It was Friday, early afternoon. I was returning from the Kosel after Mincha. I was very tired as I looked for a cab to drive me back to “town.” I approached a taxi and sat down in the back seat of the cab, glad to rest. I quickly allowed my mind to roam
Disclosure: The following story has been altered to protect the lives of those who are mentioned in it. Please realize that I have a policy of never replying to shidduch questions via email. This incident is the reason for my policy. I hadn't seen Laibel Stern in almost ten years. I invited him back into the study and as
A week before my trip to Israel one winter break, I got an email from a friend, Rafael Sait, asking me if I had any space in my suitcase to bring over some Romanian meat for him. A little background is required here: The Romanian butchery in Chicago on the corner of Clark and Touhy is probably the most
On June 10th, 1977, an Israeli freighter ship, the ‘Yuvali’, en route to Taiwan, sighted 66 half-starved and sickened Vietnamese refugees who were part of the thousands of “Boat People” who were desperately trying to escape the tyrannical Communist regime of Viet Nam. Captain Meir Tadmor telegraphed Haifa for permission to take them aboard, even though his ship carried only enough life rafts and jackets for his 30-member crew.
Lawrence Bernstein (name changed) was born to Holocaust survivors in the East Tremont Section of the Bronx in 1951; the family davened by Rabbi Moshe Bick Zt”l on East 169th Street. Lawrence knocked on my door on Erev Pesach minutes before I was about to sell the Chometz. Larry was obviously a not-a-regular and I had no time on such a busy day to ‘chap a schmooze’. He said he was here to “sell me his hoometz."
