Reuters reported on Friday that the Rafah smuggling tunnels, pummeled by the IAF over 8 days, in an area described as resembling a moonscape, are already being rebuilt.

“As you can see there is complete destruction, the tunnels are all destroyed because of the missiles. We will rebuild them and bring in food, flour lentils and sugar and building material such as cement and metal so that the people can break the siege on Gaza,” Mohamad Omar told Reuters on Friday while his friends were busy clearing up their camp.

A Rafah tunnel that has been bombarded by the IAF will be re-dug this week.

The Rafah border crossing with Egypt, like the crossings to Israel remained closed to traffic most of the day Friday.

Local workmen said the IAF attacks destroyed more than two-thirds of the cross-border tunnels which are used to bring in cement, fuel, food, and the rockets and mortar shells used against Israeli civilian enclaves only a few miles away.

“We are trying to fix the tunnel in order to return to our normal life which we need the tunnel for work. It costs a lot but what can we do, we have to fix it. For example this tunnel of ours which has been hit it will cost no less that 40 thousand dollars to fix,” Mohamad Aladwan said.

According to Reuters, none of the tunnel workers interviewed said they had handled military materiel, and all of them said they were dedicated to bringing through only harmless consumer goods and medical supplies.

Igud Horabbonim At
Maimonides Medical Center

Rabbi Yaakov Spivak

The monthly Rosh Chodesh Conference of the Rabbinical Alliance of America (Igud Horabbonim) was held at the Eighth Avenue cancer healing headquarters of Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn on Thursday, November 15.

The conference, billed as a “Cancer Awareness Symposium,” was addressed by the preeminent ontologists of MMC. In addition, Rabbi Yaakov Spivak, Rav and Rosh Kollel Ashyl Avraham of Monsey, New York, discussed halachas pertaining to hurricanes and times of danger.

MMC’s Recent Achievements

In 2007, The New York Times reported that an analysis of nearly 5,000 hospitals by the Department of Health and Human Services ranked Maimonides Medical Center among hospitals with the lowest mortality rates.

In 2010 Maimonides received the HealthGrades Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence, ranking it among the top five percent of hospitals in the nation for overall quality outcomes.

Maimonides is also listed among the top five hospitals in New York State for cardiology services, coronary interventional procedures, stroke treatment, and gastrointestinal medical services.

Maimonides has been widely credited for its Cancer Center; its Infants & Children’s Hospital, which handles more births than any other hospital in the state of New York; its ACE unit, which focuses on elderly patients, their families, and their home environments; its Jaffe Stroke Center, which earned the HealthGrades Stroke Care Excellence Award for 2008, 2009 and 2010; and its Cardiac Institute, which was presented with the HealthGrades Cardiac Care Excellence Award in 2009 and 2010 and the HealthGrades Coronary Intervention Excellence Award in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Cancer Awareness Symposium

Dr. Jay Cooper

Addressing the Igud’s member rabbis at the conference were Dr. Jay S. Cooper, MD, Cancer Center director and chairman of radiation oncology; Dr. Alan. B. Astrow, MD, hematology and medical oncology director; D. Loren J. Harris, thoracic surgery chief; and Dr. Patrick Borgen, MD, Brooklyn Breast Cancer Program director. Respectively, they discussed: “Why is a Cancer Center Important?”; “Principles of Doctor-Patient Communication in Cancer Treatment”; High Risk Lung Cancer Screening”; and the “Role of Technology in Curing Breast Cancer.”

Dr. Patrick Borgen

The session was organized by Douglas Jablon, MMC’s tireless vice president of patient relations and volunteer services, and coordinated by Dina Alabanese, MMC’s talented administrative manager/event planner. As Igud director, this writer served as chairman.

Advances in Cancer Detection and Treatment

The doctors reviewed and described major advances in cancer detection. Maimonides possesses one of only three 360-degree mammography image machines, which capture images from every degree, as opposed to others that capture images of only one or two positions. (Interestingly, Israeli scientists developed the first truly computerized no-radiation diagnostic instrument for breast cancer.) Even the tiniest irregularities are quickly identified and appropriate treatment effectively applied.

