. 33)

-Schacter-Shalomi is known as the founder of the Jewish Renewal movement in America. (2009 Ranking No. 45)

-As chairman of the Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards. Dorff serves as the leader of Conservative Judaism’s top lawmaking body. (2009 Ranking No. 41)

-A nationally known proponent for interfaith dialogues and pluralism, Hirschfield is co-president of CLAL. (2009 Ranking No. 42)

-In addition to serving as Senior Rabbi at Los Angeles’s Wilshire Boulevard Temple, Leder is also a bestselling author. (Returning from 2008)

-A noted author and speaker, Feinstein is senior rabbi of Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, Calif. (2009 Ranking No. 44)

-As senior rabbi for Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, Stern presides over the largest congregation in the Southwest. (2009 Ranking No. 30)

-Paley is the scholar in residence and director of the Jewish Resource Center of the UJA-Federation of New York. (2009 Ranking No. 50)

-A leading expert in Jewish social-justice issues, Jacobs serves as the rabbi in residence at the Jewish Funds for Justice. (2009 Ranking No. 48)

-As founder of JSafe (The Jewish Institute Supporting an Abuse-Free Environment), Dratch is a nationally recognized speaker and consultant in matters of domestic violence, child abuse, and professional abuse within the Jewish community. (NEW)

Source: Newsweek

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Masked men trashed a U.N. summer camp Monday, tying up guards and slashing tents and an inflatable pool in the second such attack blamed on suspected extremists in just over a month — a sign of how, in Gaza, youth camp is not just about crafts and volleyball.

Rival day camps by the United Nations and Gaza's Islamic militantHamas rulers compete for the hearts of the next generation, the roughly 700,000 children under 15 who make up nearly half of the Gaza Strip's population.

Hamas camps teach an anti-Israeli doctrine and military-style marching, along with horseback riding, swimming and Islam. U.N. camps try to instill hope in a better future, a message wrapped in fun and games.

The U.N. says it hopes to help shield Gaza's children against the lure of militancy, a task that's getting harder in the impoverished territory. Educators say today's children are more vulnerable than the previous generation, having witnessed war with Israel last year, internal Palestinian fighting and the violent Hamas takeover in 2007, followed by an Israeli-Egyptian blockade that has virtually cut Gaza off from the outside world.

"Time is against us," warned local U.N. chief John Ging. "We are losing an entire generation."

In Monday's vandalism, two dozen masked men broke into a U.N. camp before dawn, while children were not present. They tied up four guards, then slashed and burned tents, toys and a plastic swimming pool.

Hamas police condemned the attack and there was no claim of responsibility.

However, Islamic extremists, including a Hamas legislator, have accused the U.N. in the past of corrupting Gaza's youth, objecting to camp activities such as folklore dancing. A number of Islamic groups more militant than Hamas have carried out violence in the territory in the past few years.

Hamas is also becoming more assertive in imposing its strict version of Islam on daily life in Gaza. It has ordered male coiffeurs out of women's salons, and teenage girls are under intense pressure from teachers to wear headscarves and robes in government schools.

For now, Hamas has largely avoided confrontation with Ging's U.N. Relief and Works Agency, well aware of how vital it is to the lives of impoverished Gazans. UNWRA runs schools, clinics and food centers for two-thirds of Gaza's 1.5 million people.

The U.N. agency stays clear of Hamas, internationally shunned as a terror group.

Hamas says some 100,000 youngsters have signed up for its camps, compared to about 250,000 registered for the U.N. program. Both types of camps are free, and are arranged by age groups.

The U.N. camps run for two weeks each, for schoolchildren through ninth grade. Hamas camps offer 10 days of activities for children and teens from first grade through high school. There are also smaller, private camps — one nonpolitical day camp where students try to memorize sections of the Quran, for instance, has drawn about 20,000 children.

While Hamas and the U.N. may use the opportunity to get their ideas across, the motive for many Gaza parents and youngsters in turning to the camps is the same as that of families around the world: The camps break up an otherwise tedious summer.

The problem is particularly acute in Gaza, which offers few diversions. Families tend to be large, many homes are crowded and kids are often sent into the streets by stressed parents. Frequent power cuts make idle days more miserable.

Mahmoud Migdad, a 15-year-old from the Shati refugee camp, says he often gets yelled at by neighbors for playing football in the streets and gets kicked out of the house by his older sisters when they want to clean. He says that's why he's not only joined a Hamas camp, but is also trying to sign up for the U.N. program.

