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I googled a bit and found as a top hit an article in Amer. J. Pysch. from the early 1990s that surveyed abusers and found that 35% of male abusers were themselves abused; there was no correlation for female abusers. I think abuse included all kinds of abuse. They did not address in this study what % of victims become abusers.
Reading a bit more, I found that one factor that contributed to a victim becoming an abuser was that they believed that what they experienced was not bad- i.e. that they deserved the abuse, that other adults supported the abuser.
I think this is the critical point-as TLIK stated, victims are not doomed to repeat the cycle. But if we want victims to heal and become productive, healthy members of society, then we must acknowledge the abuse, oust the abusers, deal with problems and not hide them under the rug as was done in previous times, and of course, doing so prevents the abuse from continuing and the abuser from gathering more victims.Studies have shown that many abusers were abused themselves in the past.
Pushing things under the rug, ignoring an issue because it “only” affects a small minority, seems like the best way to perpetuate the cycle, to the point where the small minority won’t be so small anymore, R”L. Is that what we want as a community, or do we want to take precautions that will safeguard all of our children?CS, your positive attitude is refreshing, but I think limited to your own narrow experience.
“Although there is still war today, it is not nationalistic ideal it used to be, but is seen as bad, and only to be used as a last resort.”
Perhaps that is how it is viewed by the US and western countries, but the US is not the whole world. Does not apply to ISIS, Syria, Iran, Russia, N Korea.“Cooperation is values much more today than competition. The attitude is we all win together instead of winners and losers.”
Sure, that is why Trump needs to impose tariffs, why China steals intellectual property, why Europe was so eager for the sanctions on Iran to end so they could trade there..etc. Ok, maybe there is a new trend in kids’ board games to follow a cooperative rather than competitive model, but the real world has a ways to go to that end.“families considered poor today have homes, electricity, meat and chicken, fridges and more.”
Yes, in western countries today’s poor have more than the poor of the shtetle in Eastern Europe, but there are plenty of families who don’t have meat and chicken in their fridges, whose electricity get turned off when they don’t pay their bills, not to mention the majority who live in third world countries who don’t have the basics that have become the standard in the west.“not perfect yet, although there is a general trend of a search for meaning, …”
This is very reassuring to British Jews whose chinuch is threatened by the new liberal norms, by the sweeping moral change in the western countries where wrong has become right, and right is vilified as wrong.
Where anything goes, and those who protest the change in long-accepted status quos are considered evil. if anything, one can argue that we are getting farther from that ideal, and that is davka a sign of mashiach, when the world and its values turn upside-down.But of course you are right, we are closer to Geula now than we were 100 years ago, just as we were closer 100 years ago than we were 200 years ago.
Because we as a society are not the same as the generations of the gemara. Our kavonos are not the same, our madreiga is not the same, and so what worked then does not necessarily work now.
Without commenting about whether the current system is flawed, and how it can be be improved upon, we need to find a system that is appropriate for now and here. Just as our chinuch system has “evolved” with time – and with the support our current rabbanim- and does not conform to the way children and men were taught in the time of the gemara, so too the shidduch system.
Besides, I don’t think that the proposal is meant as an end to the shadchan, or as a way for boys to be together with women, as you say. It’s purpose is to jump-start the shidduch, get people to meet who might not ordinarily meet, and not for random mingling and breaking down of barriers between boys/girls. The question is how to achieve the first goal in an effective, productive manner, without the second happening as a consequence, which I think is what worries people about the proposal.The verb for praying is in binyan hispael- l’hispallel, meaning the one praying is effecting (the e is not a typo) a change on himself. When one is praying at a kever, similar to a makom kadosh like the kosel, he is more likely to get inspired, by thinking about the tzaddik, how he lived, what Hashem wants from us (along the lines of what R’ Miller is saying in Joseph’s quote), and thus more likely to approach the tefilla in a way that it makes a difference in himself, his growth, and thus his tefilla has more meaning, and is more likely to be accepted.