The concept of screening target populations was discussed. Those who would most benefit from lung cancer detection have a history of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for thirty years or two packs a day for fifteen. Those regularly exposed to secondary smoke are also candidates. Regular checks and early detection would identify irregularities and allow for optimum treatment.

Susceptibility of Eastern European Jews

Dr. Alan Astrow

The susceptibility Eastern European (Ashkenazi) Jews to Tay-Sachs disease was established in the late 1800s. The Dor Yeshorim organization organized genetic testing for Ashkenazi Jews and the disease has been practically eliminated among the target population.

The higher rate of breast cancer among Eastern European Jews and their descendants is of major concern to the medical community. Testing is available to detect mutation of the BRCR 1 and BRCR 2 genes, which may cause breast cancer.

As with lung cancer, early detection and treatment saves lives and neutralizes health challenges. Those who should be carefully monitored are daughters, 40 years of age and older, of a mother who had ovarian or breast cancer. Maimonides, with its advanced mammography screening and imaging, does a tremendous job serving those in the community who need monitoring.

Stigmas and Shidduchim

Dr. Loren Harris

Marriageable girls outnumber marriageable boys in the frum community, a situation that leaves thousands of girls without potential matches. Many parents worry that a family history of cancer or other diseases will result in their daughters being stigmatized, thus diminishing their shidduch potential. Maimonides Cancer Center provides heightened doctor-patient communication with complete confidentiality.

Halachas of Hurricanes and Dangerous Times

On June 27, Honest Reporting revealed The Independent‘s use of the following photo to illustrate a particularly critical story on the Israeli treatment of Palestinian child detainees.

HR noted that the photo above represented an example that featured in their Shattered Lens study on photo bias, in this case “the use of bars to portray Palestinians as “prisoners” of Israeli occupation and brutality.”

HR wrote:

“[The photo from 2010 was] one example of how wire agency photographers resort to using camera angles and staging techniques to present a distorted picture of a given situation. In the example above, it is clear that the photographer used this technique to project an image of Gazan children imprisoned. However, the sequence of photos taken from the same scene at the time illustrates how the effect was achieved.”

“What we see above is a tiny group of Palestinian children arriving at what appears to be a pre-planned photo-op outside the Gaza industrial area presumably organized by Hamas. The photographer either willingly colludes with Hamas or is used.Next, the children have been positioned behind a gate to give the effect of a prison.”

“However, using a great deal of skill to get the right position with the right lens from the right angle, the photographer manages to create an impression of many more than the several children in the actual shot.”

This photo fraud came to mind when reading a more recent Indy report, ‘The new Israeli apartheid: poll reveals widespread Jewish support for policy of discrimination against Arab minority‘, by Catrina Stewart regarding the poll about alleged Israeli ‘apartheid’ written by Gideon Levy at Haaretz.

Stewart’s story on the widely discredited story by Levy – which elicited a retraction from Haaretz – was not the most egregious example of misleading coverage of the poll, though it did, nonetheless, convey the false impression that Israelis support ‘apartheid-like’ policies against Arabs.  The Indy report also severely downplayed results which demonstrated that a large majority of Israelis don’t, in fact, support denying the vote to Palestinians.

However, the photo they used to illustrate the story indicates that the Indy learned nothing from their previous use of misleading imagery.

(The photo has no caption.)

Palestinian children are seemingly behind bars yet again, superbly illustrating the Indy’s desired narrative of oppressed Arabs.

However, upon doing a bit of research, it turns out that the photo was taken in Gaza, and the children are looking at the body of a Palestinian terrorist (killed after IDF forces retaliated against rocket attacks near Beit Lahiya) through the window of a hospital morgue on Oct. 22.

Here’s the photo and caption at Yahoo.

While the image selected by Indy editors has little, if anything, to do with the story it purports to illustrate, the broader truth is that the Palestinian children appearing in the photo are indeed prisoners – held captive to a life of backwardness, religious extremism, violence and racism by the very Palestinians they’re seen peering at.

Now, there’s a narrative you’d likely never see advanced in the Indy or Guardian.

Visit Cifwatch.com.