On a recent afternoon, at one of the Hamas youth camps near Shati, dozens of elementary school studentstook turns riding horses, swimming in the Mediterranean, sailing in a fishing boat and learning the choreography of Muslim prayer.

After the children recited Quranic verses, a camp supervisor gave a brief lecture.

"We have two aims in our camps, our prisoners and al-Aqsa," said the man, referring to Islam's third holiest shrine, in Israeli-ruled east Jerusalem, and the more than 6,300 Palestinians held by Israel. "First we must free the prisoners, and then also al-Aqsa."

"Where is al-Aqsa?" he asked. "In the hands of the occupation," the children responded.

"Who is the occupation?" he asked. "Israel," they responded.

"Where are the prisoners?" he asked. "In the hands of the occupation," they said.

Each camp is dedicated to a Hamas prisoner, and a large banner with the photo and name of this camp's patron, Mahmoud Nimr Shaheen, was draped over the entrance. Shaheen, an aide to a Hamas militant leader, was released this month after serving 18 years.

Asked what he knows about the camp's patron, 12-year-old Tareq al-Ghoul said, "He was in prison because he fought for us."

After the lecture, the boys lined up outside the tent and practiced marching in formation, to the singsong of a drill sergeant, shaking their fists to shouts of "Allah."

Ahmed Yousef, a representative of Hamas' more pragmatic wing, denied the children were being indoctrinated. He said the emphasis on religion meets the demands of a conservative society.

However, Hamad al-Raqoub, a Hamas official involved in the camps, said their aim is also to forge a generation "that will lead the liberation of Palestine from the Israeli occupation regime."

At a U.N. camp, the atmosphere was more laid back.

Three boys rehearsed a skit with an anti-smoking message. Others splashed in a water tank. Crafts projects were on display. "We need to be hopeful to bring about real change," read one of the cheerful signs posted on tent walls.

Life skills are part of the program, and the day's lesson was about human rights, a topic also taught in U.N. schools. The boys quickly shouted out the answers to the instructor in their circle. The right to be healthy, said one. The right to play, added another.

One eager participant, Abdel-Hamid Ashi, said he loves going to camp, like most of the boys in his neighborhood. Most don't care which camp they attend, added the 13-year-old.

"They just want to have fun."

Hundreds of Jewish leaders and elected officials celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Vaad Harabonim of Queens at City Hall this week, saluting the Fresh Meadows-based organization of rabbis as a key player in assuring the Orthodox community has access to kosher food and a wide range of services from help with funerals to legal aid.

“The Vaad is a labor of love,” said Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld, president of the Vaad Harabonim of Queens. “The Vaad has been so much a part of growth, unity and beauty of Queens.”

The organization was founded 50 years ago by rabbis seeking to unite the growing Orthodox Jewish community in Queens. It is best known for its kashrut supervision program, as part of which officials will inspect various businesses to ensure they are kosher. Officials from the organization have worked to make funeral and burial services that meet the standards of Jewish law more accessible and affordable.

The Vaad also provides guidance to rabbis and consultation to members of the Orthodox community on such matters as divorce.

City Councilman James Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows), who led the Monday evening ceremony, said the Vaad plays a crucial role in Queens.

“Queens has become one of the greatest Orthodox Jewish communities, not just in the country, but the world,” Gennaro said.

Monday’s ceremony in City Hall’s Council chambers included performances by Michoel Pruzansky, who has performed all over the world and even for an audience of more than 20,0000 people at Madison Square Garden. Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) and Council members Karen Koslowitz (D-Forest Hills) and Mark Weprin (D-Oakland Gardens) helped to sponsor the event.

Gennaro honored Rabbi Fabian Schonfeld, the longest-serving rabbi at a single Orthodox congregation in the United States who was at the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills for 60 years, and Rabbi Yitzchok Sladowsky, who served as the executive vice president of the Vaad Harabonim of Queens for more than 30 years.

Rabbi Schonfeld has become a national Jewish leader and served as president of the Rabbinical Council of America, chairman of the Council of Young Israel Rabbis and a member of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

Under Rabbi Sladowsky’s leadership that began in the 1970s, the number of rabbis in the Vaad increased from 20 to more than 100 and the number of supervised kosher establishments increased from 12 to 100.

Both honorees said they were thrilled with the recognition and proclamations from the Council. Schonfeld heaped praise on Gennaro, saying he has worked diligently with the Jewish community and the Vaad.

