Published Articles

Original Article Published on The Jerusalem Post

Jordan Farmar is carefully moving around the court, shooting three pointers and free throws. This is despite a groin injury, which has kept him out of the New Jersey Nets lineup for four straight games. It was only a week ago that Farmar’s three-point last-minute score led the Nets to victory. Towards the end of a practice session at the New Jersey Nets training facility in East Rutherford, New Jersey, the bearded 1.88 m, 82 kg guard sat down with the Jerusalem Post to discuss basketball and life in America and Israel.

The 25-year-old Farmar grew up in Los Angeles, California. His father is African-American and Christian. His step-father, who raised him and is a huge influence on Farmar, is Israeli and Jewish. Farmar studied at UCLA and was the 26th pick in the first round of the 2006 NBA draft. He played with the Los Angeles Lakers from 2006-2010, has played with the New Jersey Nets since 2010 to the present and played for Maccabi Tel Aviv for four months, during the recent NBA strike. His teams have won the NBA championship twice and he was selected as Euroleague Player of the Week in November, 2011. Farmar wears number 2 and averages 10.6 points per game.

You are very close to Omri Casspi. Did you get to hang out with him when the Cleveland Cavaliers were in town recently? How is he doing?

I saw him last Monday night. He is in a tough spot.The NBA is a big business. He’s gotta keep working. It goes up and down if you are not a super star player. I know he had an injury recently and is trying to get back in form.

How did you guys first meet?

For a while, I was the only Jewish player in the NBA. Then he got drafted and joined me! He is the first Israeli-born player. He came to town to play us – we connected around Israel and being Jewish.

What is your best move? How would you describe your style?

Up tempo. Get people involved. Score when need to. Be able to run a team. I like to get out and run, set a screen, make a pass. I appreciate a good game of basketball and people who understand the game.

What is the main difference between basketball in the NBA/US and Israel?

There are superstar players in the US like Lebron, Kobe, Dwight, Howard. You don’t see guys like that overseas. They are incredible. In Israel, the little things are appreciated — the pass and the assist are appreciated as much as the actual stats. And it seems to be about winning – guys want to win. Here, the business of basketball can sometimes get in the way.

What was it like playing for Maccabi Tel Aviv during the strike? You were a Euroleague player of the Week in November, 2011! Was your role different on your Israel team?

I played for four months “I played a lot ” maybe 30 games. In Israel, my team would go as far as I could take them. Here I back up Deron Williams, probably the best point guard in the world!

How were you received in Israel?

Everybody embraced me. I was very welcomed, and wanted and appreciated for having made the decision to play. I felt like I was at home it was a whole family atmosphere wherever I went.

How is your Hebrew?

It is not my strong point! I can definitely understand conversations, I can understand what is going on and I can get my get point across, but I don’t speak well.

What is your relationship with Israel?

My stepfather is from Tel Aviv and we have a lot of family in Israel in the Shabazi neighborhood of Tel Aviv. My daughter, my fiance and I spent a lot of time with family during our four months in Israel.

Tell us about the basketball camp for Israeli Jewish and Palestinian children you were involved with:

I got involved through my agent, who is Jewish. It started with the Seeds of Peace. They bring kids from different conflict areas Egypt, Jordan, all over. They all come to a summer camp in Maine. They live together, sleep together, eat together. I spent a day there during my first year. Then I worked with them in Israel in 2008. It is through the Peres Peace Center. They have eight camps all over the country. At the beginning of the program, kids argue. Then, with sport as the medium, they forget about everything they were taught (about the others). They are “just kids” they work together to accomplish a goal. And they high five each other.

Any plans to do it again?

(Smiling). I got pretty busy winning an NBA championship, free agency, having a baby….

It sounds like your Israeli step dad was a pretty important influence on you.

My dad was always around, but my step dad was with me every day. My step dad raised me. We are close. He worked six days a week. He instilled good values in me. He is the only person I know who can wake up without an alarm at the time he planned to wake up. He is disciplined and responsible. Aman! A great father figure. He was in the army in Israel.

Does your step dad get to watch you play?

He is a huge Lakers fan. He loves to watch me play. It was great to be part of that team. When he came to the States, he loved Magic (Johnson), (Nick) Van Exel, Eddie Jones, Kobe, and Shaq.

Were you connected to the LA Jewish and Israeli community?

Growing up in LA was great! I love LA! We were a Jewish household. We had visitors from Israel and family coming in and out. I went to Hebrew school, had a bar mitzvah….

