Wow.. what an exciting week it has been. The New York Giants were victorious in their Super Bowl quest. Hope everyone enjoyed last week’s Jewish Standard cover story with a round up of local eateries and their SB foods. My children were scattered, some together, and one at school.. and we were at our friend’s home with a nice small crowd of 7. The camaraderie, company, game, and catered deli/chicken wings, spinach dip in a hollowed out football-shaped pumpernickel bread, mini hot dogs, knishes, and of course, dessert to wash it all down, were great. Several of the office staff here event went to the stadium for Tuesday’s welcome rally.

Anyway, back to reality.

I found this delicious recipe in a newer cookbook “How to Cook Like a Jewish Grandmother—Old-Fashioned Jewish Recipes” by Marla Brooks.

Melt-in-Your-Mouth Short Ribs

Yes, short ribs are a bit of an indulgence and sometimes a little fatty, but once in a while, everyone needs to splurge.

3 pounds short ribs
1/4 cup honey
1 cup beef broth
1 cup ketchup
dash Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste
2 onions, thinly sliced
2 large carrots, sliced

Broil ribs in broiler for 5 to 10 minutes, or until brown. While ribs are browning, mix honey, broth, ketchup, and Worcestershire together and set aside. Saute´ vegetables until soft and place in roasting pan. When ribs are done, place on top of veggies. Pour sauce over ribs. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for about 2 hours, turning ribs once or twice during baking. Serves 4.

Grandma’s Hot Beef Borscht

(fleishig borscht)

2 quarts water
2 pounds beef brisket
10 small beets, julienned or diced
2 yellow onions, sliced
juice of 2 lemons
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
pepper to taste

Place the water, meat, beets, and onions in a Dutch oven and bring to a boil. Lower heat to simmer and cook until the meat is tender. Add lemon juice, sugar, salt, and pepper and simmer about 10 minutes. Taste for seasonings. Serve with crackers. Serves 6 to 8.

You may encounter anti-semitism where you don’t expect it.

In the January issue of Angie’s List, New York City New Jersey edition, on p. 15, is an item about an insurance adjuster accused of fraud. (Angie’s List is an organization intended to help people find trustworthy repairmen, doctors, contractors, etc.)

A woman in West Park, Fla., hired Abraham Blumberg, CEO of National Loss Consultants in Miami, to negotiate her claim to fix a leaky roof after a storm.

The insurance company issued a check to Blumberg for $5,000, but the woman was not successful in getting her portion of the money from Blumberg,

Eventually Blumberg pleaded guilty to pocketing more than $360,000 in insurance claims from 82 victims, according to the Florida Department of Financial Services.

He was sentenced to 364 days in jail and 30 years of probation. The state revoked his license.

In case readers didn’t conclude that Blumberg was Jewish, Angie’s List ran a photograph of him.

With a full beard. And wearing a skullcap.

When I spoke to Gershon Baskin, I asked him about the public diplomacy taking place in Jordan, where peace talks between Palestinians and Israel ended without any progress.

“I don’t think it’s possible to reach an agreement with the Palestinians in public negotiations. I believe strongly in secret back channels,” he said, because the constraints on both Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas “are such that they cannot negotiate openly.”

“It’s very much like in the case of Shalit, a question of political will,” said Baskin, who met privately with Abbas this week and believes the Palestinian leader “has decided on peace with Israel.
There’s no doubt in my mind that it is possible to reach an agreement.”

However, “I don’t think Netanyahu has reconciled himself with the price he has to pay. The most difficult issue is not Jerusalem and the refugees, it’s real estate. The Palestnians are making a mistake that they’re not negotiating, but I understand their position because I don’t think Israel is sincere about negotiating,” he said.

Baskin said that the divisions between Hamas and the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah should not be a reason to avoid negotiations.

“Hamas has agreed that Abbas is the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people in negotiations,” Baskin said. “They have agreed that if Abbas were to reach an agreement, it would come to a referendum. They do not oppose talks; they think it’s a waste of time. So this whole issue of whether or not [Abbas] can negotiate an agreement — put it to a test. See what happens."

SUPER BOWL weekend is here!!!! There is excitement in the air with our local New York Giants in the running against the New England Patriots.