Schonfeld also said he feared the relationship between Israel and the United States was not as strong as it once was.

“Those two flags behind us, the Israeli and the American, we have to do everything we can not to have them be ripped asunder,” Schonfeld said.

By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

This Friday marks one year since the passing of Michael Jackson.His legacy remains highly controversial. On one side there are ardent fans whoconsider him the central inspiration of their lives. On the other there are stridentcritics who believe he was hopelessly weird with an unhealthy interest inchildren. In the middle are those who simply love his music and miss histalent.

The truth about Michael as I knew and understood him was somethingelse entirely. Michael Jackson forever remained the broken boy who yearned fora normal childhood but was thrust reluctantly into a spotlight that slowlybecame addictive. Immersed in a celebrity culture rife with human corruption,he yearned to be innocent. Starved of affection, he spent his life looking forlove but ultimately settled for attention. Surrounded by sycophants whoindulged his every unhealthy whim, he longed to find an authentic and spiritualenvironment. And trapped in a cocoon of incarcerating fame, he craved toconsecrate his celebrity to a cause larger than himself. 

Thetragedy of his life was his failure to achieve these noble aims. Michael knewthat G-d had given him a special gift and with it the power to ‘heal the world,make it a better place.’ He understood the responsibility of celebrity and wasdevastated as his was slowly transformed into notoriety. He hated to be hatedand was crushed by the chasm between what he saw as his sincere intentions todo good verses the uncharitable public perception of him as a shallowmaterialist.

Once,in the midst of the thirty hours of recordings we did together for publication ina book that would allow Michael to speak directly to the public, he revealedhow defamatory his celebrity had become. “You get tired and it just wears you down. You can’t gosomewhere where they don’t manipulate what you do and say, that bothers me somuch, and you are nothing like the person that they write about, nothing. Toget called Whacko, that’s not nice.People think something is wrong with you because they make it up. I am nothinglike that. I am the opposite of that.”

Polite to a fault, he was a soft and gentle soul who pridedhimself on being different to other celebrities. Whereas they partied innightclubs, Michael loved being around ordinary families. Where they put, asMichael said, needles in their arms, he was a vegetarian who wouldn’t be caughtdead with a street drug. And where they, as Michael maintained, engaged in tawdryrelationships, Michael preferred the company of innocent kids.

What he could not see was that overindulging in medicationprescribed by a doctor was just as destructive as a street drug and wasmotivated by the same celebrity emptiness. He was also oblivious to his ownexcess when it came to kids. It was one thing to show kindness and friendshipto children. It was another thing entirely to invite them into your bed.

I do not for a moment believe Michael was a pedophile. Those whojudge him as such forget that the only time he was charged he was utterlyacquitted, and it is time for the public to exonerate him as well. But he gavehimself license to cross lines of basic propriety that brought him intodisrepute and soiled his message as to the purity and innocence that adultscould learn from children. For a man who spent his life trying to educate thepublic as to the wonders of childhood, this was a monumental failure, and heknew it. The suspicion cast on him by a public whose love he had spent alifetime cultivating marked the principal sorrow of his life. It would havetragic consequences when he turned increasingly to painkillers to numb theache.

A year after his death what most haunts me is the knowledge that Michael’slife could so easily have been saved. What Michael needed was not painkillersbut counseling, not the numbing of an inner woundedness through drugs but theawakening of an inner conscience through spiritual guidance. He needed a wisevoice in his ear guiding him to a mastery of his demons before they consumedhim. Any number of people could have rescued Michael from impeding oblivion.Most of all, he craved the love and validation of his father. What emerges moststrikingly in our recorded conversations – conversations that Michael knewwould be read by a wide audience, perhaps including his parents – was the hurthe felt toward his father on the one hand, and the extreme affection heharbored for him on the other. Michael had many fans, but he played primarilyto an audience of one.

But while his life is sadly irretrievable, the lessons to beculled from his life are not. Few were as eloquent in articulating the profoundlessons parents could learn from being around their children. Fewer still weremore attuned to the lifelong scarring of children who were victims of neglect.I can still hear Michael’s daily admonishments to me to look my children in theeye and tell them I loved them and to never allow a night to go by withoutreading them a bedtime story.

When first I learned of his death my immediate reaction, I amashamed to say, was anger. You silly man, I thought. How could you? You knew yourchildren, whom you adored, depended on you. You were the most devoted father. Howcould you orphan them? You Michael, to whom G-d bequeathed such unequaledtalent, just threw it away?