It is simplistic to view a trip to Kever Rochel as an opportunity to ask Mamma Rochel to intervene for us. But rather, it could be used as an opportunity to think about galus, about what it means for Mamma Rochel’s children to be far from their borders, about Rochel’s sacrifice for Leah, about her yearning for children. These thoughts can inspire our own yearnings, and hence change our tefillos.The system works similarly in Israel. For example, on the light rail in Yerushalayim, you prepay to get a ticket (and risk missing the train) or use a pre-loaded/pre-paid smart card (RavKav) , which is then inserted into one of multiple machines located in each car of the train, which then spits out a receipt. No one prevents people who don’t pay from getting on. But they have inspectors spot checking the passengers for their tickets, and will give big fines to those who don’t pay. It’s a strong deterrent, although I am sure there are those who get away without paying, the money brought in by fines more than makes up for it. Same principle behind paid parking as well. Most pay because they are either law abiding and/or do not want to risk getting an expensive ticket, some will get away without paying, and some will get fined and be a source of revenue to the city.
Trust is a big factor when it comes to people’s health, so people turn to brand names since their name recognition often inspires more trust, rightly or wrongly. Even those people who routinely buy the generic/store brand for other items, when it comes to health, they want the best and are afraid that saving money will ultimately compromise their health. It’s the same reasoning behind why people insist on going to THE top doctor for medical procedures (and will pay out of pocket or fund-raise, because their insurance doesn’t cover that Dr), when often enough, the procedure is simple and any good doctor with reasonable experience can handle it just as well as the top Dr.
when I was in HS, one the regents was canceled one year because the exam was stolen and the answers published on the front page of one of the NY dailies. The smiling face of the yeshiva student responsible also filled the front pages and made a huge chilul Hashem.
The answer then and now is NO.Also, to add to Midwest’s comments, the drug company invests big $$$ in many drugs that fail clinical trials and never make it to the market, so the profit from those that actually are successful needs to cover the R&D costs of the failures as well. Makers of generic drugs, if that is all they do, don’t have that issue.
That everyone will change their usernames so that they are longer than their posts.
Once upon a time, in the early-mid 20th century America, very few men wanted to sit and learn, and fewer women wanted to marry those type. After all, to the early immigrants, parnassa meant survival, not starving. There was no older generation to provide support, mostly, married women did not work.
But now the pendulum has swung in the other direction. The default for the boys is to sit and learn, and the girls are taught/trained to want that for their futures, and instead of being scorned, the bnei Torah are highly valued. It has worked because there are parents who are willing to support and women who are willing to work and have opportunities that did not exist 2-3 generations back. If you think about it, it is amazing and proves the strength of Torah learning in our community – a bracha considering what was lost in the Holocaust.
It also creates a new set of problems- financial stress, which will only grow as the learners’ children get married and don’t have parents to support them, and perhaps contributes to shidduch issues, for those bochurim who can’t/don’t want to learn full time, and for the top girls who outnumber the top learners. It also creates a class society- with the learning bochurm at the top, and the rest considered second-rate.
Given time, and some forward thinking, I think the system can correct itself, pendulums don’t stay to one side forever- girls will be honest with themselves and find appropriate matches among the available bochurim. The external pressure to stay in learning no matter what will decrease as more options open simply because they are needed. There will still be the learners, who will be valued (the shevet Levi, so to speak), and those girls who really want to marry them, but the alternative choice will grow and as it grows, it will no longer be stigmatized. I don’t think the next generation will look like this one.CTRebbe,
1. the concept of supply and demand was not invented here on the CR. Basic Eco101. It makes a lot of sense- it explains why the price of tomatoes goes up if the tomato crop was affected by bad weather, why oil prices go down when OPEC releases more oil reserves, and why the US govt buys up surplus wheat to save farmers from plunging wheat prices. The question is whether it applies here.
2. Volume: If they are making fewer hats, then they are making less money, and perhaps the business will no longer be viable. Unless they mark up the hats so they can provide their product to the fewer costumers who want them. That’s the concept of volume: if you sell a large volume of any item, you can sell it for less and still make a profit. That’s why bigger supermarket chains can charge less for the same item sold in a Mom&Pop’s minimarket.
