Communicated: TefillaChillul Tefila Bifarhesia, as well as halachicly challenged verbiage and dress, are external manifestations of a critical lack of personal yiras shomayim which has lethal consequences.
It was not easy and it took a long time but recently the Hashmonaim community was finally able to celebrate the dedication of a new ambulance with the latest life-saving features. The ambulance was donated to the community by Sarah and Rabbi Nachum Muschel of Monsey, New York in memory of their son, Dr. Joseph N. Muschel (ob”m) and by the Memorial Foundation established in his name.
More than 350 people turned out for the dedication of the ambulance. The dedication was held in the square surrounded by the three central synagogues of the community, the Sephardic Shul, the Yemenite Shul and the Askenazi Shul. Rabbi and Mrs. Muschel recognized quite a few faces as many of the Monsey community who were enjoying their
vacation in Israel came to the dedication.
Avi and Justin Muschel, two young cousins of Joseph (ob”m), began the ceremony by reading a chapter of Tehillim. Rabbi Itamar Auerbach, the Hashmonaim community rabbi, gave a short Dvar Torah praising the family. Mrs. Sara Muschel related several stories about her son and read a portion of his diary. He had written about how he coped with the question of medical practice on Shabbat and how he loved the people and the land of Israel. Mrs. Muschel
spoke of how fitting it was that an ambulance was being dedicated in his name because he loved to help people and he loved medicine.
Rabbi Muschel thanked the many residents and friends who gathered to honor his son’s memory. He praised the Hashmonaim community that preserved Jewish tradition and he expressed his pleasure at being able to provide an ambulance to the community. He also praised two Hashmonaim residents, Ella Hyman and Chana Spiegelman, who had worked so
hard to influence the family to donate the ambulance to Hashmonaim.
Avi Zohar, the general manager of Magen David Adom (MDA), honored us with his presence. He thanked the family for their gift and he thanked the MDA volunteers of Hashmonaim for their devotion to saving lives.
Two of Joseph’s friends, Meir Becker and Naftali Hammer, spoke poignantly of his friendship with them and told of some of the exploits that they had enjoyed together.
The chairman of the local council, Shimshon Mehudar, presented the family members with
certificates of appreciation for their donation.
At the end of the ceremony, after everyone had returned from the formal presentation of the
ambulance to the community, the MDA volunteers presented one of their own, Yitzchak Hartman, with a special award for his many years of dedication as the coordinator of the MDA volunteers in Hashmonaim. In his short thank you reply, Yitzchak shared with us parts of “The Prayer of every MDA volunteer.” They pray that the emergency call will come before or after a shower and not during the shower. They pray that a call on Friday night will come at least after the soup and they pray that when they rush a pregnant woman to the hospital, they will arrive with one patient rather than with two.
The Hashmonaim community is very grateful to the Memorial Fund and to the Muschel family for their generous donation. (Comments may be sent to dov@gilor.com.)
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France 2 and Enderlin must have their press accreditation revoked and be thrown out of Israel.

Slaughter is a routine, widespread practice among many Moslem families.

parently an affront to J Street’s worldview, the focus of which appears to be the creation of a Palestinian State, whether or not that will bring peace.