Twelve months later the anger is gone, replaced by a deep sadness.He was an imperfect candle. But his striving to go beyond the caricature he hadbecome and redeem his life by visiting orphanages and hospitals was illuminating.The lyrics of his songs spoke to the human yearning to mend the broken piecesof the human soul and become whole. Whether it was encouraging himself and hisfans to be the man looking in the mirror, or healing the world, he wished forhis music to inspire people to choose goodness.

A year after his untimely passing it is time to finally mourn Michaelas a man. To remember him not as an entertainer, or to miss him as aninternational icon – an objectwithout feelings or pain – but as a struggling soul who tried totransform the pain of his broken childhood into an inspirational message ofparents cherishing their children. It is time to evaluate Michael his life notin the context of an idol who had much money and fame but as a man who searchedfor a real home that was not a stage.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is theauthor of ‘The Michael Jackson Tapes: A Tragic Icon Reveals His Soul IntimateConversation,’ (Vanguard) and the just-published ‘Renewal: A Guide to theValues-Filled Life’ (BasicBooks). His website is www.shmuley.com. Follow him on Twitter@Rabbishmuley.

Once,in the midst of the thirty hours of recordings we did together for publication ina book that would allow Michael to speak directly to the public, he revealedhow defamatory his celebrity had become. “You get tired and it just wears you down. You can’t gosomewhere where they don’t manipulate what you do and say, that bothers me somuch, and you are nothing like the person that they write about, nothing. Toget called Whacko, that’s not nice.People think something is wrong with you because they make it up. I am nothinglike that. I am the opposite of that.”

Polite to a fault, he was a soft and gentle soul who pridedhimself on being different to other celebrities. Whereas they partied innightclubs, Michael loved being around ordinary families. Where they put, asMichael said, needles in their arms, he was a vegetarian who wouldn’t be caughtdead with a street drug. And where they, as Michael maintained, engaged in tawdryrelationships, Michael preferred the company of innocent kids.

What he could not see was that overindulging in medicationprescribed by a doctor was just as destructive as a street drug and wasmotivated by the same celebrity emptiness. He was also oblivious to his ownexcess when it came to kids. It was one thing to show kindness and friendshipto children. It was another thing entirely to invite them into your bed.

I do not for a moment believe Michael was a pedophile. Those whojudge him as such forget that the only time he was charged he was utterlyacquitted, and it is time for the public to exonerate him as well. But he gavehimself license to cross lines of basic propriety that brought him intodisrepute and soiled his message as to the purity and innocence that adultscould learn from children. For a man who spent his life trying to educate thepublic as to the wonders of childhood, this was a monumental failure, and heknew it. The suspicion cast on him by a public whose love he had spent alifetime cultivating marked the principal sorrow of his life. It would havetragic consequences when he turned increasingly to painkillers to numb theache.

A year after his death what most haunts me is the knowledge that Michael’slife could so easily have been saved. What Michael needed was not painkillersbut counseling, not the numbing of an inner woundedness through drugs but theawakening of an inner conscience through spiritual guidance. He needed a wisevoice in his ear guiding him to a mastery of his demons before they consumedhim. Any number of people could have rescued Michael from impeding oblivion.Most of all, he craved the love and validation of his father. What emerges moststrikingly in our recorded conversations – conversations that Michael knewwould be read by a wide audience, perhaps including his parents – was the hurthe felt toward his father on the one hand, and the extreme affection heharbored for him on the other. Michael had many fans, but he played primarilyto an audience of one.

But while his life is sadly irretrievable, the lessons to beculled from his life are not. Few were as eloquent in articulating the profoundlessons parents could learn from being around their children. Fewer still weremore attuned to the lifelong scarring of children who were victims of neglect.I can still hear Michael’s daily admonishments to me to look my children in theeye and tell them I loved them and to never allow a night to go by withoutreading them a bedtime story.

When first I learned of his death my immediate reaction, I amashamed to say, was anger. You silly man, I thought. How could you? You knew yourchildren, whom you adored, depended on you. You were the most devoted father. Howcould you orphan them? You Michael, to whom G-d bequeathed such unequaledtalent, just threw it away?

Twelve months later the anger is gone, replaced by a deep sadness.He was an imperfect candle. But his striving to go beyond the caricature he hadbecome and redeem his life by visiting orphanages and hospitals was illuminating.The lyrics of his songs spoke to the human yearning to mend the broken piecesof the human soul and become whole. Whether it was encouraging himself and hisfans to be the man looking in the mirror, or healing the world, he wished forhis music to inspire people to choose goodness.