More than 80 rockets and mortars were fired at civilian targets from the Gaza Strip on Tuesday night and throughout Wednesday morning. Two foreign workers were critically wounded by a direct rocket hit, while working in chicken coops on a farm in the Eshkol region, which was badly hit. They were evacuated to Soroka Medical Center in Beer Sheva, along with a third worker who was lightly wounded. In addition, a woman suffered minor injuries as she stumbled while running for shelter during a siren. Hamas and the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Daniel Hagbi / Sderot / Tazpit News Agency

In Eshkol, located in the northwestern part of the Negev, 30 rockets struck the region, hitting homes and damaging properties. One of the rockets hit a central electricity exchange box, cutting off several of the towns.

Ronit Minaker, the spokesperson for the Eshkol region, told Tazpit News Agency, that the normal routine of area residents was severely disrupted today. “Schools have been cancelled—children are home and parents have stayed home with them, missing work because of the rocket attacks,” she said.

“Five homes have been hit in the south, and there were children at home in some of them at the time. Families whose homes have been hit are now staying by their neighbors,” Minaker added.

IDF / Tazpit News Agency

Following this latest escalation, the military has canceled school sessions in many parts of the Negev. The students will learn online, and the teachers are making a special effort to identify students who are suffering from anxiety so that they receive the proper trauma care. Nachala, a student at Sapir College near Sderot, told Tazpit News Agency that she arrived for her morning classes, but was sent home. “I heard rocket explosions all night long. This morning, when I got to Sapir, we were told to go home because of the rocket threat. For me it wasn’t too bad, because I live nearby, but many of the students traveled from far to get to college classes, and they had to go back home.”

Daniel Hagbi / Sderot / Tazpit News Agency

The IDF Home Front Command has instructed area residents who live within the radius of 10 kilometers of the Gaza border to take shelter and stay indoors.

The IDF Air Force attacked terrorist targets four times throughout Tuesday night. An IDF spokesman stated that a one of the cells was hit right after it fired a rocket. In another incident, the Air Force was successful in preemptively eliminating a strike. Palestinian sources reported several dead and wounded terrorists, one of them a member of Hamas’s Iz A-Din El-Kassam battalion. This is irregular, as Hamas has lately avoided partaking in rocket attacks against Israel.

This latest intensification follows a severe border attack on Tuesday, during which Givati Company Commander, Captain Ziv Shilo, was critically wounded by an IED bomb placed on the border fence, losing his arm. He is currently hospitalized in the intensive care unit at Beer Sheva hospital, fighting for his life. Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Ehud Barak both stated that Israel would respond with severity to this attack.

Meanwhile, he “Iron Dome” anti-rocket system successfully intercepted seven rockets fired towards Ashkelon, a city of more than 120,000 residents.

Daniel Hagbi / Sderot / Tazpit News Agency

Jewish History Comes Alive:
The 5773/2012 Munkatcher Sukkah

There are many magnificent sukkahs throughout the world and Boro Park has a large number of them. Most renowned are those of Munkatch and Bobov.

The Munkatcher Sukkah, on 14th Avenue between 47th and 48th Streets serves not only as a Yom Tov citadel of chassidic rapture, but as a portal to the world’s great synagogues of the past, many of which are still in daily use.

Munkatcher Rebbe dancing with Eli Isaac Vegh.

Over the past ten years, a total of 150 enlarged professional photographs have adorned the Munkatcher Sukkah and simultaneously served as major contributions to the knowledge and appreciation of Jewish history, all taking place in midst of a brimming chassidishe setting.

To enhance the Munkatcher Sukkah this year, the Rebbe, along with world-renowned synagogue photographer Joel Berkowitz, and Cantor Eli Isaac (Robert) Vegh, selected 12 exquisite 20×30 portrait photographs that date as far back as the third century CE.

The Munkatcher Sukkah will present a visual display of the following important shuls:

Ancient Shul at Kfar Bar’am, Galilee, Israel

● The Ancient Synagogue at Kfar Bar’am, Galil, Israel, constructed in the third century CE. Its elaborate structure is built of big and beautiful basalt stones. It was built in the third century CE during the Mishnaic and Talmudic period in which the Jews flourished in the Galilee. The facade of the shul, which remains almost complete, is magnificent. It has three doorways and the middle one is especially large and beautiful. These gates, which face Jerusalem, are decorated with beautiful stone carvings.