The importance of the caucus on organ harvesting in China, sponsored recently by the Liberal Lobby in the Knesset, cannot be exaggerated.
My mother, the eldest daughter of Reb Yaakov Kamenetsky, zt”l, was niftar last month at the age of 92. She took her last breath in her home in Efrat, Israel, next door to the shul that was my father’s for 24 years before his passing in 2007.
It comes down to his being famous.
Following the Boston Marathon bombing, one crucial point will likely remain overlooked. The most loathsome aspect of this or any other terror bombing attack on civilians will always lie in the inexpressibility of physical pain. While all decent people will abhor the idea of bombs expressly directed at the innocent, whether here or in other countries, none will ever be able to process the very deepest horrors of what has been inflicted.
It’s only natural to see increasing evidence of Jerusalem’s glorious Jewish past being unearthed, quite literally, under modern Israeli sovereignty. The new archaeological finds are also very timely – as the Arab onslaught attempting to detach Jerusalem from its Jewish roots gains steam, the facts on the ground, or “under” the ground, show quite otherwise.
The Talmud (Berachot 26b) says, “tefillot avot tiknum” – “prayer was established by the avot.” The Talmud then uses the following verse (Bereshit 19:27) to prove how Avraham established prayer: “Vayaskem Avraham baboker el hamakom asher amad sham et pnei Hashem” – “And Avraham got up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before God.”
Nearly 13 years ago, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak journeyed to Camp David to end the conflict with the Palestinians. With the approval of President Clinton, he offered Yasir Arafat an independent Palestinian state in almost all of the West Bank, Gaza and in part of Jerusalem. Arafat said no.
The news that the Internal Revenue Service unfairly targeted conservative groups has brought renewed spotlight on a 2010 lawsuit filed by the pro-Israel group Z Street, which alleges it was also singled out by the IRS when applying for tax-exempt status.
In an editorial last week (“Circling the Wagons”) we noted the efforts by the administration and its supporters to dismiss allegations that the government’s spin on the Benghazi attack was designed to shield the president and that the IRS was improperly used to stifle opposition to Mr. Obama’s reelection.
As the controversies besetting the Obama administration continue to grow in number and intensity, the prospect that President Obama would seriously consider military action against Iran, should that country continue its drive to become a nuclear power, becomes more and more remote. So we welcome the current enhancement of sanctions against Iran on the federal and New York State levels.
To his parents’ friends, he was “Mrs. Greenberg’s disgrace,” but to sports fans he is one of the greatest – if not the greatest – Jewish baseball players of all time. Long before Sandy Koufax, Hank Greenberg excited Jewish sports fans with his prowess on the baseball diamond.

The title above is a lovely thought. Unfortunately, there are too many times when Israeli Orthodox Jews behave in very divisive ways. I have mentioned, on occasion, that it would most probably bring the Mashiach if Orthodox Jews in Israel were ever to unite. We are so divided politically that Sephardi Jews will not support Ashkenazi Jews and Ultra-Orthodox Jews will not work with the Modern Orthodox or with the Zionist Orthodox.

Israel recently commemorated Memorial Day in memory of its fallen heroes. Sadness permeates the day as we remember the sons, daughters and parents who have sacrificed their lives so that the Jewish Nation can continue to exist.
The title of this article is the supposed motto of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago, but for Americans living in Israel it means, literally, vote twice. Both Israel and America are holding important elections and, hopefully, most Orthodox Jews will be voting. The United States will be holding its regular four-year elections for president and many other offices, and Israel will be voting for an entire “new” Parliament (Knesset).
We left Reno, Nevada, early Sunday morning and decided to take the scenic route to Salt Lake City, rather than travel by super highway, but Route 50 turned out to be not very scenic as we crossed Nevada and Utah. We stopped at a roadside table at noon, where the men heated and ate LaBriute meals while the women enjoyed their cottage cheese, peanut butter sandwiches, fruit and vegetables. We have followed this pattern of meals ever since the women decided not to eat the packaged meals.
San Francisco is a lovely city and we enjoyed its many tourist venues. The famous Lombard Street, known as “The Crookedest Street in the World,” was beautiful, with its floral decorations. We shopped at Pier 39, and we bought matching San Francisco jackets. We really needed them since it was cold in San Francisco. Barbara added to her magnet collection, which contains magnets from dozens of countries around the world that we have toured. She’d never been in a store that sold thousands of magnets and she just loved looking at all the magnets on the walls.
On Sunday morning, after breakfast at the Elite Café, we loaded the van, filled the gas tank and travelled the famous Route #1 from Los Angeles toward San Francisco, along the Pacific Ocean coast. It was the 4th of July weekend and the narrow route was crowded with miles of RV’s, campers and fellow travelers. Traffic was a bit slow along the way.
While in Las Vegas, my wife, Barbara, fed several quarters into a machine that really cleaned us out. She then fed more quarters into another machine that dried all of our clothes.
We left Santa Fe on our way to visit the Painted Forest and the Petrified Forest in Arizona. Part of our day was spent traveling on the historic Route 66 and we stopped at the state visitor’s center as we entered Arizona. At each state visitor’s center, we stopped to gather information about interesting sites and to request coupon booklets with reduced entry coupons.
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