A year after his untimely passing it is time to finally mourn Michaelas a man. To remember him not as an entertainer, or to miss him as aninternational icon – an objectwithout feelings or pain – but as a struggling soul who tried totransform the pain of his broken childhood into an inspirational message ofparents cherishing their children. It is time to evaluate Michael his life notin the context of an idol who had much money and fame but as a man who searchedfor a real home that was not a stage.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is theauthor of ‘The Michael Jackson Tapes: A Tragic Icon Reveals His Soul IntimateConversation,’ (Vanguard) and the just-published ‘Renewal: A Guide to theValues-Filled Life’ (BasicBooks). His website is www.shmuley.com. Follow him on Twitter@Rabbishmuley.

Earlier this month London’s iconic kosher restaurant, Bloom’s, a once much-loved institution of Anglo-Jewry, switched off the fryers and shut its doors once and for all, after 90 years of filling stomachs and warming hearts.

To walk through its doors, firstly at its Whitechapel branch (which closed in 1996) then from the 1960s the Golders Green eaterie, was to enter the world of the heimishe – homely, comfortable. A cultural phenomenon, you could fill a volume of Jewish jokes with gags that would begin: “So, Mr Cohen walked into Bloom’s…”

To emphasise its beginnings among the unrefined Jewish poor of London’s East End, it employed a hilarious cadre of the grumpiest waiters whose irascibility could prick any puffed-up pretensions belonging to the upwardly mobile clientele.

It was so quintessential that for non-Jewish friends it was the place to literally give them a taste of Jewish London. For example, I recall a conversation with Tony Blair in which he waxed lyrical about the gefilte fish and the salt beef – and he’s now the Middle East peace envoy.

Yet the common response to the news that it has finally closed has been a “No! really”. Eyes slightly misted with nostalgia, then: “I haven’t been there for years.” Precisely.

I recall eating a feast there with my father. Finally, as we sat slumped on the famous banquettes nursing a lemon tea, belts surreptitiously loosened underneath the table top, he suddenly declared – unfairly, in my opinion – that all we had consumed (and boy! had he devoured it) was actually “tasteless stodge”. Bloom’s, alas,  was a victim to the wandering Jewish palate.

Once there was only chicken soup, chopped liver and salt beef. But today kosher Chinese, pizza and Indian food are de rigueur, fancy-schmanzy nouvelle cuisine an option, and that’s even before you get into the Israelification – the Middle Eastern falafel, hummus and shwarma (kebab).

Meanwhile, while the cuisine was like my grandfather, of Eastern European Jewish peasant extraction, latterly the prices were fit for a Rothschild, and you weren’t paying for the decor either, which had long passed from retro to plain shabby. It hit a nadir when it was embroiled in a scandal involving accusations of passing off cheaper non-kosher meat to unsuspecting diners. The end was nigh.

Now only the jokes remain.

So, Mr Cohen leaves Bloom’s, crosses the Golders Green High Road and promptly gets hit by a bus. A crowd gathers. A kindly woman comes forward places a blanket over his prone body, lifts up his head and gently asking : ‘are you ok?’ Mr Cohen’s eyes flicker with what little life he has left and he shrugs, “Achh, you know, I make a living!”

Pity M. Bloom (kosher) & Son couldn’t – its like will never come again.

Avi Rosenblum took some of his first steps in the Oakland A’s dugout. As a youngster, he shot hoops with former NBA forward and Warriors general manger Chris Mullin. He also tossed the ball around with former A’s first-base coach Ron Washington.

The pros told Avi’s parents, Debby Graudenz and Rom Rosenblum (an audio engineer who worked on A’s and S.F. Giants broadcasts), to watch out for their son’s athletic prowess. They weren’t kidding.

“I’m fast, strong-willed, a bit of a headhunter,” 17-year-old Avi says of his playing style on the football field. “I play for the excitement of it, like when it’s fourth down, two minutes left, and I gotta score or stop someone.”

The varsity football and baseball player from Albany High School joins Rachel Baskin, Lana Buchbinder, Sarah Jacobs, Simon Jacobs, David Joseph-Goteiner, Jeremiah Kreisberg and Rachel Yarnold in the third class of student athletes to be inducted into the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame of Northern California on Sunday, June 13.

Avi will receive a special honor: the Ariel Gilbert award, presented each year to a Jewish athlete who has overcome obstacles and is thus an inspiring role model for other athletes.