3. Quality: Keep in mind, that unlike a lot of clothing, hats are not mass produced in China where they can be made cheaply and therefore sold cheaply in places like Walmart. Hat making is a skill, much of it done by hand. Here’s a line from Borsalino’s website: “The uniqueness of the Borsalino product lies in its production process: made of fine fur felt (rabbit or hare) it passes through around fifty production phases and it takes an average of seven weeks’ work to finish every hat.” I imagine wool hats are cheaper than hats made from fur, imitation felt cheaper than fur felt.AviK- just because some individual non-Jews learned Yiddish from their Jewish neighbors does not take away from the fact that they were speaking the language associated with Jews and spoken mostly by this community.
If your primary language was Yiddish and your neighbor’s Polish, and you spoke YIddish at home, even if both you and your neighbor knew enough of each other’s language to sell each other eggs or whatever, still, the difference in language kept you apart.LC, I don’t know what circles you run in, but your comment does not reflect the situations that I know, and I think you are being wrongly judgemental and maligning a whole generation of girls.
When I was single and dating (many years ago, before the term shidduch crisis was coined), I knew many wonderful, good girls, who were attractive and had great personalities who had a hard time. For me, dating 5-6 boys a year was normal, and I think it was similar for many of my friends. Many weeks, sometimes even months, went by with no suggestions, no phone calls, lots of dead ends. It wasn’t because I had an unrealistic fantasy or thought too highly of myself, and I don’ think that was true of any of my single friends.I don’t know any girl who is holding out for someone with big bucks. If they are still young, then so is the boy, and who would expect a 23 yr old to already have a top paying job? If anything, the opposite is true, as has been said before on the CR in various threads. Sincere girls come home from seminary wanting to marry a good learner, top boy who will stay in kollel. In order to make their dreams work, they will go to college and/or get good jobs, so they can support their families while their husbands learn. Since it is far easier to be a top girl than a top boy, and there just aren’t enough top guys to go around. Which is why whitecar and I would venture to guess the OP had it/are having it hard, they don’t fit the bill of that top learner that the girls have been taught to want to marry. At some point, as the girls get older, and fewer of the guys are in long-term learning, they have to re-evaluate their priorities, and will give up on their seminary dreams, as reality changes the situation.
Symptoms of bochur being affected by the shidduch crisis:
– has a list of great girls pages long
– phone is ringing off the hook with shidduch suggestions months before he comes home from learning in Israel
– is being urged to go out at age 21 to close the age gap
– has so many good suggestions, that he can limit the ones he dates to those who live within a 10-min car drive
– has a hard time taking any suggestion seriously, because there is always another one on the listSomehow, I have a feeling you were not thinking of the above when you started this thread.
Dating and finding one’s Bshert can be hard for both girl and boy, whether they have lots of dates or few dates. Defining it as a crisis does little good if it means that you panic and feel the situation is hopeless. It is hard, but this is the place you are meant to be right now, this is the challenge you are meant to overcome. You will find the right one, in the right time, the important thing is to continue growing and becoming the most you can be as you travel that road, no matter how short or long it is, whether it is smooth or bumpy.As pointed out above, the argument that Yiddish is holy because it was the language used to learn Torah is flawed because there are many languages used to learn Torah, and no one is going to claim that they are holy.
I have a different take, inspired by ChabadShlucha’s thread on holiness:
If we define kodesh as something set aside, separate, then one can argue that Yiddish is Kadosh because it separated the Jewish people from others- although similar to German, it was the language of the Jews, it made them distinct from their non-Jewish neighbors for many years, and also bonded Jews from different regions- at least those hailing from European countries. Same with Ladino in its time. (My father once taught Russian immigrants recently arrived in the US in the 1990s. He was able to communicate with them by speaking Yiddish with some of the old timers, who then translated to the younger ones). One can also argue that as Yiddish loses this function, it loses its status as Kadosh.Indoor plumbing has to be way up there.
