You feel the air getting thinner as your lungs cry out with each shallow breath. Your legs are burning with the strain, threatening to collapse. Although you’ve been training for this moment for months, your oxygen-starved brain can only follow one command – to put one foot in front of the other. Each step brings you closer to the summit.

It has been 12 years since I was first diagnosed with cancer. I am 76 years old. After fighting breast cancer with radiation, along with a lumpectomy, I now have angiosarcoma, diagnosed at age 71. This is a rare type of cancer coming from the muscle tissue within blood vessels. It began in my right breast and there is the potential to spread to other organs. I am being treated at GBMC (Greater Baltimore Medical Center) in Towson Maryland as well as Sloan Kettering in New York.

by Shani, Dena and Daniella

 Yom Tov is synonymous with fleishig meals – except for Shavuos. Shavuos is a holiday where milchig enthusiasts look forward to showcasing (and eating!) their favorite elevated dairy dishes. This year, however, those who eat all dairy meals for zman masan Toraseinu, will be short two milchig meals, since Shavuos falls on Friday and Shabbos. Fortunately, however, we can look at the overlap of Shabbos and Shavuos as an opportunity to have the best-ever milchig Shavuos shalosh seudos! Use our sample menu below for inspiration on delicious milchig recipes that don’t require reheating. Depending on how many hours you wait between dairy and meat, you may need to have an earlier lunch to be ready for a milchig shalosh seudos. If a milchig shalosh seudos does not work for you, feel free to use these as ideas for other milchig Yom Tov meals.

With Shavuos coming, it’s super exciting to trot out some fun dairy recipes. Speaking of dairy recipes, chances are you will be using heavy/whipping cream (they’re the same thing). I always buy the biggest container possible. First, I make the cheesecake with the cream, but this article is focused on other recipes that call for heavy cream so that you can use up any extra you might have. 

I called Market Maven to find out if they would put their heavy cream on sale for Shavuos – and they said they would! So, not only can you make some delicious dishes using whipping cream, but you can get chalav Yisrael cream at a discount! 

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On Sunday, April 23, I attended the reunion of Public School #59 at Beth Tfiloh, catered by Milk & Honey. It’s unusual to hold a reunion for a public elementary school and even more unusual to make it kosher! Public school is free and in the ’50s, it was the choice of most Jewish families in the Lower Park Heights neighborhood. But when I became frum, I knew that the best choice for my children was Jewish day schools, regardless of the cost.

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“This Matzah that we eat for what reason? Because the dough of our fathers did not have time to become leavened before the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, REVEALED Himself to them and redeemed them.”

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There are times of the year that are so special they are etched into our memory forever. Pesach is one of them. The pre-Pesach cleaning, the burning of the chometz, and the smells coming out of the kitchen. I would like to reminisce about the Passovers, especially the Seders, in my life.

?Now, three years after a new plague first appeared, we are learning that Covid is most likely a man-made problem that was created in the (partially) U.S.-funded Wuhan Lab in China. Covid spawned an industry of “experts” touting various precautions, treatments, suggested remedies, and vaccines. As time goes on, we are realizing that certain of these precautions, treatments, and remedies are ineffective, and in some cases dangerous – and that certain treatments and remedies that might have been effective were blacklisted. We are also asking ourselves who really is an expert?

Baltimore’s aging public schools are frequently in need of major renovation or rebuilding. When this occurs, the student body and faculty are usually moved to a separate facility for the duration of the construction work. The temporary facility is known as a “swing school.” In our community, the swing school is Northwestern High. Northwestern has been used as a swing school since it was closed as a public high school in 2017. Forest Park High School used Northwestern as a swing school in that year. Northwestern is currently being used as a swing school for Cross Country Elementary/Middle School, which is being rebuilt as a 21^st Century School.

by Shani, Dena, and Daniella

We break from our Pesach cleaning and menu planning to shed light on a sensitive topic that is probably pertinent to you or to someone at your Seder table. Four is a repeating theme of Pesach – the Ma Nishtana with the four questions, the Four Sons, and the arba kosos, the four cups of wine, to name a few. While anyone can sing the Ma Nishtana, and a lot of us can identify with at least one of the four sons, not everyone will be drinking four cups of wine this Pesach. We discuss (you guessed it) four reasons why some will not be filling their cups with wine on Seder night – and why we should show sensitivity toward them.

Aharon Levi and Meira Levi

We are back again, discussing general studies in our schools, but this time we are jumping into the deep end. Before we start, a little background information: I am in my second year of teaching, and my father has been teaching in yeshivos for more than 20 years. Sometimes, I come home at the end of my day and talk shop with my father, and as it turns out, many of the questions and issues he has dealt with (and continues to deal with) are the very same ones I come home with.