“It’s cool, but hasn’t really hasn’t hit me yet,” says Avi, who plays safety, wide receiver and outside linebacker for the Albany Cougars. “I think it will hit me that night.”

While Rom nominated Avi for the award, Don Collins, commissioner of athletics for the San Francisco Unified School District, walked Avi’s family through the process. Collins, who is on the scholarship committee for the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, is not allowed to submit nominees but can facilitate the application process.

“Normally, I’m just finding the San Francisco people,” says Collins, who will meet Avi for the first time at the ceremony. “Seldom do we find someone who makes me want to go outside San Francisco and track him down. You can hear the enthusiasm and energy [in Avi’s voice]. I’m glad we found him.”

Avi, who is African American, was adopted by white parents as an infant and raised in a Jewish home (his family attends Congregation Netivot Shalom in Berkeley). He has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, in addition to language-based learning disabilities. He works diligently, receiving accommodations at school to help compensate for his distraction.

“We’re so incredibly proud of how hard he’s worked — not just on the baseball or football field,” says Debby, a child and adolescent psychotherapist. “He’s worked hard to overcome learning disabilities and the huge emotional hole in his gut around his adoption.

“It’s possible now to look at him and really imagine many options for the future. What else could a parent want for their kid?”

Upon hearing about Avi’s Hall of Fame award, Debby says, “We were speechless.”

Avi was just 12 days old when he was relinquished to an adoption agency and then a foster family in El Paso, Texas. When Debby and Rom took in Avi 17 years ago, they made local history as the first couple to transracially adopt in El Paso.

But they didn’t do it entirely on their own. Debby and Rom received guidance from Pact, An Adoption Alliance, which provides adoption services to children of color and offers continuing education to adoptive families and birth families on matters of race or adoption.

“If you’re going to adopt an African-American child, he cannot be the only African-American person in your life,” Debby says, citing one piece of advice. “I can’t teach Avi what it’s like to be a black teenage boy in society. He has [African-American] friends and role models to talk about that stuff. It’s important.”

Before Pact accepted Debby and Rom as clients, the organization trained them and conducted a series of interviews. Debby still remembers one of the first questions she was asked: How do you feel about being stared at?

Like many adopted children, Avi started asking questions about his past. Debby refers to that time in his life — between ages 5 and 7 — as “hitting a wall.”

“That wall is, ‘Where did I come from? Who do I look like?’ ” she says. “All those questions that kids start to ask. Avi had a very difficult time with that.”

At his birth mother’s request, Avi’s adoption was closed, meaning there was no exchange of information or contact of any kind between the adoptive and biological parents.

Requests for photos and information about his biological family were repeatedly denied, Debby says. So they sent letters and photos of Avi through the adoption agency. Still nothing. 

About two years ago, while the family was vacationing in Hawaii, Debby received a message on her cell phone from the El Paso Adoption Agency. Avi’s biological mother was trying to connect with him.

She had sent an e-mail to the agency with photos of Avi’s siblings and her contact information. She was living with Avi’s older brother, older sister and younger sister. The four siblings have different fathers.

“Avi was jumping from bed to bed in the hotel, so excited,” Debby recalls. “He said, ‘I knew I was a younger brother, but I never knew I was an older brother.’ Then he slid off the bed, and when he popped his head up, he asked, ‘Hey, why didn’t she keep me?’ That is what burns in him now.”

Today Avi says he understands the hardship his birth mother faced, but still grapples with the fact that he was given up for adoption instead of his younger sister. Though he’d like to find out about that one day, Avi says he doesn’t spend much time dwelling on the past. “I got a life and I like it,” he says.

Though he chose not to contact his birth mother, Avi has connected with his older half-brother through Facebook. He put Avi in touch with one of their uncles, James Battle, who has visited Avi and his family twice.

“He’s a jokester like me,” Avi says of his uncle. “He likes making fun of me a lot.”

Adds Debby, “The fact that James is a part of our lives and can fill Avi in is wonderful. They have a great relationship. It’s hysterical to watch them joke around with each other. James likes to say, ‘See this face? You’ll look like this in about 10 years.’”

LOS ANGELES — At 43, Eli Harari was at a career crossroads — some might argue, nadir.

He was freshly ousted from Waferscale Integration, the computer-memory start-up he'd founded three years earlier, after a dispute with the board over strategy and direction. "It was an unmitigated disaster. I was an also-ran," says Harari, now 65.