There is a great recipe for sweet and sour meatballs and for those New England fans…. how about a pot of chowder? I have included two choices for fish soups. Anyway, hope everyone enjoys the game and celebrates responsibly.

Sweet and sour meatballs

-Arlene Pomarlen

-Adapted from Gerrard Berman Day School’s cookbook “B’tei’ avon!”

Note from Beth…I always add cocktail-sized franks (or cut up regular reduced fat frank) and add to the sauce. The longer they simmer, the better they are.

1 14-ounce bottle chili sauce
1 8-ounce jar grape jelly
Juice of 1 lemon
8 ounces water
3 pounds chopped meat (Note from Beth..I always make a mixture of beef and ground white-turkey to my meatballs)
1 grated onion
2 eggs
about 1/2 cup panko or other plain bread crumbs
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
dash pepper/salt

Mix chili sauce, jelly, lemon juice, and water together. Bring to boil and let simmer. Set aside. Combine meat with seasonings, eggs, and onion. Add bread crumbs to meat and mix well. Coat a cookie sheet with vegetable spray. Form into small balls and brown in oven at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes. Drain well and drop into sauce. Cover and simmer on low heat for an hour. (add hot dogs if desired—B)

Salmon chowder

dairy

-adapted from the 1977 edition of the Moriah School’s “The Cook’s Book”

1/2 cup butter
2/3 cups chopped onion
2/3 cups chopped green pepper
1 cup chopped celery
4 medium-sized potatoes, diced
6 tablespoons flour
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
8 cups milk
2 cans salmon (drained) and flaked
4 tablespoons pimiento

In a separate pot, cook potatoes in salted water until semi soft. Set aside and drain. Melt butter. Sauté onion, green pepper, and celery, until light brown. Add flour, salt, and pepper. Mix to smooth paste. Cook over medium heat for 1 minute. Remove from heat and add 1 quart of milk; stir until blended. Return to heat and stir until it thickens. Add remaining milk and heat to simmering. Cook for 5 minutes. Add potatoes, salmon, and pimiento. Serve with delicious crackers.

Festival fish soup

-from the “Kosher Cajun Cookbook” by Mildred L. Covert and Sylvia P. Gerson

(can be pareve by using margarine and leaving out the optional sour cream)

2 stalks celery, diced
1 onion, chopped
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
4 medium-sized potatoes, diced (about 4 cups)
2 bay leaves
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
1 pound red snapper fillets
1 10-ounce package frozen French-cut string beans
1 10-ounce package frozen green peas
1 tablespoon fresh parsley (optional)
4 tablespoons sour cream (optional)
3-3 1/2 cups water

Sauté celery and onion in butter or margarine until onion is transparent and celery is tender. Add 3 1/2 cups water, potatoes, bay leaves, salt, and Tabasco. Heat to boiling. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes. Add beans and peas and cook for 5 minutes, or until vegetables are thawed and soup is hot.

But fish into 1-inch cubes. Add to soup and cook 5 to 8 minutes longer, until fish flakes easily. Serve with parsley and/or sour cream garnish, if desired. Serves four.

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that President Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and other top US officials delivered a string of messages to Israeli leaders warning them of “dire consequences” if Israel undertakes a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program.

In terms of covert action to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, the Stuxnet computer worm and the assassination of several Iranian nuclear scientists have been whispered about in recent months. It is tempting to hope the Obama administration is either helping behind the scenes or respecting Israel’s right to address its own urgent security needs. But given the Obama administration’s foot-dragging on even passing economic sanctions, and the administration’s warning of Israel not to attempt a strike in self-defense, I am dubious that the administration under Obama is helping Israel in any way.

It is possible that more is going on than we realize. But by all appearances, this administration is doing worse than zero to help an ally facing a potentially existential threat: it is warning that ally to not dare attempt a preventive strike.

I believe that Israeli leaders would only contemplate a military operation against Iran if they felt it were the only option to ensure Israel’s survival (a last resort). To me, then, for this administration to be warning them about “dire consequences” (as the WSJ reported) if they strike, is tantamount to threatening with “dire consequences” a friend who is under siege and doing his best to deal with the situation nonviolently, but who may be forced to act in self-defense.

I think as a matter of conscience, it is vital that voters realize Israel is in a precarious position, and re-electing this president in 2012 would be, at best, an unknown and therefore an extreme risk to the security of Israel and of the world as a whole (and that is giving every benefit of the doubt), at worst, an irresponsibly blind and security-undermining move at a time when Israel stands alone.

