Volume 7 Number 75
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Amaratzut
[Josh Rapps]
Emergency in Baltimore
[Andy Goldfinger]
England........Help me!!!!!!
[Ofayr Efrati]
Greek wisdom
[Anthony Fiorino]
House for Rent - Edison NJ
[Alan Irom]
Jewish Calendar Program
[Warren Burstein]
Pepsi
[Shlomo H. Pick]
REMEMBER THE PICNIC?
[Bob Kosovsky]
Women Saying Kaddish
[Michelle K. Gross]
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From: <jr@...> (Josh Rapps)
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 93 01:11:01 -0400
Subject: Re: Amaratzut
>> In a recent issue of m.j. josh rapps uses the term amaratzut. As far as
>> I know, this term comes from yiddish (with the hebrew origin, am-ha-aretz)
>> and as such would normally be pronounced amoratzes, with the stress on
>> the penultimate syllable. Has this perchance been taken into spoken
>> Hebrew?
Who said hebrew isn't a living language? It's amaratzus to think otherwise ;-)
josh rapps
<jr@...>
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From: Andy Goldfinger <andy_goldfinger@...>
Date: 8 Jun 1993 12:28:28 U
Subject: Emergency in Baltimore
I would like news readers to be aware of an emergency situation that has
arisen in Baltimore.
There are two Orthodox day schools for boys here. One of them is a
relatively small institution. The other one, The Talmudic Academy
(Yeshivas Chafetz Chaim), is quite large and provides education for over
650 boys. It has had a policy of never turning away students because of
financial need or other problems. It is a vital institution for the
Orthodox Jewish Community.
Due to what appears to be mismanagement of the schools finances, this
school is now bankrupt. The school has defaulted on its mortgage for
the last 14 months, and is facing foreclosure. The mortgage is in
excess of 1.2 million dollars. In addition, somewhere between 3 and 5
million dollars is owed to ordinary members of the community, some of
whom took out second mortgages on their houses or dipped into their
retirement savings to support the school, not realizing how shaky the
school's finances were. The situation is so poor that most shool board
members are themselves confused as to just how much the school is in
debt, but it is at least in the 4 to 7 million dollar range (if not
more). No rebbis or teachers have been payed since April. The school
has fired 12 rebbis, and is desparately trying to find a way of paying
those that remain.
The mood in the community is one of anger, depression and desparation.
Parents have been meeting regularly to try to assess the situation, to
try to find out how things could have gone so bad so rapidly, and to
determine what can be done to save the school. Surprisingly, and to the
great credit of the community, there has been a minimal (although
non-zero) amount of lashon hara, and people are truly more interested in
figuring out what to do in the future, rather than assigning blame for
the past. But -- people are extremely angry, tense and fearful. There
are families who will be loosing scholarship aid. (For example, the
school will almost certainly be forced into a policy of granting no
scholarship aid to students from out of town, and in all likelihood will
not be able to grant scholarhips aid to any families) There are Orthodox
people who are facing the fact that they may have to send their sons to
public schools. It is not at all clear that the school can survive.
Even if it does survive, it will clearly not be the same school it was
before the crisis became known.
No one really knows what to do. The local Jewish federation has entered
into discussions with the school about guaranteeing some new bank loans,
but such guarantees would not cover any more than the existing mortgage,
and the federation (called "the Associated") has made it known that it
will not provide any cash or grants beyond the loan guarantee.
Literally millions of dollars must be raised to save the school.
If (chas v'shalom) the school does not survive, it will be a major blow
to the Baltimore community, and there would definitely be Orthodox
children who would be deprived of Jewish education.
If anyone has any ideas of sources of help, such as large donors,
institutions, or what have you, or can help in any way, even to a small
extent, please contact me either via email
(<Andy_Goldfinger@...>) or (preferably) via ordinary
mail. My address is
Andrew Goldfinger
3906 Glen Ave.
Baltimore, MD 21215
The name of the school is either "The Talmudic Academy" or "Yeshivas Chofetz
Chaim."
In addition to financial help, we need help in terms of tefillos and
tehillim. Perhaps everyone on the mailing list could have kavannah
during at least one session of learning or during the performance of
some other mitzvah, that the zchus of the act should help Yeshivah
Chafetz Chaim.
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From: <ofayr@...> (Ofayr Efrati)
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 93 00:36:04 EDT
Subject: England........Help me!!!!!!
I'd be very interested in obtaining any information about Kosher
restaurants/shuls/contact persons in England. I am going to study there
for a month and a half in July. Of special interest to me are
restaurants/shuls/contacts outside of London; especially Birmingham,
Manchester, and Sunderland.
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From: Anthony Fiorino <fiorino@...>
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 93 16:51:17 -0400
Subject: Greek wisdom
> What about the "Greek Wisdom", then. I suggest (and I think I saw it
> some- where) that the reference here is to sophistry, a method of
> argumentation that supposedly allowed you to win whether you were right
> or wrong (it's described like that in one of Aristophene's plays). If
> that is correct it would explain why Rabbi Yishmael wasn't too keen on
> having people study it.
