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]
“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?!
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.
STAMFORD — Long after leaving public office, Senator Joseph Lieberman, will be remembered for his many accomplishments. Now, thanks to It’s Kosh, a new kosher American bistro at 108 Prospect Street in Stamford, Connecticut’s senior senator can add to the list the “Smokin’ Joe Lieberman Sandwich” — a creation, according to the It’s Kosh menu, that includes “Montréal-style smoked meat, Romanian pastrami, New York-style corned beef, Russian dressing, American coleslaw, served with French fries and no bologna.” A wall photo on the It’s Kosh fan page features the smiling Senator holding a tray with his favorite new sandwich.
Owned and operated by Stamford resident Glenn Karow, whose children attend Carmel Academy in Greenwich, Kosh opened for business just after New Years Day.
Karow, whose many years in the food service industry include management positions at Cracker Barrel, TGI Fridays and Hale and Hearty, is delighted with the warm response to Kosh from people throughout the region – from Manhattan, Westchester, Waterbury, Fairfield, New Haven and beyond. Of his OU-supervised restaurant he says proudly, “We have a smoker and can smoke 120 pounds of meat at a time. We will have three 55 inch screen TVs and two 46 inch TVs, a fireplace, and seating outside with umbrellas and heaters. “Where else can you get burgers and wings and watch a game?”
And if you’re watching the game at It’s Kosh this Sunday, the restaurant invites you to take the Super Bowl Wing Challenge: Guess how many wings are sold by the end of the day on Feb. 5, and if your guess is closest without going over, you win $100.00 in free food and drink.
“It’s great having a kosher restaurant in town, to be able to go out and have a bite and enjoy good food and a great atmosphere,” says Stamford resident Howard Wolffe, who has a tough time picking his favorite Kosh dish – “It’s between the hangar steak and the rib steak—and the wings aren’t to be missed either.”
It’s Kosh is open Sundays through Thurdays, 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fridays 11 a.m. until two hours before sundown, and after Shabbat. For information call (203) 614-8777.
