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VOL. 10 NO. 11

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FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

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BY LARRY GORDON

Essence Of Chanukah 18

Rabbi Chaim Gross

24 KISLEV 5770

cahu ,arp DECEMBER 11, 2009

Oh! Nuts Goes Crazy

Bibi’s Bubble

Please, Not Him Hannah Reich Berman

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Sound Of Silence Rabbi Avi Shafran

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MindBiz Esther Mann, LMSW

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The Bostoner Rebbe, zt’l Noach Gordon 42

It’s said that lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place. But that doesn’t mean that the same people cannot be dragged out and barred from their own homes more than once, especially from two homes, in different locations, at different times. Now, just a week or so after the Israeli government’s not-too-well-thought-out freeze on construction (on land that Palestinians are demanding one day be the capital of their new country), that is exactly what is taking place.

An otherwise weak and ineffective government in Israel cannot stop Hamas in Gaza from stockpiling state-of-the-art weaponry or Hezbollah in Lebanon from arming itself with tens of thousands of missiles. But it seems the Israeli government knows how to deal with women wearing colorful headscarves and wheeling double strollers. Mr. Netanyahu is in such a rush to checkmate the bum-

It was sweet pandemonium as hundreds of children and adults packed into the grand opening of Oh! Nuts at their new larger location on Central Avenue in Cedarhurst. Featured performers at the special event were the very popular Uncle Moishy (above center) along with the Ballooner Rebbe. There was lots of good stuff to eat and a great time was had by all.

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THE HISTORY OF A GOOD COVER BY RABBI YAIR HOFFMAN Bar Mitzvah of Shalom Gelbtuch. See Page 48

Sh’or Yoshuv’s big night. See Page 67

A very talented fabric designer who worked at a top-name fabric company would receive a certain type of phone call rather regularly. The caller would ask, “You have velvet scraps, maybe?” As a perceptive person, she knew right away that the caller would invariably be a chassidishe man who wished to manufacture yarmulkes (kippot) to be worn by Jewish men in accordance with the tradition of keeping one’s head covered. What is the history of the yar-

HEARD IN THE BAGEL STORE

Simply Extraordinary

mulke? What are its halachos? And when, if ever, is one permitted to remove it? The Gemara in Kiddushin (31b) tells us that Rav Huna, the son of Rav Yehoshua, would not walk four cubits (six feet) with a bare head. He would say in response to any inquiry, “The Divine Presence is above my head!” The implication of this Gemara is that Rav Huna was unique in this regard, and that others in his time would not necessarily conduct themselves in such a fashion. This does not

BY LARRY GORDON Sometimes a column that contains a few ideas serves as a catalyst for a number of additional ideas and suggestions from readers. Such was the case last week with an article that appeared in this space about the director of a yeshiva in the Golan Heights who had served in an IDF special-forces unit that captured terrorist leader Marwan Barghouti in Shechem (Nablus) about seven years ago.

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It’s A Small World . . .

Outside Stimulation

The essence of the story was not just about this one unsung hero of Israel, but a myriad of such personalities who are now involved in any number of mundane pursuits that are so much a part of everyday life. And they are not limited only to the visitors who frequent our office in Cedarhurst to collect funds for themselves or the institutions they represent. After last week’s article

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ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT 2.0

Another Mother’s Musings BY PHYLLIS J. LUBIN

CANDLE LIGHTING Dec. 11 – 4:09 PM Dec. 18 – 4:11 PM

Photo By Judah S. Harris

Mr. Alan Veingrad at MAY. See Page 70

At the Sunday-night reception for the Bonei Olam organization at the home of Andrew and Bassie Lowinger, the director, Rabbi Shlomo Bachner (far right) presents an award of appreciation to Mr. and Mrs. Lowinger and members of the event committee.

BY SAMUEL SOKOL

It’s not as if I don’t read. I do read, but not much and not often. Of course, I read certain things on a daily basis (Yussie’s and Lea’s homework assignments, the front page of the newspaper), but in terms of reading full novels, not so much. I just don’t have the time or the patience to read a whole book “just for the fun of it.” So when my mom reminds

The website of the Five Towns Jewish Times was defaced on Saturday. The hacker, identifying himself as a Turkish Muslim going by the name “Sehul-islam,” posted a video attacking former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon as well as a picture of American and Israeli flags burning side by side. The hack was discovered Saturday night as readers attempted to visit the website.

