The Kinneret Swim for Sadna

Last year, I acted as support staff for the most amazing sports project ever - A WOMEN'S SWIM in the KINNERET to benefit a program in Rosh Tzurim called SADNAT SHILUV. It's a program that helps special needs young people to help and be part of a real community. It helps give them independence and support at the same time.

If you are a swimmer, you should join the fabulous women who are swimming in the Kinneret for the benefit of Sadnat Shiluv.

You will have the experience of a lifetime. (I guarantee it.)

Here's more info:

Swim 4 Sadnat Shiluv Women’s Swim-a-thon Crossing the Kinneret. - is a fundraising event on behalf of Sadnat Shiluv, located in the community of Rosh Tzurim in Gush Etzion, Israel. Sadnat Shiluv encourages maximal integration of special needs individuals (kindergarten through young adulthood) into the community. Thanks to the proceeds of Swim4Sadna 2010, Sadnat Shiluv is providing a safe and secure place for 6 additional young adults to live, study work and lead an independent life in Rosh Tzurim. Integration increases these young adults’ feelings of belonging and encourages them to become active, productive members of their community.
The Swim-a-thon will take place on Wednesday, May 25th. There will be two routes: 3.5k starting at Haon Beach and 1.5k starting at Maagan Beach. Both routes will finish at Tzemach Beach, where there will be a closing ceremony. During the event, the beaches will only be open to women. Men are invited to celebrate with us at the closing ceremony. You are the best judge of your abilities, but we strongly encourage you to training for the event. In order to have optimal swimming conditions, swimmers will start the route at 6:00 am. This is not a race but all swimmers must start at the same time and must stay within the parameters set by the water patrol and life guards.
Registration to Swim4Sadna 2011 open until May 22nd
Shvoong http://minisites.shvoong.co.il/sadna/about.asp
This is a fundraising event for Sadnat Shiluv. The registration fee will cover the cost of participation, which includes insurance, all permits, access to beaches and their facilities (starting and ending points), police, life guards, medics and ambulance, life rafts, life boats and various other misc. costs. It does not include accommodations and transportation to and from the event. All donations go directly to Sadnat Shiluv. Additionally, we ask that you make a commitment to raise a minimum of NIS 2,000 on behalf of Sadnat Shiluv for the purchase of a third new hostel to house our boys.If you have friends who might be interested in participating, please forward this email to them or send us their contact information.
Included with your swim-a-thon registration is a Women’s Day of Fitness and Health at Chof Tzemach on Tuesday, May 24th. There will be booths, workshops, activities, a musical performance, access to the water park and sleep over at the beach. Guests can join us for NIS 50.
Looking forward to your participation and meeting you at the Kinneret.
Vivienne Glaser & the Organizers of Swim4Sadnat 2011

The Walking School Bus

Today was the first day of the Aseh Chayil Walking School Bus. Thanks to a genius idea by Nutritionist and Efrat Resident Tamar Schreiger children from the Zayit and Dekel can join the "walking" school bus every Wednesday morning and take a fun healthy shpatzir to school.
This morning 100 children walked along with Efrat's Mayor Oded Revivi, sport teacher Sinai Atik, Tamar Schreiger and the volunteer parents who "drove" along the kids.
Tamar told me that she got the idea for the walk to school from the Torah's command, 'ushmartem es nafshoseichem' (and you should guard your soul). We learn from here that a person has to take care of him body, as well. "And one of the ways to do that is to exercise and eat right. Exercise strengthens the muscles and bones. And it's much easier to exercise when it's built into your schedule. That's why the morning walk to school is such a perfect idea."

Children who walk to school reinforce a healthier attitude in their friends as well as their families. They socialize as they stroll, and they set a good example for neighbors who see them beginning their day with a nice walk.
"We also had a lot of fun, because the kids were with their friends, and they were calling out to other friends all along the way. One boy that was passing in a car with his mother, even jumped out to join us," Tamar said.
The kids enjoyed the walk, as did the adults. Aseh Chayil parent Avi Abelow said that this Walking School Bus will change Efrat's attitude toward health and exercise for the better.

Tamar reminded anyone who'd like to participate next week that they must bring generous amounts of water along, because it's hot out there.
A solution also has to be found for the notoriously heavy backpacks that small children in Israel often carry.
Tamar said that next Wednesday morning, children will begin their walk at the Zayit grocery store at 7:15 AM, wait for the Heftziba children to join them, and then continue along Zait Shemen.
Tamar noted that the children were very disciplined this morning, and never crossed unless a parent crossed with them.
Children are urged to arrive on time. I popped up to the Zayit at 7:18 AM and found a group of girls and another group of boys waiting for some adults to escort them to school. Little did we know that they had "missed the bus" by about three minutes.
Kids and parents will have to be more careful next week, and the Walking School Bus will be even more successful, IY"H.
Here's to a healthy mind and a healthy body for all our children.

