Mrs. Esther Tendler, a”h, was a well-known personality in Baltimore, not because of any official position she held but rather because of who she was. The mother of a large family, Mrs. Tendler had a friendly disposition, a huge smile, and a down-to-earth, practical way of looking at things. She and her husband Rabbi Yosef Tendler lived on Yeshiva Lane across the hall from my parents, so I had the opportunity to see her in action. My parents and the Tendlers were friends for many years, beginning when they both learned in the Kollel in Lakewood, close to 70 years ago.

We set out for Lakewood a few months before Pesach, 2019, to visit our dear cousin Rabbi Dovid Trenk, zt”l, who was not well. To most of the world, Rabbi Trenk was a beloved long-time rebbe in Adelphia Yeshiva. More recently, he was the revered Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Moreshes Yehoshua. In his over-50-year career teaching Torah, he was an inspiration and mentor to thousands of talmidim. (The biography of this talmid chacham, Just Love Them, by Yisroel Besser, which came out recently, is the top Jewish bestseller of the season.) But for me, he was simply Reb Dovid, an extraordinary individual and a cherished friend and cousin.

Moving presents challenges at any age, but moving later in life – which includes reinventing oneself in a new community – is the hardest. Still, many older people are moving these days to be closer to their children. Among them is Sarah (Moses) Spero, one of our newest community members. Sarah and her husband, Dr. Abba Spero, moved to Baltimore four years ago after living in Cleveland for many decades. This is not the first time that this wife, mother, simcha creator, writer, and ultimate people-person, has reinvented herself. And Sarah – with her customary wit and charm – enthusiastically shared her story with me.  

y first Zoom experience bears no resemblance to the Zoom we know today. In my youth, Zoom was a children’s television show that aired on PBS. It included a group of highly energetic and slightly hyperactive children singing and dancing. They even spoke their own language. This language, Ubbi-Dubbi, required you to place the syllable “ub” before each vowel sound in each syllable of each word. The famous greeting they proffered was “H-ub-I, fr-ub-iends.” This is known in the vernacular as “Hi friends.” My siblings and I went around speaking Ubbi-Dubbi with each other and our friends.

I hope this finds you all well in these uncertain times. Someone from Baltimore asked me, about five weeks ago, to explain about President Trump’s “Deal of the Century.” Below is what I knew then, with a few words at the end about what we know now. I tried to provide my answer without badmouthing anybody. The truth is that Trump and Kushner and Friedman and Netanyahu all seem like fine people, although I’ve never had a Shabbos meal with any of them, that being my main way of meeting new people. They’re all welcome to join us for Shabbos and receive my Chevron tour (after Corona is over).

In the meantime, the Deal seems to have fallen out of the news in Israel, replaced almost entirely by a preoccupation with Israel’s returning Corona virus. Still, it could come back at any time, in the format I describe below, for better or worse, with Trump or with another president. After you read what I wrote, perhaps you will be able to formulate an opinion about whether or not you want it to return.

I was brought up in a home where even talking about guns was considered taboo. I was horrified when my own children played shooting games, and I discouraged even pretend guns. What a surprise to find out that my son-in-law was great at shooting guns and had actually received one as a birthday present when he was

 Chana Wilson grew up in a small town in South Carolina. She and her identical twin sister were born to religious parents who had strong family bonds in Christianity. When Chana was five years old, her parents experienced a profound spiritual awakening, which caused them to move away from the faith of their fathers and to begin studying the Bible from the Jewish perspective.

I am most grateful for living in America and enjoying the freedoms its democracy provides. It’s an emotion under attack these days. But that doesn’t change the warm feeling I have whenever the red-white-and-blue is displayed on patriotic holidays like the Fourth of July, and whenever I stand respectfully for “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the start of a concert or ballgame. I felt that same heartwarming emotion this past February when I toured The National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum (aka “The Navy SEAL Museum”), just outside Fort Pierce, Florida. 

Thirty years ago, I started teaching at Bais Yaakov of Baltimore, and 30 years ago, Miriam Stark Zakon wrote the short story, “Reb Aharon in Search of a Miracle,” published in Sarah Shapiro’s Our Lives Vol. 1 and Artscroll’s Jerusalem Gems. And for most of these past 30 years, I have read this magical story to my students on the last day of school before Pesach vacation. It has become a tradition. Younger sisters hear about it from their older sisters. The Bais Yaakov experience is not complete without it.

The school year is finally over and it’s been a wild ride. The typical school graduation – on a stage, in caps and gowns – is no more. In the upside-down world we are now experiencing, some of our local schools nevertheless managed to make graduations and end-of-the-year parties special for their students. I was blown away by the creativity, love, and enthusiasm that the teachers and staff put into making sure that no one would feel they were missing something. In reality, it may have been more fun than in a regular year!