Please see Wall Street Journal article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204409004577159202556087074.html

My name is Aron Adler.

I am 25 years old, was born in Brooklyn NY, and raised in Efrat Israel. Though very busy, I don’t view my life as unusual. Most of the time, I am just another Israeli citizen. During the
day I work as a paramedic in Magen David Adom, Israel’s national EMS service. At night, I’m in my first year of law school. I got married this October and am starting a new chapter of life together with my wonderful wife Shulamit.

15-20 days out of every year, I’m called up to the Israeli army to do my reserve duty. I serve as a paramedic in an IDF paratrooper unit. My squad is made up of others like me; people living normal lives who step up to serve whenever responsibility calls. The oldest in my squad is 58, a father of four girls and grandfather of two; there are two bankers, one engineer, a holistic healer, and my 24 year old commander who is still trying to figure out what to do with his life. Most of the year we are just normal people living our lives, but for 15-20 days
each year we are soldiers on the front lines preparing for a war that we hope we never have to fight.

This year, our reserve unit was stationed on the border between Israel, Egypt and the Gaza Strip in an area called “Kerem Shalom.” Above and beyond the “typical” things for which we train - war, terrorism, border infiltration, etc., - this year we were confronted by a new challenge. Several years ago, a trend started of African refugees crossing the Egyptian border from Sinai into Israel to seek asylum from the atrocities in Darfur.

What started out as a small number of men, women and children fleeing from the machetes of the Janjaweed and violent fundamentalists to seek a better life elsewhere, turned into an organized industry of human trafficking. In return for huge sums of money, sometimes entire life savings paid to Bedouin “guides,” these refugees are promised to be transported from
Sudan, Eritrea, and other African countries through Egypt and the Sinai desert, into the safe haven of Israel.

We increasingly hear horror stories of the atrocities these refugees suffer on their way to freedom. They are subject to, and victims of extortion, rape, murder, and even organ theft, their bodies left to rot in the desert. Then, if lucky, after surviving this gruesome experience whose prize is freedom, when only a barbed wire fence separates them from Israel and their goal, they must go through the final death run and try to evade the bullets of the Egyptian soldiers stationed along the border. Egypt’s soldiers are ordered to shoot to kill anyone trying to cross the border OUT of Egypt and into Israel. It’s an almost nightly event.

For those who finally get across the border, the first people they encounter are Israeli soldiers, people like me and those in my unit, who are tasked with a primary mission of defending the lives of the Israeli people. On one side of the border soldiers shoot to kill. On the other side, they know they will be treated with more respect than in any of the countries they
crossed to get to this point.

The region where it all happens is highly sensitive and risky from a security point of view, an area stricken with terror at every turn. It’s just a few miles south of the place where Gilad Shalit was kidnapped. And yet the Israeli soldiers who are confronted with these refugees do it not with rifles aimed at them, but with a helping hand and an open heart. The refugees
are taken to a nearby IDF base, given clean clothes, a hot drink, food and medical attention. They are finally safe.

Even though I live Israel and am aware through media reports of the events that take place on the Egyptian border, I never understood the intensity and complexity of the scenario until I experienced it myself.

In the course of the past few nights, I have witnessed much. At 9:00 PM last night, the first reports came in of gunfire heard from the Egyptian border. Minutes later, IDF scouts spotted small groups of people trying to get across the fence. In the period of about one hour, we picked up 13 men - cold, barefoot, dehydrated - some wearing nothing except underpants. Their bodies were covered with lacerations and other wounds. We gathered them in a room, gave them blankets, tea and treated their wounds. I don’t speak a word of their language, but the look on their faces said it all and reminded me once again why I am so proud to be a Jew and an Israeli. Sadly, it was later determined that the gunshots we heard were deadly, killing three others fleeing for their lives.

During the 350 days a year when I am not on active duty, when I am just another man trying to get by, the people tasked with doing this amazing job, this amazing deed, the people witnessing these events, are mostly young Israeli soldiers just out of high school, serving their compulsory time in the IDF, some only 18 years old.

