Agnes Adler is a little pixie of a thing with a musical Hungarian accent. As she and her husband David walk into a room, she tells him to smile, to say hello, not to be a grump, and he lovingly responds, “Yes, Mammi, whatever you say.” He is wont to stay in the background, however, as an invisible flying buttress, supporting her in artistic endeavors and much more, while also creating his own massive sculptures.

David stands a full head taller than his wife, continues to smile the smile of the gentlemen chauvinists of his generation. He and Aggie love to sharpen their blades on their wit and humor. She complains, “I have to do everything and he expects me to wait on him hand and foot. Men! Impossible!”

Two years after the earthquake that devastated Haiti, medical students at Quisqueya University earlier this month took part in the island nation’s first “White Coat Ceremony,” marking the commitment of medical students there to providing compassionate, patient-based care.

This symbolic ritual for future doctors, now common at U.S. and Israeli medical schools, was introduced in 1993 by the Englewood Cliffs-based Arnold P. Gold Foundation. It has since spread to 18 countries, including Afghanistan, Japan, and now Haiti, thanks to the efforts of Tenafly resident Dr. Galit M. Sacajiu.

“Some of you may be asking yourselves, when medical school buildings and operating rooms have yet to be rebuilt and a single medical textbook is a luxury, when we have no laboratories, and so many of our brothers and sisters still live in makeshift homes, why invest in an event such as this ceremony of humanism in medicine?” asked Sacajiu, in her remarks at the Jan. 16 ceremony.

With the Jewish communities of Bergen County on heightened alert, some 200 religious and community leaders gathered on Jan. 12 to discuss the recent string of anti-Semitic incidents in the county with law enforcement and government officials.

The meeting followed by one day the most recent, and most serious, attack — a firebombing that could have claimed the lives of eight people. The incident targeted the old Queen Anne building in Rutherford that houses Orthodox Congregation Beth El, as well as the home of its rabbi and his family. Five of the eight potential victims were children.

WASHINGTON – March 5 is shaping up to be a crucial day in the effort to rein in Iran’s nuclear program.

In Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will convene to consider its inspectors’ latest report on Iran’s nuclear program. The last such report came closer than ever to indicting the Iranian regime for making weapons, and it helped spur stronger international sanctions against Tehran.

Several hours later, in Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will deliver a speech to an American Israel Public Affairs policy conference about what should happen next with Iran. Either before or after the AIPAC meeting, Netanyahu likely will meet with President Barack Obama to discuss Iran options.

WASHINGTON – When America’s top intelligence official said that Iran’s regime is considering attacks on U.S. soil, he cited a single incident and qualified the assessment with a “probably.”

Intelligence and law enforcement experts, however, say that the Jan. 31 warning by the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, was likely based on more than the evidence he cited.

“I would be surprised to learn a statement like that was not backed up by intelligence,” said Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

News reports notwithstanding, “There is no indication that there are any specific and/or imminent threats to Jewish communities in the U.S. at this time as a result of recent events,” according to an alert received this week by the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey. Nevertheless, the alert said, that could change “should military action break out in the Middle East in coming months.”

An open attack on Iran is only one “trigger” that could raise the threat level, the alert said. “Increased pressure from sanctions, continued perceived threats from Israel, the United States, and others, sabotage against nuclear facilities, and continued alleged assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists” could also bring about an Iranian response aimed at Jewish or Israeli targets in the West, especially the United States.