Eyeglasses (were there fewer vision issues long ago? Did it not matter when people did not need to drive or operate heavy equipment, and very few were literate?)DovidBT, I think food wraps became necessary when leftover food storage became practical- with invention of fridge/freezer. Before that they managed because their need wan’t so great.
My shita would be to make the decision based on the advice of the kid’s doctors, teachers, and other professionals who know him/her and not on a poll taken in the CR.
LC, so we’re both right- I was referring to passports issued in Israel, you were referring to those issued by embassies outside of Israel. Apparently the embassies do not have the ability to issue the biometric passport. Note that it’s relatively new, so it could be eventually the database technology would be available in embassies as well, and they would be able to issue them?
Avi, I am not an expert on bituach leumi, all I know is what I have heard from people who have left who have had issues. I think if they get an exemption, then when they come back to Israel there is a significant waiting period until bituach leumi kicks in again and they can sign up for kupa- something that could be an issue for many people, especially those with small children who spend lots of time at doctors.
LC, not sure what site you are looking at, but both in Hebrew and in English, the Population Authority of the MIsrad HPnim’s website states that adult passports are valid for 10 years unless you don’t let them save your fingerprints.Some clarifications
1. status of children of non-citizens who were born in Israel – I know of American kollel couples who had children born while they were in Israel on student visas. Their kids would have become Israelli citizens, to avoid that they had to go down to the misrad hapnim and deny/forgo citizenship.
2. Being a citizen does not equal having a passport. One can have citizenship and never apply for a passport, as long as one does not have to travel in/out of the country.
3. There is no advantage to getting Israeli citizenship if one lives in the US. As LC said, you technically have to pay bituach leumi even while in Chul, which would be a problem if you would then move to Israel and apply for medical coverage- you would owe all that back bituach leumi. Trips to Israel will be more complicated if you are a male above 18 who is eligible for the draft. Also, if you do want to make Aliya, you may not qualify for certain benefits as a Toshav Chozer vs a new Oleh. As far as expenses, tourists can get VAT back at the airport for some purchases, Israelis can’t. But hotels charge more for tourists than they do for locals. There used to be 2 price lists in some places- I am not sure if that was actually legal. If G-d forbid one had to flee the US and wanted to take refuge in Israel, the Law of Return would guarantee you would be able to move to Israel even if you did not previously have citizenship/passport, as long as you can prove you’re Jewish.
4. The new Israeli biometric passport is still valid for 10 years for adults (5 years for kids) unless you don’t agree to save your fingerprints in the database. Adult passport costs as little as $45 if you pay online during the winter months, if you pay in the local misrad hapnim it is around $75. So it’s way cheaper than a US passport (renewal $110/adult, first time $145). Don’t know how much it costs to renew it from outside of Israel.For someone living in Israel, I assume?
1. As citizen, you get thru passport control quicker on both ends.
2. Don’t need to apply for a visa to go to the US.
3. eligible for US child allowances, depending on income
4. can be eligible for college scholarships like Pell Grants. I know students in “seminars” who have gotten money to pay for their secular degrees that way.
Just be aware with 3,4 there have been a lot of cases of fraud- and there has been a crack-down to make sure claims are legitimate, not as easy as it used to be to qualify.
That’s about it that I can think of…
it’s offset by having to apply and pay for 2 sets of passports if flying between US and Israel, having to file/pay taxes in both countries (even if exempt from actually paying, there is still the pain of the paperwork, FACTAs, hiring an accountant, possibility of being audited by IRS, dealing with the banks who make you fill out all these forms, etc)
And of course, if you want to be an MK, you’d have to give up your American citizenship.Yup, Nechomah, that’s what we did, after meeting at one of the nearby hotels, we walked to Kosel and got there in time for Nishmas.
JD, these are good ideas for 2nd and 3rd etc dates too!Zoo and botanical gardens are great places, but have $$$ entrance fees, by Israeli standards, and are not open evenings.