Join the children on the Walking School Bus for their first trip. Click on this video: http://www.voices-magazine.com/index.php?page=inside_page&id=188

From Holocaust Survivor to Nation Builder

About six weeks ago, while returning from a trip to Ashkelon, my husband and I happened upon Kibbutz Negba, one of the original Choma and Migdal (Tower and Stockade) kibbutzim of the 30s. http://voices-magazine.blogspot.com/2011/02/kibbutz-negba-by-chance.html
Negba was the southernmost choma u'migdal kibbutz at the time. Tower and Stockade kibbutzim were put up in the middle of the night in the Pre-State of the 1930s by young idealistic Jews who were trying to hold on to the Land of Israel before the British could partition it.
We walked around Negba, saw the sites and talked to some of the residents. We had such an interesting visit, we decided to return with our family.
And we did just that.
History from the Holocaust to Pre-State Israel
Just last week, we came to Kibbutz Negba for a tour with Meir Mindel, head of the Negba Heritage Center, and then we wandered around on our own. While walking through the Founders Garden (at left), we noticed that all the kibbutz members were riding bicycles. They had their children in boxes on the back of the bikes. They had them on their own backs.
We even saw a great-grandmother biking around. We walked over to speak with her. Eighty-one year old Rachel Mermelstein was a survivor of the Holocaust.
Born in Hungary 81 years ago, Rachel came to Kibbutz Negba in 1947, a year before Israel Independence.
Rachel Mermelstein's entire family, including her parents, grandparents and four brothers had perished in Auschwitz. She is still emotional when she thinks of her parents, HY"D. Rachel joined a group of teenagers, all Hungarian orphans who aimed to leave for Eretz Yisrael, then under the British Mandate.
They arrived on the shores of Eretz Yisrael and made it so near to the Tel Aviv beach, they could see the city. But the British caught them, and sent all the passengers to a refugee camp on Cyprus for nine months. After their release to British Mandate Palestine, the 35 Hungarian youngsters were sent to Kibbutz Negba. A group of Polish Shomer HaTza'ir youth were already living and working there.
The Hungarian youth knew nothing about kibbutzim. They had not done hachshara to learn about agriculture and prepare for life on a kibbutz, but as Rachel said, they had nothing – no home, no family, no possessions – and they were happy and grateful for the opportunity to begin a new life and have a home of their own once again.
Rachel said that the young people were excited about the prospects of building the kibbutz, and their idealism made their arrival so positive. Said Rachel, as she balanced on her large three-wheeled bike, "We didn't know then that the Arabs would give us trouble our whole lives."
War!
Rachel started out her kibbutz life by learning Hebrew and working in the fruit orchards, the Children's House as well as the kitchen. Suddenly the security situation on the kibbutz worsened, Rachel said. "The Arabs attacked us on convoys, buses, etc. And then the war broke out."
Rachel was put in charge of an emda (lookout post). She was given a rifle and binoculars and was charged with watching out for the enemy forces. She 17 years old and frightened, but "you do what you have to do."
A very demonstrative and personable woman, Rachel said, "My children (she has four) asked me why I stayed here. The answer is simple. Ein li eretz acheret (I have no other country) and you do what you have to do to protect your land."
Of the 35 young people who came to Israel with her, there others (also responsible for the lookout posts) were killed – a girl and two boys.
Negba's 150 young people fought with heroism in the face of an onslaught by the Egyptian Army's 1000 soldiers. They were reinforced and during the second attack, they had 200 young people to face 2000 Egyptians. B"H, although the kibbutz was destroyed, the Negba youth had prevailed.
After the war, Rachel and the other youngsters married and began to raise families. They lived a fulfilling life on the kibbutz.
Now 70 years later, the kibbutz is not so kibbutz-y, but some of the original pioneers of Negba can still be found riding around the tree-lined paths. Most are in their 90s, but their lives are still active.
Rachel has two of her four children and several of her grandchildren living on Negba. After 64 years, she is still content to live under the giant ficus trees and the old water tower of Kibbutz Negba.
Meet Rachel Mermelstein in this clip: http://www.voices-magazine.com/index.php?page=inside_page&id=186

