I’ve been doing shadow training for years through my practice,” says psychologist Tamar Kahane, Teaneck resident and founder of Englewood’s Kahane Center for Developmental and Psychological Well-being.

Shadows — teachers’ aides who help facilitate the functioning of students in the classroom — are essential for many children, she said, yet “anyone can call themselves a shadow, regardless of their skill-set or educational background.”

To address this, and “concerned about the difficulties that children with autism spectrum disorder and ADD/ADHD face every day in the classroom,” in September Kahane and her associate Chassia Boczko created the Shadow Training Institute.

When Rep. Steve Rothman met late last month with the head of the Israel Missile Defense Organization, the two discussed state-of-the-art defense programs that will protect the Jewish state from regional threats while providing the United States with access to superior technology.

Rothman (D-9) sits on the powerful House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, which allocates all funding for U.S. military and joint U.S.-Israel defense projects. The Feb. 23 meeting with Arieh Herzog focused specifically on three missile defense programs: David’s Sling, a short-range ballistic missile defense system; the Aarow 2, an anti-tactical ballistic missile system; and the Arrow 3, an upper-tier system capable of stopping longer range missiles. (See With Murtha gone, what are ramifications for Israel?)

“The joint projects I discussed with director Herzog — and have discussed with the highest level of military and intelligence personnel at the highest level of the U.S. government — will not only provide Israel with superior missile defense systems but will also provide the United States with access to that technology at every stage of development for use by American forces and other American allies,” Rothman told The Jewish Standard earlier this week.

David’s Sling, which Rothman said has almost completed full testing, is designed to protect against Kassam rockets from Gaza and Katyushas from Lebanon. Israeli defense contractor Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. and the American defense contractor Raytheon are jointly developing the system. The first live-fire test of the system is expected sometime this year.

Asked about Israel’s Iron Dome system, which the Jewish state developed on its own to protect against Kassam rockets, Rothman said it provides a larger defense radius than David’s Sling, but both would contribute to “Israel’s defensive umbrella.”

The Arrow 2 system is already operational. It is designed to protect against lethal short- to medium-range ballistic missiles, such as those currently located in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.

The Arrow 3 system is designed to intercept a future Iranian or other long-range missile that achieves its range by leaving Earth’s atmosphere. Unlike the Arrow 2 warhead, which can explode without directly hitting its target, the Arrow 3 needs to directly strike the offensive missile. This, Rothman said, makes the Arrow 3 a less expensive system than its predecessor since it requires fewer explosives and thus has a smaller payload to carry.

“One of the benefits of the Arrow 3 is it will be cheaper to make and more can be acquired in Israel’s and America’s defensive arsenal for less money, yet [they will] get the job done,” Rothman said.

Israel and the United States have worked on the Arrow project since the late 1980s, and Israel deployed the first Arrow battery in October 2000. The system is a project of Israel Aerospace Industries and Boeing. Developers hope the Arrow 3 will be operational sometime between 2012 and 2014, Rothman said.

Rothman and Herzog discussed “every potential threat to Israel’s security, including the Iranian threat,” Rothman said, without going into further detail. The meeting was not a response to any specific threat, Rothman noted, but rather was part of a regular series of meetings he holds with the IMDO.

Israel advocates have criticized President Obama’s policies toward Israel, specifically regarding pressure on the Jewish state to make concessions in the Palestinian peace process. Rothman, however, said that military and intelligence cooperation between the two countries has never been higher than under Obama.

The Union for Traditional Judaism will hold its annual conference on Sunday at its Teaneck headquarters. The confab, themed “Independence Day: The Independent Minyan/Prayer Group Phenomenon,” will include a panel of speakers discussing the role of the independent minyan in the wider Jewish organization world, what the establishment can learn from them, and vice versa.

“We’re poised between what would be called the establishment of the Jewish world and what would be called the cutting edge of the Jewish world,” said Rabbi Ronald Price, UTJ’s executive vice president. “We thought this would be an appropriate topic.”

As the economy slowly emerges from what some analysts have called its worst downturn since the Great Depression, government aid programs continue to attract new applicants.

One such initiative that has received a lot of attention recently is Families First Electronic Benefits Transfer, more commonly known as the food stamp program.

According to the Department of Human Services, in December 2009, more than 284,000 households in the state received food stamps, representing an increase of 53,941 since December 2008.

Naomi Levine snapped the black-suited attendees to attention at the inaugural conference on charity governance hosted by NYU’s George H. Heyman Jr. Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising when she announced, “The boards of foundations [that were defrauded] were accessories to the [Bernard] Madoff disaster.” Levine, the founding executive director of the Heyman Center, was one of the organizers of the conference, as well as a speaker. The conference was presented against a background of swelling criticism of nonprofit governance from Congress, from judges, and from the nonprofit sector itself.

Clifton resident Gail Yamner — who will be sworn in as president of the Joint Action Committee for Political Affairs on March 3 — attended her first JACPAC meeting in 2006 at the urging of a friend.

A former English teacher and the co-founder of Argyle Press, Yamner was intrigued by the friend’s description of the group as “an amazing Jewish organization that really knows how to get things done through the political process.”

Seeing for herself that not only was the group effective in its core mission of strengthening Israel-U.S. relations but that it had a progressive domestic agenda as well, Yamner told this newspaper that she was sold.

American parents facing the yeshiva tuition crisis will now have an option in the Holy Land, thanks to Yeshivot Bnei Akiva, which is opening the doors of its new high school program in September.

Although tuition at the high school is free because it’s completely subsidized by the state of Israel, organizers assert that the primary impetus for people to send their children there will be the program’s high level of education.

The 70-year-old organization, which already boasts of a network of 63 schools across Israel, is launching the program for students in the 10th through 12th grades because it wants to meet the needs of people outside of Israel, said Daniel Edelman of Teaneck, co-president of American Friends of Yeshivot Bnei Akiva.