My son and I were up late one night shmoozing. It isn’t often we get to spend time talking about deep and meaningful subjects. I would have stayed up even longer if my drooping eyelids would have agreed.

We spoke softly because of the lateness of the hour, and my son, who is usually running from one thing to the next, sat across from me talking quietly or listening intently, causing my love for him to overflow as I gazed into his warm eyes while adoring his trademark smile.

by Hinda Cohen

Sarah had wanted to be a teacher since she was in elementary school when her favorite activity was to play school with her friends. Sarah loved teaching alef-bais, ABCs, addition, and subtraction; you name it and Sarah could teach it beautifully – to her friends, that is. Then came her first opportunity to teach in her alma mater. Sarah was hired to teach a high school secular subject to bright ninth graders. But Sarah only knew what she had been taught in high school – and she had not saved her notes. Sarah was in trouble.

Soon the girls began to misbehave. They scored poorly on her first test, which was too long, making the girls late to carpool. No matter what help Sara received here and there, she always seemed to face a new battle of either poor curricular or pedagogic knowledge. One day, Sarah just returned her materials and quit, her dreams shattered.

Faina Vaynerman was born in a large Ukrainian shtetl Piytegory, about 50 miles from Kyiv, where, historically, Jews and Ukrainians lived side by side. She was only two years old when World War II broke out. Fortunately, she and her parents were able to flee from the Ukraine in her uncle’s truck. Otherwise, she said, they would have shared the fate of the other Jews in their shtetl, who perished from the many massacres that were carried out in Europe.

Faina shares her family history going back another generation: “In 1919, when my father was seven years old, dozens of Jews from our shtetl were forced to gather in a local synagogue. Among them were my grandma, Chana Shlima, her older daughter Rivka, and three-year-old son. The Ukrainians set it on fire and whoever tried to escape the fire was shot. My two grandmothers were murdered by the Ukrainian nationalist anti-Semites. My other grandma, Hinda Khmelinsky had found her death in 1941. They were murdered only because they were Jewish.”

I remember as a little girl taking a nap on erev Pesach in order to be able to stay up for the Seder. It was thrilling to get dressed for Yom Tov and be part of all the excited hustle and bustle. We had a Seder plate that my parents had created together out of wood, with a design composed of colored pebbles. My mother made a special velvet curtain that went around the Seder plate. It was very big and sat proudly in the center of the table. 

We set the table differently than usual. There were no plates or silverware, only the cup to drink the wine and a Haggadah. The food was not the important part of the Seder and only came out close to midnight. I remember my mother hurrying my father up as it got closer to chatzos, because we had to eat the afikoman before then. 

Baltimore is blessed to have a number of beautiful urban parks, many interconnected as part of the Baltimore Greenway Trails Network, ringing our city with a green canopy. A further treat is that several of the parks, described below, contain impressive summer mansions built in the mid-1800s by some of Baltimore’s most famous titans of industry and recently faithfully restored. Taking a walk or hike through these parks gives one a better understanding of the early history of our city.

As this Purim edition of WWW is about to go to press, we are witnessing terrible news from Ukraine.

We humans have defense mechanisms which give us the ability to emotionally separate ourselves from unpleasant realities. As a result, when we hear bad news, we can allow ourselves to be somewhat cushioned through detachment. We have the ability to create a distance between ourselves and the tragedy we hear about. While we are saddened to learn of an awful event, we are grateful that we and our loved ones are safe.

My body has become one giant exercise regimen. “Pull in my stomach.” “Remember to do my morning exercise practice – but wait, it’s already mid-afternoon.” I was pretty good about getting into a steady routine until my kids came erev Shabbos. I thought about the exercises I needed to do while putting up the cholent. Before I turned around, it was four o’clock, and I knew it wasn’t going to happen. But I did remember to stand up straight for a few moments when opening the door to the breakfront. Between washing the kitchen floor, putting the food into the oven to warm, and moving the Shabbos candlesticks to a safer location, I remembered bits and pieces like, “It’s time to drink some water.” “Hold in my core but relax my shoulders.”

This year we mark the 80^th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, where the leaders of Nazi Germany formulated the Final Solution. The evil plot culminated with the perishing of one third of our people. A few years later, the perpetrators met the same fate after being convicted at the Nuremberg trials. Their mode of execution, hanging, was that same as that of Haman’s 10 sons in Megillas Esther: hanging. Nor was this the only parallel with the Megillah.

“Hashem will have war with Amalek every generation.” (Shmos 17:16) A student once asked the Brisker Rav if the Vilna Gaon’s association of Amalek with Germany could be substantiated, to which the Rav replied, “Any nation that adopts the persona or legacy of any other nation, like Amalek, indeed becomes that nation.”[1] Indeed, we see in our own day how the Arabs of Eretz Yisrael often adopt the persona and savagery of the Philistines (anglicized as “Palestinians”), the nation they seek to reincarnate for Israel’s destruction. The Nuremberg trials demonstrate a similar replay of history. As we relive Purim this year, it would behoove us to remember a Purim victory at Nuremberg and to pray for Hashem’s victory over the Amalekites of our day.

The countdown begins! There are six weeks until Pesach, and you know what that means – it’s time to curl up in a ball and cry your eyes out. Just kidding! This year, instead of panicking, you’re going to get ready for Yom Tov in a calm, organized way.  For many of us, Pesach prep is filled with stress and anxiety, making us feel more like slaves than free women. But it doesn’t have to be this way! Follow my week-by-week guide below and greet Pesach feeling like the queen that you are.

Dr. Lynda Zentman, aka Laytzee the Clown, says her clowning career began when she “retired from real life” about six years ago, after being a teacher and principal in Rockland County, New York, for many years. Now she lives, part-time, in Israel.

“Once I retired, I felt this was something I wanted to do,” explains Dr. Zentman, a great-grandmother who feels like a 16-year-old when she puts on her clown makeup. “I’ve always enjoyed production, acting, singing, and dancing – which were part of my previous life as well – but to dress up as a clown and go and make people feel happy was a dream come true.”