There are many nice (and free) places to walk that are close to the popular hotels so you can meet there for convenience and then walk- Yemin Moshe/MIshkenot Shaananim area, Gan Hapa’amon, Independence Park, the Rose Garden, the large park behind the Israel Museum (officially called valley of the cross, ignore the monastery at the far end), Gan Sacher. If you are not worried about running into/meetings natives, a stroll through any nice neighborhood (e.g. Kiryat Moshe, Nahalat Shiva, Rehaiva, the Old City, etc) and stopping off in any local park you pass can also be nice on a cool evening. I suggest you bring drinks or buy in the hotel.
Shopping- you are right, except this one gets a lot of international attention. I think major protests against it will not stop it – despite what the frum minority thinks, as ZD said, it is very important and a source of pride to a lot of secular Israelis, and an opportunity to gain political points by having the world gather in Yerushalayim. Public protests will surely lead to much maligning of the frum population in the international press, which will just add to the Chilul Hashem. When the pride parade took place in Jerusalem, many gedolim said the best thing to do was to ignore it, not to feed the publicity. Could be that will be the position in this case as well, as pained as we are by the chilul shabbos and anti-Torah culture. Maybe the frum municipal council members will be able to work behind the scenes, at least to minimize chilul shabbos- the coming election will determine how much power they can wield in such matters.
Ready now, how does posting to YW a petition to stop the contest influence any of the people who will actually be running the contest?A teacher once proposed a theory that it is a musical term used by the conductor for the Leviim’s song. Don’t remember if it was just a theory or there were any perushim to back it up.
I’ve switched to pure cane/demerara sugar- it’s yellow/brown. I am trying to convince myself it is more healthy since it is less processed (definitely more expensive) but have no data to support that.
I’ll answer your last question- because siddurim sell well. Shuls buy them in bulk, plus multiple copies in each home, usually at least one per family member. They get worn out much more than other sefarim. Each publishing company has to have their own version of course. Artscroll has to have different versions for the many donors/sponsors.
True, Gananit, and it would be much more appropriate and logistically feasible to have it in say Tel Aviv, but the host country usually hosts in their capital, and for Israel to host anywhere but Jerusalem would be a statement that they do not want to make.
The chilul shabbos is a real issue since the event always takes place Saturday night, and this time of the year Shabbos is out late. I can’t see the frum population of Yerushalayim accepting it without protest. If a frum mayor is elected in the coming months, perhaps it could be avoided.
which brings me back to the best solution- that Moshiach should come before the Eurovision does. Despite GH’s cynicism, waiting and believing in Moshiach’s imminent arrival is an eker emunah for chabad and non-chabad alike.This won’t be the first time Israel is playing host- last time, around 20 yrs ago it was held in Jerusalem’s International Convention Center, more famously known as Binyanei Hauma. Apparently, it’s too small to hold the current event- only 2 sites in Jerusalem are large enough for a 10,000+ crowd, and sorry, GH, the King David Hotel is not one of them.
Let’s daven that by next year, the world’s perspective will have changed and the goyim will flock to Yerushalyim to hear Dvar hashem and witness the true glory of the Jewish people.29- Wisdom or Wigsdom?
screwdriver, the justification (and payment) is that she is getting a lot of kavod by being picked as the top girl in her seminary. Being valedictorian comes with giving a speech, whether in 8th grade, or 12th or college. If she finds that too difficult, or thinks of it as dirty work, or needs her parent to go complain to her principal about it, then maybe they really did choose the wrong girl. I assume however that the girl really has no problem, and the parent is just playing troll.
GoogleTranslate strikes again. Bet original was in Chinese.
When I saw this post and another like it waiting for moderation over shabbos (shabbos was over already in my time zone but not in mods) I thought for sure this must be some promotional and that the mods would never let it through.Start a thread on YWN.
while Chaver is correct in that Yerushalayim is more traditional, which goes back to the days of the Old Yishuv’s fight against the attempts to change the yeshiva curriculum by outsiders, and that yeshivas teaching secular studies were banned from the city, you will find some exceptions to that today, as onetime mentioned- generally these schools do not scream out to the public about what they do. Givat Zeev is outside of Yerushalayim, is a newer community with lots of Anglos and I would not be surprised if there existed something of the nature that assurnet described. “Out of town” communities tend to be more relaxed and have a wider range of types. Sorry I don’t know anything specific about these areas though.