What is your favorite Israeli food?

Malawah.


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Flat Stanley is the beloved “flat” character from the 1964 children’s book of the same title, written by Jeff Brown and illustrated by Tomi Ungerer.  Every teacher and parent of young children know the story of Stanley Lambchop, who gets “flattened” in his sleep when a big bulletin board falls on him.  He survives and discovers the advantages of being “flat.”  For one, he can visit friends by being mailed in envelopes.

On a recent trip to Florida, I saw a man on the beach, dressed in a white button down shirt and khaki pants—with a camera in one hand and Flat Stanley in the other!  He had obviously promised his young son or daughter a photograph of Stanley at the Atlantic Ocean.  And on a trip to Israel, a day care director in our tour group must have snapped 100 pictures of Stan—from Zichron Yaakov to The Sea of Galilee.

It seems other “Stanleys” have also visited the Holy Land. A tour guide in Israel writes of the day a Flat Stanley arrived in the mail from Los Angeles.  He had recently guided the family on a bat mitzvah tour.  Now, the younger sister was writing with a special request—to take Stanley with him on his tours of Israel.   “At first I did not understand what I was supposed to do with this weird thing. It could easily be thought of as a joke, but after reading the “manual” I became quite enthusiastic… We fed him traditional Israeli salad, put him in a Succah we built in Kiryat Yovel neighborhood in Jerusalem.”  Flat Stanley was even photographed with Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat!

Apparently, Flat Stanley had had similar adventures all around the world.  The Flat Stanley Project encompasses more than 6000 schools registered in 88 countries.

All of the Flat Stanley hype, coupled with a TV commercial a few years back for Travelocity–with a talking gnome-gave Rachel Kirschbaum, a Jewish Day school teacher in New York City, an idea—Chayim Yerushalayim!!  According to Kirschbaum, the chair of the Tanach department at the prestigious Ramaz School in Manhattan, “Chayim Yerushalayim” has followed her from teaching positions in several New York area Jewish day schools.  “He started with SAR 2nd graders, continued with Heschel 5th graders and after a brief hiatus, took up travel again with 8th graders (or their parents) at Ramaz.”  Kirschbaum currently teaches 6,7 and 8th grades at Ramaz.

Chayim has been to Jerusalem many times. He has been to the Dead Sea and, Kirschbaum reports, “His skin should be soft and supple by now”—thanks to all of the Dead Sea mud smeared all over his body.   He has been to the Tayelet in Tel Aviv, to Caesaria, and to  Masada.  “The kids love it.  They think it is the cutest thing.  I usually do it with younger students but even the 8th  graders were ecstatic to see the pictures and so excited…it works every time!”

Next time you are in Israel, keep your eyes open for Flat Stanley or Chayim Yerushalayim. Both are great travelers and can be useful in teaching all ages about Israel! [full disclosure: Chayim recently accompanied me and I group I led on a trip to Israel!  See photo below]

(Source: http://blogs.timesofisrael.com)

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“What’s the frummest book you sell here?” the customer asks Adam, the gregarious bookseller.  “Do you sell Judaism for Dummies?  asks a man, not appreciating the irony–he was asking hovering over books, just under the sign indicating he was in the “Scholarly Works” section.  Welcome to YU Seforim Sale, currently in full swing on the campus of Yeshiva University in Upper Manhattan.

The Seforim Sale, which takes place from February 5-26, 2012, is, according to their website (http://www.theseforimsale.com/) “the largest Jewish book sale in North America…The sale provides discounted prices on the widest selection of rabbinic and academic literature, cookbooks, children’s books, music and lecture CDs and much more.”

Minutes after havdalah, we caught the M101 bus on Third Avenue for the 45 minute ride to “the sale.”  As first timers, we had no idea what to expect.  Perhaps yeshiva bochers searching through piles of Gemarahs and Tanachs?  Could it possibly be true that last year, the book sale drew more than 15,000 people from the tri-state area, featured more than 15,000 books, and grossed more than $1 million in sales?

We were amazed with what we experienced.  Armies of helpful Stern College women and YU men were already in their places—on the floor and at the cash registers—as the doors of Belfer Hall opened at 8 pm.  Colorful maps were distributed to help the crowd navigate the carefully organized room—in addition to sections of gemarahs, midrashim, mishnayos, rishonim and achronim, were sections for history/Holocaust, novel/biographies, English mussar/machshava, haggadahs, Israel, cookbooks and more.