● Azik Shul, Tangier, Morocco, built in 1820.

● Beis Pinchas Shul, Isle of Djerba, one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world;

● Endigen, Switzerland, built in 1764 and rebuilt in 1854.

● The Main Synagogue of Ensonia, Italy, built in 1882.

● Etz Chaim, Larissa, Greece, built in 1800. The shul alone remains of seven that existed before the Holocaust and currently serves the community’s 350 Jews. During the German occupation, many Jews fled to nearby mountains from where they fought as partisans. The rest were deported to Auschwitz.

Synagogue Florenza, Florence, Italy

● Synagogue Florenza, built in 1874, in Florence, Italy.

● Great Synagogue, Basil, Switzerland, built in 1850 by a then Jewish population of more than 15,000.

● Ezer Shul, Isle of Djerba, built in 1500.

● The Kaddish Shul, Divinsky, Lita, built in 1873.

● Karash Shul, Bursa, Turkey, built in1645.

Inside and Outside the Florence Shul

One of the highlights this year is an interior and exterior photo of the shul in Florence, Italy, considered by many to be one of the most beautiful in the world. The Munkatcher Rebbe was especially interested in the shul, completed in 1882. Considered a masterpiece of design and detail, it is one of the very few great European synagogues that survived the Nazis.

Great Synagogue, Basil, Switzerland

During World War II, the shul was used as Nazi headquarters and command post in Italy. Hitler ordered the synagogue to wired with explosives when the Nazis had to evacuate. He stood on a nearby bridge because he wished to witness the destruction of the shul. Through Heavenly design, relay switches failed and he furiously ordered the demolition crew to go back and correct the wiring defect, but was told that Allied troops had already taken up positions and that returning to the synagogue was impossible.

The shul today continues to serve the Jewish community with services three times every day.

The Exhibition’s Beginnings

Eli Isaac (Robert) Vegh of Lawrence is well known in the world of chazzanus. In addition to being a real estate financier, he is the chazzan for the Yamim Noraim at the Avenue N Jewish Center in Flatbush.

Eli has developed an exceptionably warm relationship with the Munkatcher Rebbe and shares his vacation experiences and shul photographs with him. The Rebbe, who has always had an intense interest in older shuls, asks a myriad of pointed questions, with a focus on whether the shuls continue to maintain traditional Torah practices and values and what their communities are like today.

For many of us, there can never be too many flowers around, so here are some “bright” ideas to add to your Sukkah decoration repertoire

Supplies

Clear light bulb Small needle nose pliers Screwdriver Long screw Fishing line type thread (available at sewing/craft store) Cloth gloves and goggles for hand and eye protection

Directions

Diagram A

Using your pliers, carefully remove the metal piece from the bottom of the bulb. (Diagram A)

Diagram B

After the piece is removed there will be a hole in center. Begin breaking away the black glass insulator by inserting a screw in the hole and prying out. (Diagram B)

Diagram C

With the bottom of the bulb removed, begin removing the innards of the bulb carefully with the pliers and screwdriver. (Diagrams C and D). Caution: Though this task is not at all complicated, caution should be used as the glass is (obviously) fragile.

Diagram D

Measure how low you want vase to hang down, double the thread and cut accordingly.

Diagram E

Wrap the thread around the neck of the bulb and tie a double knot. (In order to insure the vase hangs straight, it is a good idea to take another string and tie it the opposite way. Then, take the strings from both sides and tie them together to form a “handle.” (Diagram E).)

Hanging options:

Hang from s’chach

Screw hooks into the wall and hang the vases from them – great as a filler in between decorations.

If cleaning out light bulbs is just not your thing, here’s a similar idea without the adventure.

Supplies

Clear plastic balls (available in craft stores in various sizes) Silk Flowers Fishing line type thread (available at sewing/craft store)

Directions

Remove silk flowers from stem and place in one side of the ball, close ball.

Thread the fishing line through the hole on top of the ball