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There was a lengthy Turkish text posted to the site’s homepage. Portions of the text that were in English seemed to indicate a religious motivation for the defacement. A pop-up window stated “Muslim turkish hacker” and “The

die for the sake of Al-Quds [Jerusalem].” This came on the heels of a self-identified Iraqi hacking into the website of Israel’s Army Radio. In 2006, a group calling itself “Team Evil” hacked over 750 Israeli websites over a period of several hours in response to IDF operations in the Gaza Strip following the kidnapping of IDF Corp. Gilad

dirt Israil and America,” while the homepage contained the phrases “Islam Was Were],” and “ALLAHU AKBARRR!” The Turkish text itself was formatted in a way that indicated a quotation from a religious work. The Internet has increasingly become a battleground in both the Arab-Israeli conflict and the war against terror. In 2008, a Muslim hacker posted an anti-Semitic message on the website of the Bank of Israel. The message read, “Listen to me Jews—you are a nation whose fate has been decreed . . . we will kick you out.” It continued, “Millions of young Muslims are ready to

Shalit. The group explained their actions by stating, “You’re killing Palestinians, we’re killing servers.” Among the sites hacked were those belonging to Bank Otzar HaChayal, Rambam Hospital, and Bank HaPoalim. Terror groups have also become increasingly Web-savvy in recent years. Groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and even the Taliban have a presence online. In October, Evan Kohlman of the NEFA Foundation discovered and publicized the Taliban’s official YouTube channel, dubbed “Istiqlal Media.” Hamas’s information section maintains a website at Qassam.ps. For a time,

Arab-Israeli Conflict 2.0 Continued from Front Cover

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December 11, 2009

5 TOWNS JEWISH TIMES

Hezbollah was offering free e-mail addresses at Hezbullah.org, until the site was shut down. The State of Israel uses the Internet for its public relations as well. The office of the IDF spokesman maintains a blog and a YouTube channel. In October, the IDF announced that it is now on the popular micro-blogging service Twitter (twitter.com/IDFSpokesperson). Twitter allows users to post short messages, each of which can be no longer than 140 characters. Twitter is an increasingly popular service, and many high-profile political organizations, such as Americans for Peace Now, Human Rights Watch, and Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, use Twitter as part of their PR efforts. In a statement, the IDF explained that it “is utilizing the opportunities afforded by ‘new media’ platforms in order to improve accessibility to our information.” In addition to its presence on Twitter, the IDF will soon establish a profile on Facebook and also will create a photo stream on the photo-sharing website Flickr. The IDF is also looking for soldiers throughout the armed services who are interested in becoming contributors to the IDF blog, writing about their day-today experiences in the army. The IDF has also begun reaching out to bloggers, with a mailing list and press releases for newmedia personalities in Israel. On Tuesday, President Shimon Peres announced the opening of his own YouTube channel at a press conference in Jerusalem held jointly with Chad Hurley, the co-founder and current CEO of YouTube. Hurley came to Israel especially for this event. Peres explained that the primary goal of his YouTube channel was to connect to citizens of Israel and the world. “I think communication is one of the greatest things we have in our life. Let’s talk, let’s dream, let’s laugh in order to make our world better and our lives more meaningful. Let’s take advantage of my channel to be informal, talk person-to-person, and communicate like old acquaintances,” Peres stated. At the end of the event, Hurley presented the president with a dedicatory plaque of the original website source code. Hurley expressed his pleasure with the way in which YouTube is “considered a vehicle for peace.” However, in 2008, U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut sent a letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt in which the senator lambasted Google for breaking its own content guidelines in allowing terrorist videos to be posted to YouTube. According to Lieberman, videos on YouTube “provide weapons training, speeches by al-Qaeda leadership, and general material intended to radicalize potential recruits.” In a related statement made at that time, Lieberman said that Google continues to allow the posting of videos by organizations the State Department has designated as foreign terrorist organizations. Cyberwar is an emerging discipline in military circles. As with terrorism, cyberwar blurs the distinction between soldiers and noncombatants. In 2007, hackers took down a large part of “the essential electronic infrastructure of the Republic of Estonia” as Jaak Aaviksoo, Estonian minister of

defense told Wired magazine. According to Wired, Aaviksoo stated that “all major commercial banks, telcos, media outlets, and name servers— the phone books of the Internet—felt the impact, and this affected the majority of the Estonian population.

world collaborated against Iran in launching distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on the propaganda arms of Iran’s government. According to Der Spiegel, Israeli agents planted a Trojan Horse on the computer of a Syrian official visiting London in

Terror groups have also become increasingly Web-savvy in recent years. Groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and even the Taliban have a presence online.

This was the first time that a botnet threatened the national security of an entire nation.” Such attacks do not necessarily originate from military sources. During the unrest following the 2009 contested elections in Iran, hackers from around the

2006, which gave Israel intelligence necessary for its 2007 bombing of an alleged nuclear site. It is hard to evaluate how well Israel’s intelligence community uses the Internet. However, the same problems that plague Israel’s traditional

media relations also dog its Internet campaign. Different ministries and departments each formulate material for public consumption separately, and there are frequently contradictions between statements by different bureaus. David Appletree, founder of the Jewish Internet Defense Force, believes that “the mainstream Jewish community is behind the times when it comes to dealing with these threats or using social media effectively.” When asked for comment on how Jewish organizations have responded to increasing levels of hate online, Appletree told the Five Towns Jewish Times that mainstream organizations “claim to be doing things and they throw it in their many requests for more donations, but I don’t see them active on this front . . . We have consistently offered to help and consult various organizations with their social media presences and have asked them to join us in our fight, but it seems they don’t wish to get involved with things that are outside their scope.” ❖

5 TOWNS JEWISH TIMES

December 11, 2009

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