Mrs. Chava Temeral Ostreicher was already impressed with our community when I spoke to her, only five days after her move from Monsey, New York. She and her husband, a native of Williamsburg (in Brooklyn), are just one of the 21 pioneering chasidishe couples who will be living in town by Cheshvan, coming here to join Baltimore’s newest kollel: Khal Chassidim’s Kollel L’Horo’ah.

“I’m so amazed,” shared Mrs. Ostreicher, a mother of two, who was able to keep the school curriculum job she had in Monsey and work from home. “It’s such a nice community, and people here are so nice and so accepting. I love the way everyone lives for themselves, not because their neighbor or their friend does it. Everything they do is with purpose, not like some other places. You don’t feel peer pressure here. There are such special people. Everyone is so helpful, so kind, and so accepting. It is such a warm community and that’s what makes the adjustment much easier.”

news source: vos iz neias

Washington - Already a done deal in Congress, the Iran nuclear agreement gained more momentum Sunday as former Secretary of State Colin Powell and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic National Committee head, announcement their support.

Powell, secretary of state under President George W. Bush, called the agreement “a pretty good deal” that would reduce the threat of Iran gaining a nuclear weapon.

Iran’s nuclear program “has been thrown into a detour” making it less likely it can produce a nuclear weapon to be used against Israel or other countries, Powell said. “So that’s pretty good,” he told

(Mr. Korn, chairman of the Philadelphia Religious Zionists, is former executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent and the Miami Jewish Tribune.)

The newly-declassified emails of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton have unexpectedly revealed a key part of the Obama administration's strategy in dealing with Israel.
Among the Clinton emails released recently was a 2010 memo from the Obama administration's chief Middle East negotiator, Martin Indyk.
Friends of Israel have long harbored deep concerns about indications that Indyk was unfriendly to Israel. But this is one of the rare instances in which we can see, in Indyk's

news source: theyeshivaworld

Current events never occur in a vacuum. Most of us know this but never put in the actual effort that’s required to truly understand the historical context of events surrounding us. This is especially true of what we see unfolding before our eyes between, Iran, Europe and the Obama administration. We now see an Iran that is destabilizing the Middle East through the funding of terrorist proxy states, building a nuclear arsenal and we ask “Why?”. Context is needed. Historical context is essential to grasping the “why?”. So, I will attempt here to outline for you a very

Israeli Army officials reportedly are furious that New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has accused the IDF of massacring Arab civilians. But what else is new? After all, Friedman's entire career has been built on lying about Israel--including rewriting his own biography in order to smear the Jewish State.

In his August 12 column, Friedman wrote: "Israel plays, when it has to, by what I’ve called 'Hama rules' — war without mercy…it will not be deterred by the threat of civilian Arab casualties…" The Times of Israel notes that "While the term ['Hama Rules'] itself comes from Friedman’s book From Beirut to Jerusalem, in his new article he offered no history of the event or explanation for the comparison, apparently assuming the reader would understand the context."

The following four brief anecdotes (based on true stories) concern people who might be your friend, neighbor, or even family member. The condition being described in these anecdotes may seem somewhat benign, but when you think about it, you will realize that this disorder can cause a person to get stuck in life and miss out on much of what life has to offer.

Reuven’s Fear of People of Authority

Reuven gets extremely anxious when interacting with people of authority. When he was younger, he avoided interacting with his teachers as much as possible. As an adult, he tries to avoid interacting with his superiors at work. When problems arise at work, he tries to deal with them on his own, which does not always lead to a successful outcome. He knows that he would be more appreciated at work if he would interact with his superiors. He realizes that his anxiety is irrational, but he nevertheless feels helpless in overcoming his sense of fear.

Some of the most effective actions you can take for improving your marriage are rather simple, and if you commit to doing them on a regular basis, you will transform the mundane aspects of your relationship into opportunities to connect.There are four critical moments of transition in the day that can be utilized to build a strong and lasting relationship: when you wake up, when you leave the house for work, when you return home from work, and when you go to bed. While this does not exempt you from connecting throughout the day, by fixing these four set connection times, it’s as if we’re connecting the whole day.These transition times are crucial. When you wake up in the morning, you set the tone for the rest of the day. By beginning with emotional connection first thing in the morning, you start your day off on the right foot and set yourself up for more positive experiences with your spouse.

A young child singing himself to sleep at night to the letters of the alef bais is nachas to parents’ ears. A first- or second-grade child who is struggling to learn the letters and nekudos is a source of concern and worry. Why is it that some children find it more difficult to become fluent in kriah (Hebrew reading) than others?

Actually, the development of reading (and kriah) skills is a well-researched and understood topic. A simple understanding of the wondrous brain that Hashem created sheds tremendous light on the kriah process. Basically, beginning readers process written text with the frontal lobe of their brain. The frontal lobe is slow, analytical, and requires conscious effort. That is why beginning readers will often whisper what they are reading quietly to themselves before saying it out loud. As kriah skills are mastered, kriah processing moves to the occipital lobe in the rear of the brain. The occipital lobe processes written text instantly without conscious thought. This shift is what produces kriah fluency.

There are only two ways to balance one’s budget or, even better, to make it possible to add to one’s savings each month. They are: Increase your income or to cut your expenses.

Increasing Income

If you are paid by the hour you might be able to work more hours, and if you are in sales, you can work harder to increase your sales commissions and earnings. If you are salaried, however, unless you take an extra job, you will probably have to wait for a bonus or salary increase. And if you are retired, you are most likely on a fixed income. Should your expenses increase, you will be truly challenged in balancing the budget.

As an American citizen, I have to say I am grateful to the Food and Drug Administration for the efforts they make to ensure that the food we eat adheres to the highest level of safety. Although they exercise their authority in food venues and factories across the continental United States, they have not yet established their presence and authority over the local lemonade stands that one sees when driving around in the summer time. Let me just say, “Woe to the ignorant.”

You see, there are two kinds of people who buy lemonade: those who drink it and those who don’t. The people who actually drink it are either too young to understand the concept of hygiene, or simply have no idea what goes on behind the scenes. Let me tell you, as an experienced parent of lemonade sellers, you don’t really want to know. That’s why I’m going to tell you.