But the gemara itself tells us that in order for someone to be eligible to
sit on the Sanhedrin, they had to be able to argue in 50 different ways
that a sheretz is tahor, or something like that. Is this not a case of
winning an argument, 50 different ways in fact, while being wrong?
Eitan Fiorino
<fiorino@...>
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From: <irom@...> (Alan Irom)
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 93 10:05:24 IDT
Subject: House for Rent - Edison NJ
We are renting our house in Edison NJ for the coming year, starting towards
the end of July. It's a 3 bedroom house with a den and a large backyard,
within walking distance of the local Yeshivah.
Anyone interested, please contact me directly via e-mail or call in Israel
9-453585.
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From: <warren@...> (Warren Burstein)
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 93 21:34:19 -0400
Subject: Re: Jewish Calendar Program
>Regarding the request/response in #55 about calendar programs, there is a
>version of JCAL (it's up to at least v7.5) available for PC's. This is a
>nice compiled Turbo Pascal program, written and distributed as shareware by
>Lester Penner of Great Neck, NY (Compuserve 75236,1572). The most recent
>version I've seen also has .exe calls which will return a converted date
>(Gregorian to Jewish or v.v.). It will also calculate sunset based on
>lattitude, longitude and date (useful for us travellers), parshiot, etc.
>Overall, a very nice program and documentation.
Why, oh why, doesn't someone write something like this and distribute
the sources? I would not deny that someone has the right to make a
living, but I also think that it would be truly a good thing for
someone to PUBLISH THE ALGORITHMS so that people who don't have a PC
or a MAC or whatever machine the latest nifty calendar program is for,
or who want something slightly different, could also benefit from the
information. That's what I did with my omer program.
Yes, I know we have sunrise/set programs on nysernet. But they give
the astronomical times, not the halachic times. And I don't know how
to convert them. Nor how accurate they are.
|warren@ But the cabbie
/ nysernet.org is paranoid.
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From: Shlomo H. Pick <F12013@...>
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 93 03:33:11 -0400
Subject: Pepsi
shalom
concerning the rabbanute and pepsi - in last week's hazofe - the
mizrachi daily - on thursday, there was an announcement by R.
Landmann from Holon who gives the Rabbanute hechsher for pepsi, that
he too was removing it from pepsi for approx. the same reasons as the
bedatz. so if he is not giving also, than who is?
shabbat shalom
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From: Bob Kosovsky <kos@...>
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 93 22:49:55 -0400
Subject: REMEMBER THE PICNIC?
REMINDER FOR THE BIENNIAL MAIL-JEWISH PICNIC:
DATE: Sunday, June 27 (Raindate: Sunday, July 11)
TIME: 3 PM
PLACE: Donaldson Park in Highland Park, NJ (specifics will soon be mailed to
those on the special "picnic list")
FOOD: vaday! [certainly!] -- special vegetarian menu on request
BUT! -- you have to let me know in order to plan appropriately
COST: about $8-10 per adult
Yes! Plans for the biennial Mail-Jewish picnic are well underway!
Spouses, children and friends are cordially welcome. (I have the feeling
that significant portions of the staff of A&T and Bell Labs will be
present.)
So please let me know! Email me and be included in this exciting event!
Bob Kosovsky
Graduate Center -- Ph.D. Program in Music(student)/ City University of New York
New York Public Library -- Music Division
bitnet: <kos@...> internet: kos@cunyvms1.gc.cuny.edu
Disclaimer: My opinions do not necessarily represent those of my institutions.
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From: <mgross@...> (Michelle K. Gross)
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 18:26:23 PDT
Subject: Women Saying Kaddish
Please allow me update what was written in a submission (7:21) on women
and Orthodoxy with regard to women saying kaddish.
I'm female, follow Ashkenazi minhagim, and daaven in Chabad, Modern
Orthodox, and Yeshivish minyanim. I have had no problem saying kaddish.
I either phone ahead or when I'm at shul I let the gabbi know that I
have an obligation to say kaddish. I ask if anyone usually says it. If
no one there is saying it, the gabbi, rabbi, or person to whom I have
made the request will find for me someone who is permitted to say it,
and that person then does recite it so that I may either answer "amen"
or say it quietly. Of course, at my regular minyan, there is no need
for this special request, as the men there already know my status (and
that of the other men and women who say kaddish), so can plan
accordingly if female but not male mourners are present. The procedure
of asking applies when I travel or if I catch a minyan in another part
of town.
I haven't not found it to be the case that women's saying kaddish is
very rare. One has only to daaven on the women's side of the mechitsa
to see women quietly saying kaddish. I have found only acceptance and
encouragement for this practice. I have found that there is a
difference of opinion as to whether any circumstances can obligate a
woman to say kaddish, but I don't intend to debate this here; I just
wanted to let you know that my experience is quite the opposite of that
mentioned in the previous mail.jewish (7:21).
Michelle Gross
<mgross@...>
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End of Volume 7 Issue 75