I expected to find only books reflecting a certain perspective.  Next to such titles as The Laws and Concepts of Niddah, and  Hide and Seek:  Jewish Women and Hair Covering were Wendy Mogel’s  The Blessing Of A Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children, books by Conservative rabbi, Reuven Hammer (The Torah Revolution:  Fourteen Truths That Changed The World), and Solomon Schechter’s classic  Aspects of a Rabbinic Judaism— With a New Introduction by Neil Gillman, Including the Original Preface of 1909 & the Introduction by Louis Finkelstein.

And the book lovers also came from many walks of life.  While most were clearly traditional, and many seemed to know each other, there were women with skirts of various lengths and some in jeans, and men with and without head coverings.  All in all, a diverse crowd sharing a love of books.

We shlepped our  books to the check out counter–minutes before the Y-Studs, one of Yeshiva University’s acclaimed a cappella groups, began their performance.  As we left, plenty were just entering—likely to stay until the midnight closing.  We smiled all the way home, with our first hand knowledge of why Jews are known as “The People of the Book”—or is it books?!

(Source: http://blogs.timesofisrael.com)

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Original Article On the Jerusalem Post

Sitting at the Nalaga’at (“Please Touch”) Center in Jaffa, Howard Blas, special educator and social worker from New York, sits down to speak with The Jerusalem Post about a fascinating group of young men and women who have come to Israel for a 10-day trip. The travelers, all affiliated with the Conservative movement’s Camp Ramah, are developmentally disabled and their experiences, their counselors tell the Post, have allowed them to see this country through fresh eyes.

As several deaf waiters weave among tables ” the center is a major employer of the handicapped and an inspiration to the campers whom they are serving ” Blas explains how the trip has helped bond his charges to both nation and religion.

The campers all belong to the Tikvah program, a track at the Ramah summer camps for those with special needs. All eight of the campers on this specific trip fall into the higher-functioning spectrum and some are even taking classes at community colleges back in the US.

The group that’s here on the Israel trip are some of the older members of our group, Blas tells the Post. The youngest is turning 19 today and I guess that the oldest is probably 25 or 26.

The idea of an Israel trip, Blas continues, was the brainchild of Herb and Barbara Greenberg, now residents of Israel, who believed that this population, who had been learning about Israel at camp… had the same love for Israel and the same right to travel to our homeland as any Jew.

Since the first trip in 1984, Camp Ramah has brought Tikvah participants to Israel numerous times. A number of the campers on this trip have been here before.

We stress Israel [and] Zionism at camp and this is their chance to really [experience that] Blas says.

The trip, which brings the campers, who normally prefer stability and routine, to different destinations every day, really focuses on their independence, he explains.

Some of the higher-functioning campers will have been together so many years in camp, some have been in camp for 10 years, so some know how to help each other… and compensate for each other’s shortcomings.

According to Blas, in a new country there are a lot of new systems to learn, so even something as simple as the shower, the shower works differently. We go to three different hotels. It’s a different experience in each place so we even have to go ahead and figure that out quickly and then explain it to them… It’s a very frenetic pace.

This is my fourth or fifth trip that I’ve done he says, and the founders did eight or nine trips when they were the directors and with each trip you really fine-tune what you do so you pick hotels that don’t have a lot of extra room for wandering around [for example].

By bringing the campers to Israel without their parents, he continues, they’re learning life skills. Small things like packing in a hotel, it’s all part of life skills. That’s really what the goal is: to prepare them for living as independently as they can.

We give them a lot of running commentary and try to connect what they are seeing with things that they have learned in camp, but they’ve been fantastic, the director enthuses about his campers.

THE TIKVAH program itself was founded at Camp Ramah in 1970 by the Greenbergs, who now live in Raanana. In its first year, the program enrolled eight campers classified by their respective school systems as brain-injured, learning disabled and emotionally disturbed, says Blas. Over the years, it has enrolled children and adolescents with Down syndrome, autism, neurological impairments, developmental delays and rare disorders such as Smith-Magenis and Prader-Willi syndrome.

As the director of one of the first such programs in the Jewish world, Blas is noticeably pleased with his work, telling the Post that Tikvah is a trailblazer.

Are very proud of the fact that we are probably the first program [of its type], he says. One of the few places where there is real collaboration in Judaism is around special needs.

Howard Blas’s son, Daniel, a 19-year-old freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, is one of the counselors on this year’s trip, his second time coming to Israel with Tikvah.