That's hardly the self-assessment you'd expect from a CEO who nurtured his next start-up —SanDisk— into a $3.6 billion enterprise whose storage devices are used in thousands of products from iPods to digital cameras and smartphones. Along the way, he helped redefine an entire product category — flash memory — that fomented the digital photography revolution.

On a cool June morning here, he's introduced as one of the most successful executives in the world at The IsraelConference. Harari is a featured speaker at the conference, which brings together American companies looking for sources of technological innovation and Israeli companies looking for partnerships and greater knowledge of global markets.

"Now, as always, is the best of times to start your company," Harari tells the audience. Highlighting his point, he explains what is inscribed on SanDisk's business plan. It's a quote from Jewish religious leader Hillel: "And if not now, when?"

Harari used his disappointing experience at Waferscale as entrepreneurial fuel, striking out on his own with SanDisk and creating the multibillion-dollar flash-memory industry from scratch. He has navigated recessions and reinvented the company repeatedly during his 22-year tenure. The Israeli immigrant is a prototypical Silicon Valley pioneer, combining expertise in physics, marketing moxie and persistence. What sets him apart is his unassuming nature.

"It's amazing what you can achieve if you don't mind that somebody else gets the credit," he says.

Harari is one of a handful of people in Silicon Valley still in charge of the company they founded. He declined to comment on his long-term plans at SanDisk, but he says constant change has kept him at the company since Ronald Reagan was president.

"As a physicist, I love (the concept) that the pace of change is accelerating — often exponentially," he says.

"I think I'm probably the least-stressed person here," he says. "Not because I'm a slave driver, but because I want balance in my life."

Harari has thrived in a cutthroat industry while more-famous peers pursued other goals, such as the California governorship (former eBay CEO Meg Whitman) and philanthropy (former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates); were jettisoned (Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz); or had extended hiatuses (Apple CEO Steve Jobs).

"He's low-key, a gentleman," says Randhir Thakur, a former SanDisk executive who is now at Applied Materials. "Eli is comfortable in his own skin."

Humble origins

Exhibit A of Harari's tireless persistence is SanDisk, which he helped nurse from a 2,000-square-foot office in Santa Clara, Calif., to a global operation of 3,300 employees in eight countries.

Last year, SanDisk was tops in the flash-memory-card market, with $2.8 billion in revenue, good for 37% market share, according to market researcher Gartner. Toshiba was second, with $1 billion, or 14%. (Samsung had 38% market share for the larger-flash-memory market, compared with SanDisk's 34%, according to investment bank Deutsche Bank.)

Harari's contributions to technology — he holds more than 100 U.S. and international patents in non-volatile semiconductor devices — landed him a job at Intel. But Intel's tepid interest in flash prompted Harari to start Waferscale and, three years later, SanDisk. (Waferscale was sold to semiconductor companySTMicroelectronics in 2000.)

He's also a tinkerer who has dabbled in prototypes for new fishing rods, flea collars and screwdrivers. If not for his wife, Britt, Eli says, he might have ended up pursuing the next pocket fisherman gadget instead of SanDisk.

"Ideas are a dime a dozen," Harari says, repeating a favorite line of his. "It's what you do with a great idea, to create big markets, that matters."

Harari's greatest inspiration — for the founding of SanDisk in 1988 — was hatched with Sanjay Mehrotra, a former Intel colleague of Harari's, and Jack Yuan, a Hughes Microelectronics veteran.

The trio struck upon the idea during meetings in Silicon Valley over several months. But when they came up with the notion of new flash-memory chips as a small, rugged, low-power alternative to hard disk drives, some investors balked.

Still, with early funding from venture capitalists, AT&T and Western Digital, SanDisk developed its first 4-megabyte flash chips and outbid Intel and Texas Instruments to nab IBM as its first customer. By 1995, SanDisk was working with Kodak, Polaroid and Canon to develop specifications for a succession of removable flash-card standards.

SanDisk has survived five economic downturns and steadily grabbed market share.

"We thrive on chaos," Harari says. "Mobile is the new wave, yet we started a team called emerging markets for mobile seven years ago."

Harari's conviction was underscored when he rejected rival Samsung's $5.85 billion hostile takeover bid in 2008 as too low, prompting flak from SanDisk shareholders. "He believed flash has huge potential, and he was determined to see his vision through," says Kevin Cassidy, an analyst at investment bank Thomas Weisel.