The refugees flooding into Israel are a heavy burden on our small country. More than 100,000 refugees have fled this way, and hundreds more cross the border every month. The
social, economic, and humanitarian issues created by this influx of refugees are immense. There are serious security consequences for Israel as well. This influx of African refugees poses a crisis for Israel. Israel has yet to come up with the solutions required to deal with this crisis effectively, balancing its’ sensitive social, economic, and security issues, at the same time striving to care for the refugees.

I don’t have the answers to these complex problems which desperately need to be resolved. I’m not writing these words with the intention of taking a political position or a tactical stand on the issue. I am writing to tell you and the entire world what’s really happening down here on the Egyptian/Israeli border. And to tell you that despite all the serious problems created by this national crisis, these refugees have no reason to fear us. Because they know, as the entire world needs to know, that Israel has not shut its eyes to their suffering
and pain. Israel has not looked the other way. The State of Israel has put politics aside to take the ethical and humane path as it has so often done before, in every instance of human suffering and natural disasters around the globe. We Jews know only too well about suffering and pain. The Jewish people have been there. We have been the refugees and the persecuted so many times, over thousands of years, all over the world.

Today, when African refugees flood our borders in search of freedom and better lives, and some for fear of their lives, it is particularly noteworthy how Israel deals with them, despite the enormous strain it puts on our country on so many levels. Our young and thriving Jewish people and country, built from the ashes of the Holocaust, do not turn their backs on humanity. Though I already knew that, this week I once again experienced it firsthand. I am overwhelmed with emotion and immensely proud to be a member of this nation.

With love of Israel,

Aron Adler writing from the Israel/Gaza/Egyptian border.

from the Internet…....

Talmud Study is now Mandatory in South Korea

The following article was translated by The Muqata from YNET.

Close to 50 million people live in South Korea, and everyone learns Gemara (Talmud) in school.
“We tried to understand why the Jews are geniuses, and we came to the conclusion that it is because they study the Talmud,” said the Korean ambassador to Israel. And this is how “Rav Papa” became a more well known scholar in Korea than in Israel.

It is doubtful if the Aramaic scholars, Abbaye and Rava, imagined their discussions of Jewish law in the Beit Midrash in Babylon would be taught hundreds of years later in East Asia. Yet it turns out that the laws of an “egg born on a holiday” (”ביצה שנולדה ביום טוב”), is actually very interesting to the South Koreans, who have required that Talmud study be part of their compulsory school curriculum.

Almost every home in South Korea now contains a Korean-translated Talmud. But unlike in Israel, the Korean mothers teach the Talmud to their children. In a country of close to 49 million people who believe in Buddhism and Christianity, there are more people who read the Talmud-or at least own their own copy at home- than there are in the Jewish state of Israel. Much more.

“So we too will become geniuses”

“We were very curious about the high academic achievements of the Jews,” explains South Korea’s Ambassador to Israel, Young Sam Mah, who was recently a host on the program “Culture Today.”

“Jews have a high percentage of Nobel laureates in all fields: literature, science and economics. This is a remarkable achievement. We tried to understand what is the secret of the Jewish people? How they-more than other people-are able to reach those impressive accomplishments. Why are Jews so intelligent? The conclusion we arrived at is that one of your secrets is that you study the Talmud.”

“Jews study the Talmud at a young age, and it helps them, in our opinion, to develop mental capabilities. This understanding led us to teach our children as well. We believe that if we teach our children Talmud, they will also become geniuses. This is what stands behind the rationale of introducing Talmud Study to our school curriculum.”

Young says that he himself studied the Talmud at a very young age: “It is considered very significant study,” he emphasized. The result is that more Koreans have Talmud sets in their homes than do the Jews in Israel.

“I, for example, have two sets of the Talmud: the one my wife bought me, and the second was a gift from my mother.”

Groupies of Jews

Koreans don’t only like the Talmud because they see it as promoting genius, but because they found values that are ​​close to their hearts.

“In the Jewish tradition, family values ​​are very, very important,” explains the South Korean Ambassador.

“You see it even today in your practice of the Friday evening family meal. In my country we also focus on family values. The respect for adults, and respect and appreciation for the elderly, parallels the high esteem in my country for the elderly.”

Another very significant issue is the respect for education. In the Jewish tradition, parents have a duty to teach their children, and they devote to it lots of attention. For Korean parents, their children’s education is a top priority.