Daniel believes that by being forced to explain things to his campers in a simplified manner, he has to reevaluate everything he knows, thus gaining a deeper understanding of Israel and [his] beliefs in general.

Asked to give a specific example, Daniel says that when explaining to his campers why there are soldiers everywhere, he must confront head-on the fact that Israel is a “country in conflict.” This helps him recognize why the soldiers are there in the first place [and] the fact that at this point, after many Israel trips, I’ve just taken [many things] for granted in general.

Avriel Feiner, known as Avi, also serves on the staff of the Tikvah program. A 22-year-old senior at the University of Maryland, Feiner is studying special education, in large part because of her involvement with the special campers of Camp Ramah.

This is my first time ever going [to Israel] with this population it’s really interesting and inspiring to see Israel through their eyes, she says, concurring with Daniel.

I was complaining today No, not the Palmah Museum again, she says. We walked out and they were like ‘my gosh, this was so cool, we love this. History is so awesome, that was so intense.

Many experiences, such as visiting the Western Wall, Feiner says, have lost their excitement to someone who has been there numerous times. However, going with the Tikvah participants this time, she says that “the guys were dancing like crazy [on the men’s side] for an hour and a half. That’s amazing. Where else are they going to have that?

Moreover, Daniel interjects, the campers have had an influence on everyone who we’ve seen, not just on me and Avi as the leaders.

Daniel recounts that on one occasion, one of the campers entered the dining room of their hotel to say goodbye to the participants of an unrelated Birthright trip, many of whom called out goodbye to him by name, despite the two groups not having had any official contact.

He’s just been so friendly to everyone and everyone’s been amazed, Daniel says, smiling.

THE CAMPERS who spoke with the Post seem to back up their counselors assertions, smiling and regaling this reporter with stories of their experiences. Many, Howard Blas asserts, have minimal contact with Jewish life outside of camp, making this experience even more important to them on a personal and spiritual level.

Sarah, a sweet girl the same age as Feiner, attends a boarding school in Connecticut where she is studying the life skills necessary so that she can be mainstreamed into as normal a life as possible. These skills will be especially important as she plans to move into her own apartment for the first time next year.

The trip, she says, is very nice and not “boring like Birthright. Now I learn more, she says.

Her favorite part of the trip, she says, is “making candles. This is a typical type of project for the campers, providing a physical stimulus and engaging them in a hands-on activity. The campers have also picked vegetables for charity and engaged in an archeological dig at the Beit Guvrin national park.

Such outings have even more meaning for Sarah than for most of the campers, as her time at camp accounts for all her Jewish experiences for the entire year, which makes this trip something of a bittersweet experience.

The skills she had learned in the Tikvah program, Blas says, will serve her well in life. Ramah special-needs campers perform jobs at camp, enabling them to learn skills that many people take for granted.

With guidance here and there, some of the campers on this trip, Feiner believes, could function independently soon.

Chiming in, Daniel Blas adds that “In general, we try to focus on abilities rather than disabilities.

Jason, a 27-year-old participant who is studying journalism, among other subjects, at a community college, is a good example of this mind-set.

Coming to Israel, Jason says, means connecting with “different areas of Israeli history and culture [and] to better understand what’s going on inside the country. This, he explains, makes it more easier to understand what may happen later and possibly in the future.

The experience for the special campers of the Tikvah Program is best summed up by their visit to Mount Herzl, the burial place of Theodor Herzl.

We also went to Har [Mount] Herzl, someone who believed in a State of Israel because he saw that the Jews couldn’t live in Germany because the French accused them of treason, says Avi, another Tikvah participant.

[The French] tried to execute them so Herzl brought many Jews to Israel.

The visit, explains Daniel, allowed trip participants to discuss their dreams and aspirations in a comfortable way while connecting to their heritage as Jews and Zionists.

Sitting in the military cemetery, we were trying to find a way to have them connect to all these graves, Daniel says, and we decided to speak about dreams and setting goals for ourselves because a lot of what we do [in camp] is about setting goals.

Sarah and Avi said that one of their goals is to become more independent but really to live in an apartment, so their goal for the future is to move out of a group home and out of the boarding school [and to gain independence] and that’s a way we helped them to connect [to Herzl and Zionism].

Sitting and speaking with the Post on their final evening in Israel, the campers and their caretakers seem happy yet exhausted. After returning home from Israel, Howard Blas says, he will need a vacation from this vacation.




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