Not necessarily, Nechomah. There are chadarim, albeit on the far end of the chariedi spectrum, that give more extensive/solid limudei chol. I don’t know about givat zev or ramot, but where I live there are many types of chadarim. There are a couple where it is not unusual for the boys to go on to a Yeshiva Ketana like Maarava or Nehorah where Bagriyot are an option. I have heard of a similar cheder in Har Nof. While some would not consider these “real” chadarim by Israeli standards, for a chutznik/new oleh, they may be very much what they are used to and want for their kids.
I have a theory that like many of the issues we have today, the situation of girls not finding a shidduch has always existed to some extent (In the alte heim, if a girl could not afford a dowry, she had very little chance of getting a shidduch. In early 20th century America, it was hard for a frum person to find another frum person to marry.) but now it is more noticeable because the frum population has B”H grown so much over the recent past, so that even if the % has not gotten larger, it translates to a much larger number, a greater critical mass so to speak that requires community attention. Also, the world is a smaller place- so that we are more aware of the problems that exist beyond our small communities. And since unlike past generations where the struggle to just survive and remain frum took up so much effort, now we can “afford” to notice other pressing issues affecting our communities.
Small order…
the closer you are to Jerusalem, the more expensive it will be. Areas like Givat Zev and Telzstone are relatively expensive. There’s Tel Zion, but it’s not very anglo, and although very close to Jerusalem, it’s in an area near Ramalla and you would pass lots of Arab villages on the way from Jerusalem, which has limited its desirability.
How far is “somewhat near Jerusalem”? If you take a liberal interpretation of that, and want a more rural/subsarban lifestyle, then you can consider moshavim/yishuvim like Matityahu, Beit Hilkiya or Maale Amos.
You can find a bit of green space in popular cities such as Bet Shemesh, Beitar and Kiryat Sefer, which are relatively close to Jerusalem. Most neighborhoods, especially ones marketed to Anglos, will have a limited number of “cottages”- attached private homes or even “villot”- detached homes that have gardens. And some of those stacked apartments will have gardens if they are ground level. But those options are much more expensive than the typical stacked apartment with a porch.Yes Joseph- the Bais Yaakovs that are part of the chinuch atzmai system under misrad hachinuch teach English – starting from 3rd grade I think. I know BY girls who have studied English and I know women who have taught it, and seminaries that have programs to train English teachers. It’s pretty basic though, and unless the girl is in a “dovrei Anglit” class, they don’t come out actually speaking English.
I have no idea what they do in the unrecognized BY schools.Gadol- I am not sure if you are referring to girls from anglo homes who are bilingual, or the typical Israeli girls who learn English in school. I don’t think the latter feel comfortable actually using the language, it’s not enough immersion to actually be bilingual, in contrast to secular Israelis whose classroom English is reinforced by movies and TV in English, so that they can speak English relatively well. But there are plenty of the former, and I find that many kids from families that were olim tend to marry other olim or kids of olim, and not native Israelis. There are also many single girls who stay in E”Y after seminary, or come back after college, and want to live in E”Y. I would imagine that group would be a good place for the OP to focus on. The several thousands of 18-19 yr old girls who are studying in seminaries would not be the right place for the OP to look- they usually do not start dating until they go back to the US, and I doubt most would be eager to date someone 8-9 yrs older, although it can happen.
from all this we see why it is important to have a LOCAL competent rav- since the conditions may be very different from place to place, especially when it comes to environment-dependent things like bug infestations. I can’t resist but to say…when in Rome, do like the Romans.
Health, I gave facts, not assumptions. Personally, I don’t count college anatomy labs as critical medical research. I think science will continue even if college kids don’t get to dissect a cat. In these days of computer simulations, I wonder why it is even necessary for most people taking science courses to do any animal dissections- can’t it be done virtually? How many of these students will actually need that sort of experience for their actual careers? Med students will dissect cadavers in med school, that should be enough.