'Extended family'

Flash storage may be "disruptive technology" — as Harari likes to say — but one would be hard-pressed to find a more accommodating CEO. Possessing a warm smile, Harari is SanDisk's kindly uncle, engendering fierce loyalty. "Our motto is 'Be nice,' " the soft-spoken Harari says. "But we never, ever give up."

"The company is his extended family. He loves it, and you see it," says SanDisk general counsel Jim Brelsford, noting the company's low turnover rate, especially among engineers.

At an all-hands meeting in late April, Harari hugged and slapped the backs of employees celebrating 10-, 15- and 20-year anniversaries. "If you are doing well, Eli will hug you," Thakur says.

Such compassion showed after Brelsford's college-age niece, Christa Brelsford, was severely injured during the Haitian earthquake. (She is now recuperating.)

Harari, who was overseas on an important business trip, saw a TV report on Brelsford — whom he had never met — and wrote her a heartfelt note.

The family vibe was on further display this month at SanDisk's 11th annual international day, a food-and-music festival that celebrates the heritage of its workers, who hail from 36 countries.

Sometimes, the loyalty runs too deep. Harari shakes his head recalling a recent hospital visit to see a longtime engineer battling a brain tumor. The engineer wanted a laptop in order to do some work, which Harari quickly scotched.

"It blew me away," Harari says.

While "most guys are over the hill" at his age, as Harari jokes, he's driven by anticipating the future. Sort of like a Hall of Fame hockey player who had an uncanny ability to anticipate the flow of a game.

"We do what Wayne Gretzsky used to do: We skate to a spot before the puck gets there," he says.

In a 1999 presentation to investors, Harari accurately predicted that the market for flash memory would be as big as that for hard disk drives. "I was convinced the mobile market was the (computing) platform for the coming decade," he says now.

The prediction looks good today. Total flash sales were roughly $20 billion last year, and industry analysts are forecasting more than 30% annual growth over the next few years, says the Semiconductor Industry Association. Sales of hard disk drives, by comparison, were $30 billion in 2009 but are growing just 10% annually.

Thinking in the air

Harari, who does a fair bit of traveling to SanDisk's operations worldwide, does most of his best thinking on overseas flights. On such excursions, he's conjured new flash-memory-cell architecture and production innovations, Mehrotra says.

"He is a believer in his vision, his principles," says Harari's longtime friend, Levy Gerzberg, CEO of Zoran, a developer of chips for DVD players and cameras. "He never gives up and is not afraid to take risks," he says. "You have to, to become an industry leader."

Gerzberg, who founded Zoran in 1983, has known Harari as long as anyone: 30 years. They met when Gerzberg was doing research at Stanford in the integrated-circuit laboratory. Harari was working at Hughes at the time.

They have much in common. Both were born in Israel in 1945 and moved to the U.S. to complete their academic studies. Doting grandfathers, they frequently travel to their homeland on business, where they share laughs and reflect on "how we grew from nothing to (building multimillion-dollar) companies," Gerzberg says.

"You never know what life will deal you," he says.

The family of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and thousands of supporters began a protest march to mark the four years of his captivity.

Under the slogan "Gilad is still alive," at least 2,000 supporters on Sunday joined Shalit's family on a march from northern Israel to Jerusalem, a 120-mile walk that is expected to take about 12 days. The march, which left from the family's home in Mitzpe Hila near the Lebanese border, will make stops in sites significant to the family.

On Sunday afternoon, the march stopped at the high school Shalit attended in Kibbutz Cabri.

In Jerusalem, the family will sit in a protest tent erected across from the Prime Minister's Office. 

"We have waited four years and Gilad is still waiting — those who sent him there must bring him home," Noam Shalit, Gilad's father, said as the march set off.

Shalit was captured in a cross-border raid on June 25, 2006 and is believed being held by Hamas in Gaza. Hamas has said it is waiting for hundreds of prisoners to be released to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, as well as other Arab countries, including prisoners directly responsible for the deaths of Israelis, before it will release Shalit.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Noam Shalit before the march began and invited him to meet when the march reaches Jerusalem. 

"Friday marked the fourth anniversary of the abduction of Gilad Shalit," Netanyahu said Sunday before the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting. "The government and the security services are continuing to make constant and varied – open and secret – efforts to bring Gilad Shalit back home safe and sound."

He added "Our heart is with Gilad and with his family. Four years after his abduction, I call on the international community to line up alongside the State of Israel and our unequivocal and just demand that our abducted soldier be returned immediately."