Osama Obama Obama Osama Um, Forget It

Yesterday while I was watching the foxnews.com coverage of the elmination of the World's #1 Terrorist Osama Bin Laden, I did a double take. Former marine and current military analyst, Lt. Col. Oliver North said that Obama had been killed. Then he sputtered, "Um, I mean Osama."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Jqagwb7Iw .
Then later in the evening, a Democratic Political Analyst made the same mistake, Obama instead of Osama.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGy0zLaIBqE
Oy vey.
I told my kids, "I bet dozens of news people have made that same mistake today." Of course, it's an interesting faux-pas. And they did. Even the most "respected" of them.
Actually yesterday in my blog, when I wrote that Obama killed Osama, it made me pause for a moment. Hmm. Read it here: http://voices-magazine.blogspot.com/2011/05/bin-landen-of-all-people-of-all-days.html .
This morning when I went on my community email list, someone mentioned that in the news Osama Bin Laden's name is being spelled in some places as "Usama". He wondered if that was so there wouldn't be confusion between Obama and Osama. Well, could be.
But it's kind of chinsy to now change Osama's name to USAMA so that no one hurt's Obama's feelings.
Whatever. Let's see if history will write that Usama Bin Laden was killed or Osama? Interesting stuff.

Stolpersteine - Giving Back the Names of the Holocaust

Europe. The Shoah. One of the first thing Nazis did when they rounded up their Jewish victims was to dehumanize them by replacing their names with numbers.
Now Germany, as well as other countries whose Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, are giving back to the Jewish people, as well as other victims of the Holocaust, their names.
Stolpersteine, or Stumbling Stones, are being installed on streets and avenues throughout Europe as a personal memorial to individual Holocaust victims.
The 10 sq-cm brass stolpersteine plaques were created by German Artist Gunter Demnig.
Each plaque bears the name, date of birth and details of the victim's deportation and extermination. Passers-by that stumble over the plaques take a moment to recall the person mentioned on each tablet. Each stolpersteine is installed on the street on which the person lived before the war. More than 20,000 stolpersteine can be seen across Europe in Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Italy, the Netherlands.
(If you have loved ones from one of the countries listed above who perished in the Holocaust, you can apply for stolpersteine in their memory by contacting http://www.stolpersteine.com .)
"This is my life's work. I will continue for as long as I'm able," Gunter Demnig told the media. "Giving names back to the dead is a way of keeping them alive."
Memorializing Her Grandparents
Today May 2, 28 Nissan, Israel commemorates Yom Hashoah Ve-Hagevurah, Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day. (The date, usually 27 Nissan, has been delayed by a day to begin memorial events on Sunday night instead of Motzei Shabbat.)
As sirens sounded nationwide, each person remembered his loved ones and the six million Jewish victims of Nazi extermination in his own way.
Efrat resident Mirjam Orbach, a life coach practicing in Jerusalem and Gush Etzion, is a second generation Holocaust survivor. Her parents each spent their younger years running from country to country to avoid the Nazis until they ended up in displaced persons camps at the end of the war. They were met and were married in Berne, Switzerland in 1945, traveled to Holland (where Mirjam was born), then Uruguay, Brazil and finally Israel.
Mirjam's grandparents, Moshe and Marie Horowitz, did not survive.
They had been residents of the medieval German town Magdeburg since the beginning of the 20th Century. Her grandfather, HY”D was deported from Magdeburg to Poland in 1938, and then perished in 1942 in the Tarnow Ghetto. Her grandmother, HY”D, fled to Belgium in 1940, but was deported in 1942 to Riga, and then killed in 1944 in Stutthof Concentration Camp.
Recently the town remembered the Horowitzes with two special stolpersteine memorial stones in their names.
Mirjam and her two sisters were invited by the Magdeburg Municipality to return to the city for a ceremony in their grandparents' memory. The stones, installed near the address where they had lived, gave the details of their lives, deportations and deaths at the hands of the Nazis.
Marie Horowitz was one of ten siblings. She was the only sibling who did not survive the Holocaust.
Family Ties
When Mirjam and her sisters were invited to Germany, they were also asked to prepare biographies of their grandparents. In order to do this, Mirjam had to interview Horowitz family members all over Israel, which reconnected her with relations she had never known.
"The Horowitzes are an enormous family, dispersed in the 17th century all over Poland," Mirjam said. "The entire experience was very moving, including doing all the research of the family here in Israel."
While delving into her family’s past, Mirjam made a startling discovery. Necha Horowitz, o’h, one of her great-grandmothers died in 1925 in Magdeburg. The sisters became determined to visit the grave of their great-grandmother.
Since Germans are so detail oriented, the exact location of their great-grandmother's grave was recorded and given to the family. So, while Mirjam and her sisters, Saba Gita Cozer and Noomi Mundsztuk, were in Magdeburg they went to the Jewish cemetery in search of their ancestor's grave. But the cemetery was in a deplorable state, Mirjam said. Many of the tombstones were lying on the ground, and there were no markers to help find the specific location.
After wandering through the old cemetery for quite a long time, Mirjam and her sisters almost gave up looking for the grave, when suddenly she noticed a "Hei", "Vav" and then a "Resh" on a moss-covered tombstone. "It could have been Horn," Mirjam said excitedly, "but it could also have been Horowitz. And with my hand, I tried to clean off the green stuff covering it, and I saw it – Necha Horowitz."
Mirjam and her sisters were stunned. They surrounded the resting place of their great-grandmother and said tehillim. "I imagine that since the 1930s, nobody visited that kever and no one said tehillim there," Mirjam said.
The three sisters found tremendous consolation at their great-grandmother’s kever. Strengthened, they continued on to the stolpersteine memorial ceremony for Necha's son and daughter-in-law, Moshe and Marie Horowitz, HY”D.
More than 50 members of the Magdeburg community attended the memorial, along with the head of the city's Department of Cultural Affairs and other officials.
Curious passers-by stopped to watch the ceremony. Some even noted that they had come across stolpersteine in other locations.
Moshe and Marie Horowitz were survived by their three children, all of whom survived the Holocaust. Today, bli ayin hara, their descendants number 48 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.
Watch Mirjam Orbach’s recollections on Voices TV, click here - http://www.voices-magazine.com/index.php?page=inside_page&id=183&id=183.

