Among many other challenges of aging is determining when it is appropriate to accept assistance with healthcare. There are several different options available, such as remaining in your home with aides, moving to an assisted living facility, or moving to a nursing home. Each option has different financial ramifications and considerations. I hope to provide you with an idea of the relative costs and ways to pay for the different options. In addition, I will go through some of the estate planning techniques available to assist you in this process.

I was in the pool yesterday swimming laps. I’m getting into a nice routine these days. I know what clothes to pack and have all my toiletries arranged together so I’m ready for the shower after my swim. When I’m in the locker room, I hear a lot of plastic bags crinkling as other women organize themselves too. I’ve gotten pretty good at this schedule and very rarely leave something behind.

Not much has been written about Rebbetzin Tamar Shteinman, and that which I have read did not do the personality of this great woman justice. It is therefore an honor to bring the life story of Rebbetzin Tamar Shteinman to light.

For this article, which is part of a series about the wives of Gedolim, I was zochah to get to know Rebbetzin Sarah Yisraelzon, the daughter of Harav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, zt”l. It was Rebbetzin Yisraelzon who put me in touch with a granddaughter of her dear neighbor, Rebbetzin Tamar Shteinman, a”h. Rebbetzin Shteinman’s granddaughter was able to paint a very warm and vibrant picture of her beloved savta. It was also a real privilege to speak to Rebbetzin Tova Shapiro, the only living daughter of Rebbetzin Shteinman.

?It’s amazing how easily luxuries can become necessities. When that happens, we start taking those luxuries for granted. I was fortunate to have grown up in a home where nothing was taken for granted. My mom and dad appreciated whatever they had and were grateful for it. As a result, it was natural for them to express immediate appreciation for even the most simple gift or kind gesture. These days, expressing appreciation and saying thank you seems to have fallen on hard times.

Showing hakaras hatov (gratitude) to Hashem for His blessings is challenging for those who don’t naturally express thanks to others. It seems that too many people are self-absorbed almost to the point of narcissism. I’m wondering if there is a direct correlation between the volume of one’s material possessions (i.e: “stuff”) and the dramatic decrease in the measure of gratitude one demonstrates.

Taking a few moments to pause our hectic race against our “to do” lists to look at the world around us will reveal the bounty of blessings we receive every day. We live in a time when technology allows us to connect with family and friends who live far away, we enjoy the familiarity of our close-knit neighborhoods, and we are free of the weight of anonymity that plagues larger, “in-town,” communities. We are also fortunate to live in a state where the seasons change, each one bringing new gifts. The shift in the temperature, and the mood that comes with it, breaks the monotony of daily life, such that each morning promises adventures in weather that even the meteorologists can’t predict.

Dr. Elie Krakowski is no stranger to the readers of the Where What When. We interviewed him over 20 years ago, shortly after his move to Baltimore, and over the years he has graciously agreed to contribute articles in response to our pleadings. Now we turn to him again to explain the current crisis in Ukraine.

Dr. Krakowski, mostly retired now, has a PhD in international relations from Columbia University in New York. During the Reagan administration, he was Special Assistant to the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon. He coordinated multimillion-dollar programs in humanitarian aid and contributed to presidential national security directives. He helped U.S. intelligence agencies improve the way they collect, analyze, and distribute intelligence data. His main role while at the Pentagon was as an architect of American policy on Afghanistan. He also participated actively in the negotiating process that brought an end to the Soviet-Afghan war.

Sara Levin* is a spunky 8^th grader who attends the local Bais Yaakov. Her father is a lawyer and her mother is a professional organizer and party planner. Sara is the youngest child in a large family. It has always been the goal of Sara’s parents to raise fiscally responsible children, and for the most part, all six of Sara’s siblings are prudent with their money and make educated decisions about it. How did Sara’s parents accomplish this? Let’s use a small example to illustrate how Sara’s parents have helped her be fiscally responsible.

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.”