But for many American immigrants to Israel, the long trek is the only way to stay employed in the field and salary level to which they're accustomed, while simultaneously realizing their dream of living in the Jewish state.
"Most go back and forth because it's very hard to make a living," said Cilla Hirschkorn of Fair Lawn, whose daughter, Rinat Ross, comes back to North Jersey every five or six weeks for a 10-day stretch to practice dentistry. The former Teaneck resident stays with her parents, leaving her husband and four children in Modiin, a largely English-speaking community between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
"Of the '00 members in my daughter's shul in Modiin, I don't think even one is working in Israel, except if they're working over the Internet for a United States company," said Hirschkorn.
The beautiful view here makes it easy to create a religious atmosphere," says David Bigman, one of the head rabbis of Yeshivat Ma'ale Gilboa, a post-high school program established in 1993 on a picturesque kibbutz overlooking Israel's Jezreel, Bet She'an, and Jordan valleys — the very spot where King David composed his elegy for King Saul.
"Up here in the mountains, with the first rain, it becomes green with wildflowers and you'll see wild animals like foxes and jackals, hyenas, wild boars, gazelles, and birds of prey," Bigman says. "Most of the guys have a general feeling of being uplifted. It's very hard here not to relate to HaKadosh Baruch Hu."
Bigman, 5', and his co-rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Yehuda Gilad, 51, will visit North Jersey Feb. 3 and 4 to raise awareness for their off-the-beaten-path school. And it's off the beaten path in more ways than the geographical.
My grandmother could have married a millionaire. Instead, she turned him down and accepted the proposal of a handsome shy scientist named Moses Legis Isaacs.
She loved relating how, years later, Yeshiva University president Dr. Samuel Belkin — who knew both men — told her, "Elizabeth, you chose well."
Elizabeth Klein Isaacs Gilbert — we grandkids called her Mema — died on Dec. 17 at the age of 104. Although all mortals make their share of poor decisions, some extraordinarily good ones marked Mema's long life.
To begin with, Dr. Belkin was right. The man who became my maternal grandfather was brilliant, pious, devoted, and wickedly funny in his quiet way. A bacteriologist at Columbia University's School of Public Health, he became dean of Yeshiva College in 1940. After retiring in 1953, he helped establish the university's Stern College for Women. When Dr. Belkin asked Dr. Isaacs' wife to be dean of students, she accepted the job. The retired Y.C. dean became a chemistry professor at Stern and worked with his wife until they both retired — for real — in 1967.
Shmuel Greenbaum was moved to teach about kindness after his wife, Shoshana, was killed in a terror bombing in Jerusalem.
PASSAIC – Shmuel and Shoshana Greenbaum had been married just 15 months when an Arab terrorist ended Shoshana's life with a bomb detonated in Sbarro Pizzeria in Jerusalem on Aug. 9, '001. An experienced teacher, the mother-to-be was to have started working the next month at the Yeshiva of North Jersey in River Edge.
Nobody would have blamed Shmuel Greenbaum if he'd drowned in grief and bitterness. But that's not his style.
"I imagine that I am the only terror victim who does not focus on anger and hatred," said Greenbaum, 43, a city resident who will speak on "Coping With Tragedy: Fighting Terror With Kindness" Tuesday at 8 p.m. at Cong. Keter Torah in Teaneck.
What are two graduates of the Frisch School in Paramus doing in Omaha, Neb.?
Serving as rabbis in the city's only Orthodox synagogue.
Jonathan Gross, the son of Sandy and David Gross of Teaneck, always wanted to emulate his grandfather, who was the rabbi of a small synagogue in Central Jersey.
"There are enough rabbis in New Jersey. I wanted to go to a place where I could really make a difference," said Gross, who obtained his ordination at the rabbinical seminary of Yeshiva University. While at Yeshiva University, he participated in Torah Tours, a program that sends students to synagogues in small communities for holidays.
HACKENSACK – If you choose to place your special-needs child in a non-public school, the child might not get all the services that would be available in a public school, and you won't have as much power to make requests or file complaints about any aspect of those services.
These are the facts local Jewish parents learned at a Dec. 13 Bergen County Bar Association seminar at the county courthouse here. Its purpose was to clarify state and federal regulatory disparities in special education for children enrolled in public and non-public schools.
Rabbi Avi Pollak and Neal Wigod display an innovative wheelchair.
TEANECK – Take a molded plastic patio chair, add mountain-bike wheels and a steel frame, and you've given the gift of mobility to someone who can't afford a real wheelchair.
That's the simple idea behind Free Wheelchair Mission (freewheelchairmission.org), a California-based non-profit organization. The students of the Human Rights Committee of Torah Academy of Bergen County here thought the venture was worthy of their support.
"I heard about this organization in a documentary about an African athlete with physical disabilities who made it big and brought [Free Wheelchair Mission] into his hometown to provide wheelchairs for people who needed them," said Rabbi Avi Pollak of Bergenfield, faculty adviser for the five-member committee. "The cost per chair is unbelievably cheap — only $45, including shipping."
On Nov. 7, the Teaneck Zoning Board of Adjustment unanimously approved revised plans for the expansion of the Teaneck mikvah on Windsor Road.
For the hundreds of women who use the ritual bath — up to 40 each night — the news is welcome, as the 19-year-old facility has long been inadequate for the needs of the observant community.
The quick approval was a stark contrast to the drawn-out process involved in getting the initial expansion plans approved in May of '003. At that time, variances finally were granted for a scaled-down plan after three long meetings.
Miriam Greenspan, president of the Mikvah Association, explained why the hard-won expansion wasn't implemented and why new drawings had to be approved now.
CRESSKILL – "Both Christian and Muslim extremists teach us something important. They have found the seeds of genocide in each of our faiths, and they have acted on them. One thing is for sure, neither of us can remain scriptural literalists any longer."
These words, written by the Rev. Dr. Kathleen Rusnak of Our Saviour Lutheran Church here, were in the second entry on her new blog, http://kathleenjrusnak.blogspot.com.
She started the Internet forum in August to provide "a voice that was not being heard" on the issue of anti-Semitism. "When I was in grade school, I told my teacher I wanted to be an essayist. So at 54, that's what I've become," she said with a chuckle.
Representatives of JobKatif — an Israeli organization dedicated to finding employment for the former residents of Gush Katif, the evacuated communities of Gaza — recently spoke in Englewood, seeking support for their work.
As of today, 1,375 former residents of Gush Katif are still unemployed, according to JobKatif spokeswoman Ruthie Lieberman. "This number includes those who were in full cooperation with the government before the disengagement," she said.
JobKatif's 150 volunteers address needs that are not being met by the government, she added. About $'50,000 has been spent aiding new business ventures, starting retraining courses, assisting with job placement, and helping tide over families during retraining. So far, 100 people are in retraining courses, 400 have been placed in new jobs, and 40 new small businesses have been started.
"The benefits of finding employment extend far beyond financial; it is the beginning of the rehabilitation process for the entire family," Lieberman said.
JobKatif needs $500,000 in seed money for new businesses; $4'0,000 to fund additional retraining courses; and $40,000 to reestablish a former Gush Katif handbag-and-jewelry factory that employed people with disabilities. Other funds are needed to re-establish agricultural businesses and pay for job counseling and additional career services.
Tax-deductible contributions can be made payable to The Central Fund of Israel, 980 Sixth Ave., New York, NY 10018 with "JobKatif" in the memo line. For more information, go to http://www.jobkatif.org.il.