Psalm 102 - The Holocaust and the Redemption

Last night was Yom HaShoa, an evening when we remember those Jews who were lost to us in the Holocaust when hatred for the Jewish people led to the extermination of Six Million of our people – family, friends, children, adults.
My next door neighbor Batya Yaniger and I made a siyum (a celebration of the completion of a Torah book) on Sefer Tehillim (psalms).

Perhaps it was a strange time to make a siyum, but in addition to the Psalms that we discussed last night, we also discussed Psalm 102, which an American journalist David Dolan suggested foretold the Holocaust and the Final Redemption.

My son Mati and I studied the perek (chapter) together to see if that might indeed be true.

Here are some excerpts of Perek 102:
The Singer calls it "Tefilla l'ani" – a prayer of the afflicted man.
"O' L-rd, hear my prayer and let my cry come before You…For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned like a hearth."
With these words, we remember our brethren who in the face of death still called out with faith and prayer to Hashem, despite the round-the-clock evil annihilation in the Nazi crematoria.
"My heart is smitten like grass, and withered; for I have forgotten to eat my bread." Me'am Lo'ez offers an alternative explanation, "For lack of bread, I have already forgotten how bread is eaten. Because of much affliction, I forget to eat."
We are reminded how the Jews in the ghettos and concentration camps were starved for real food, how they picked through garbage and thanked Hashem for a stale piece of crust or a rotten potato.
"From the sound of my sighing, my bones cleave to my flesh." Who can forget the pictures of our brethren who died or lived as starved-tortured-skeletons?
"My enemies vilify me all day; those who are in a frenzy against me swear (or curse) by me."
Me'am Lo'ez says "All day long my enemies would revile and taunt me, until maddened to a frenzy against me." We bitterly recall the taunts of the Nazis against our people, "Schweinehund," (dog). We were dirty Jews, less than human.
David Dolan said that they took the name Jew itself and made it into a curse. Every Jew had to wear a yellow Magen David with the word Jude (Jew) inside. There could be nothing lower or more contemptible in their eyes.
"For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mixed my drink with tears."
If we cannot understand what this means, Dolan suggested that we should try to remember the movie "Schindler's List". Ashes of cremated bodies wafted from the camp chimneys and then rained on the camp when the winds dragged them down. "Thus," he says, "inmates were sometimes forced to breathe in, and even taste, the sooty remains of their fellow Jews."
These images are so heart-wrenching, but B"H, Psalm 102 then consoles us and gives us hope for the future.
Hashem - "You will arise, and have compassion upon Zion, for it is time to favor her with grace, for the appointed time has come. For Your servants take delight in her stones, and cherish her dust."
We are living in that time. Hashem has brought us back to Zion, He has made miracles for us, He has blessed us in countless ways. And we, His servants, especially those of us who live in Yehuda and Shomron (who once lived in Gaza), and all our supporters take delight in the stones of Eretz Yisrael and cherish its dust. We kiss the ground beneath us – whether rock or earth or sand – and we thank Hashem for the opportunity to fulfill the dreams of those who perished in the Holocaust and all those who came before us, who prayed that one day truly the "L-rd will build up Zion and appear in His glory."
The psalm assures us that we will see this. It will be a time when "the nations are gathered together and the kingdoms, to serve Hashem."
And "the children of Your servants will dwell securely, and their seed with be established before You."

