Ezer Mizion Offering Professionalism, Warmth and Compassion
About four years ago, at the age of 33, Miri Horwich-Fried completed her doctorate work on diabetes. Seeking a new direction, she heard about a lab researching cancer immunology, which had opened at Bar-Ilan University and was looking for researchers. This subject always interested her. Her father had died from the illness.
She got the job and felt that it was an area where she could make a breakthrough. She worked feverishly, trying to empathize with families who were facing death.
Three years after starting her research, she began to experience sharp stomach pains. When she went for tests, the doctors thought the pain was connected to the fact that she was postpartum. All the tests came out normal.
Finally, they decided to send her for an ultra-sound, where they discovered a lump in her liver, which they blamed on a problem with her veins and told her to return for a check-up in six months.
Tel Aviv was founded on April 11, 1909. Several dozen families gathered on the beach outside of the city of Yaffa to allocate plots of land for a new neighborhood they called Ahuzat Bayit (Homestead), later it became known as Tel Aviv (Hill of Spring). In Hebrew, Tel does not simply mean hill, but a man made hill covering the remains of an ancient settlement or a hill in an archeological excavation. And the word aviv means spring. Therefore, the name Tel Aviv stands for a link between old and new; antiquity rejuvenated. This is the concept on which the city of Tel Aviv was founded.
The words I remember uttering with a sarcastic laugh, when Rabbi Harold Sutton approached me two years ago, after he received a phone-call requesting a pulpit rabbi in Indianapolis are: There are Sephardim in Indianapolis?
The TEACH-NYS coalition (Educational Alliance for Children in New York State), representing New Yorks non-public school community, recently organized a leadership mission to Albany that met with 45 state legislators, including Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos. Thirty-five leaders of yeshivahs and of national and regional organizations participated.
Representatives from yeshivah day schools across New Jersey recently united behind the issue of state funding for non-public schools. The meeting was the first of its kind, organized by the newly formed Community Federation of New Jersey, in partnership with the Orthodox Union and its Institute for Public Affairs (IPA).
Acts of hesed are inspiring. When performed as a group, the results are truly impressive. Recently, the students in Magen David Yeshivah Celia Esses High School (MDY) spent several afternoons performing different acts of hesed in conjunction with several organizations in our community. Each hesed day proved to be an uplifting experience that promoted unity while instilling awareness in the students about the needs of the community.
It is no small accomplishment to have built a community so large, so successful, and so grounded in hesed. At the forefront of that accomplishment are the countless helping hands and innumerable good deeds performed by Sephardic Bikur Holim (SBH), the community institution that has helped thousands to give and receive. Everyone had a reason to run, said a community member of the recent Disney marathon weekend, but SBH provided us all with a reason to care.
Congregation Shaare Shaloms annual Purim party was a smashing success due to the hard work many members of the congregation put into planning it. The Purim party has become a much anticipated event for the Shaare Shalom community.
Chabad of Kings Highway recently held their annual Purim party, which was attended by hundreds of people. To keep the kids happy, there was a juggling show, face painting and a Chinese paper artist. For the adults, there was lot of delicious food.
Magen David Yeshivah celebrated Purim with a festive and joyous hagigah (festival) in the elementary school building. Children and adults of all ages dressed up, danced and rejoiced with their favorite teachers and principals.
The Sephardic community is preparing to join the largest gathering of Jews since the destruction of the Second Temple. There are four months until the Twelfth Siyum Hashas of Daf Yomi (celebration of the completion of the daily Talmud), but whos counting?
Rio has an ethnic mix that includes Brazils second-largest Jewish community (after Sao Paulo). An estimated 30,000 of Rios six million residents are Jewish, with roots as varied as you might imagine: there are descendants of the first Iberian refugees of the Portuguese and Spanish Inquisition, who arrived before the countrys independence, as well as Sephardic and Ashkenazi families from successive waves of immigration.
This year, Jews will celebrate the first two nights of Passover on the 6th and 7th of April with a joyous family eventthe Seder. We relive the experience of our ancestors as they were exiled and enslaved in Egypt, then liberated by G-d over 3,300 years ago. We recount the miracles of the Exodus, and pray that the future redemption comes very soon.