To view the talk on Psalm 102: http://www.voices-magazine.com/index.php?page=inside_page&id=185

Bin Laden - Of All People, Of All Days

As we ushered in Yom HaShoa (Holocaust Remembrance Day), United States President Barack Hussein Obama proudly announced, "The United States has conducted an operation that has killed Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, a terrorist who is responsible for murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children....Justice has been done."
Al Jazeera called it, "the largest manhunt in history ".
How ironic that Barack Obama, the US President that became closer than any other to Muslim dictators, is the one who ordered the final attack on Bin Laden.
Last year, I wrote a blog, "Divine Retribution or G-d's Sense of Humor," http://voices-magazine.blogspot.com/2010/03/divine-retribution-of-g-ds-sense-of.html. Well, perhaps there is no greater example of this than in Obama killing Osama, and announcing it, of all days, on Holocaust Memorial Day.
Islamic Terrorism and the Holocaust
Bin Laden's death brought to my mind the death of Adolph Hitler, yimach shmo on April 30, 1945 - 17 Iyar 5707 - only two weeks from now on the Hebrew calendar. America is in possession of Bin Laden's body, but Hitler made sure to have himself cremated, so that he shouldn't be hung out to dry and humiliated like Haman or Mussolini.
President Obama told the world that memories of the [Islamic - although Obama makes sure never to say Islamic] terror of 9/11 and the murder of 3,000 citizens in the World Trade Towers are "seared in our national memory." He said that Americans still suffer from "the empty seat at the dinner table, children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father, parents who would never know the feeling of their child's embrace."
His words made me envision those Holocaust survivors (many of whom spoke to audiences around the world last night) who lost their loved ones to Nazi terror - children without parents, parents without children, families scarred forever.
That G-d chose Obama to bring the end of Osama surely has more significance than we can know now. America's ten year manhunt for Osama was meant to bring justice to America and fight terror.
He made sure to tell Moslems around the world, "The United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader. He was a mass-murderer." How ironic (but what a terrifying idea) it would be if Obama himself, who is trying to convince everyone of Islam's peaceful nature, has just activated, chas v'shalom, a new more intensified wave of Islamic terror, and thereby forces America into a real war against Islam. Fuw, I have chills from the thought. Sounds a bit like the End of Days scenario without the Twilight Zone soundtrack.

More Bin Laden/US Ironies
President Obama said that "Today's achievement is a tribute to the greatness of our country..."
How ironic that the USA was forced to kill the Frankenstein that America itself had created.
Bin Laden raised funds for the Afghan war against the Russians, and was supported by America's Central Intelligence Agency. He was backed by the US until he began opposing America's involvement in Arab countries during George Bush I's first Gulf War.
Al Jazeera stated, "He declared war against the very United States which had spent billions of dollars bankrolling the Afghan resistance in which he had fought."
Although Americans are dancing in the street today and excitedly screaming, "USA, USA," (as if they just won the global superbowl), the killing of Bin Laden is not a game and America's troubles are not over. In fact, they may just have begun. Senator John McCain said, "While we take heart in the news that Osama bin Laden is dead, we must be mindful that al-Qaeda and its terrorist allies are still lethal and determined enemies, and we must remain vigilant to defeat them.” Yes, there are Al Qaeda operatives in just about every country across the globe, and they have proven very capable of turning the hearts and minds of Islams and non-Islams alike to their ideology.
Al Jazeera warned that America still remains vulnerable to radical Isalm, "as death could make him [Bin Laden] an even more powerful motivator for his supporters."
President Obama ended his talk with "G-d bless America."
I will end my words with "G-d bless Am Yisrael and all its friends in the Free World."


FYI: The New York Times obituary of Bin Laden is thrilling. It reads like a spy novel: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/02osama-bin-laden-obituary.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/asia/03intel.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=igw&pagewanted=print