I have no problem using animals for experiments, but it should be for a real purpose.Scientists would not want to use random animals from a shelter for medical experiments- too many variables, too many differences that will distort the results and make it impossible to interpret the outcome of the experiment. Did Fluffy live longer than Fido after taking medicine X because medicine X worked, or because Fido was weaker after living on the streets for 2 years?
Scientists who use animals like mice and rats use ones that are bred for that purpose- their genetic background is known and the same in all animals used for the experiment, they are matched by age and often gender, they are kept in sterile, germ free housing, they are fed the same food, have the same day/night cycles, etc. Research with larger animals is rarer, mostly because they take longer to breed and are more expensive to keep, and are not as practical, although sometimes it is necessary to use a larger animal more similar to a human, like monkeys for neuroscience research.Joseph-No, actually I am talking about Americans living in Israel- like me, not tourists. Go to the websites of the consulate and embassy citizens service and you will see them state clearly that the consulate is for residents of Jerusalem and West Bank. Remember, embassies are under the State Dept, which still prints place of birth as Jerusalem without listing Israel, even after Trump’s declaration. That’s why I believe that if you reside in what is recognized as Israel, you are sent to Tel Aviv (or Haifa), and if you reside if an area officially thought to be occupied, you are sent to Jerusalem. There are separate appointment scheduling systems for each. I have heard of residents of other areas try to go to the consulate, could be some got through and were serviced, but officially that is not the policy, and personally, considering the hassle and wait involved in an embassy/consulate visit, I wouldn’t risk being turned away for going to the wrong place. Tourists would just go to whatever is nearest if they had some problems during their visit. Having the embassy moved to Jerusalem changes things – and I would much rather go to Jerusalem then Tel Aviv; it’s a real pain getting to the site of the current embassy. Of course, the most convenient is when the embassy comes to you- which believe it or not, it does once a year in my town.
Malach-n o, the embassy that is located at the moment in Tel Aviv provides citzen’s services such as passport applications, report of birth or death, SS applications, etc, and visa applications for non-citizens who reside in Israel. In addition, there are consulates in Jersualem and Haifa, to serve the local populations there. The consulate in Jerusalem provides services for residents of Jerusalem and the West Bank only. So if Shopping does not live in those areas, she has to officially go to Tel Aviv, until they move the embassy to Jerusalem (although she can renew her adult passport by mail, then she doesn’t have to go anywhere).
I am wondering though if they will keep the Tel Aviv site active as a consulate, as a convenience to people who live in that area.I don’t know anything about Charter Oak, but I can explain in general how these things work.
Many seminaries/yeshivas offer classes that can be used to earn college credit, if the student is simultaneously enrolled in a college such as Charter Oak. These credits can then be transferred to other colleges, and used as blanket credits, or even in some cases, can fulfill certain required core courses. It helps a student finish their degrees quicker, they can enter college as sophomores or even juniors, depending on whether they also got credit during HS, such as APs. Once they are transferred, it is the second college that counts in terms of whether the degree is recognized. If they get the whole degree from the first college, then it depends on the college and the masters program. You will need to check whether and by whom the college is accredited. If it is a regionally accredited school, it should be acceptable, unless a program has very high standards and you need, say, an Ivy league degree and 4.0 avg to get in. If she has a particular masters program in mind, she can check whether they will accept a degree from Charter Oak and what prerequisites she may need.
In general, having a BA does little to get one a job, and most professional fields will require a Masters, either before employment, or in parallel. Exceptions include computers (where a practical, dedicated training course is probably more valuable than a BA in theoretical computers) and accounting (where you have to take the CPA afterwards) or actuary sciences (where there are advanced courses and tests to take while employed). Because of this, and because college environment is not so compatible with a frum lifestyle, many frum young people will try to take the quickest route possible to earn their BA, often through their seminaries or yeshivos, and then concentrate on the Masters or graduate program.Mothers with large families may have young children at home for many years, and don’t go to shul on shabbos. Some live in areas where there is no eruv or they don’t hold by it so they can’t carry their young children or use carriages. Even when there is an eruv, many mothers don’t feel it is appropriate to take young children to shul where they may disturb. Their young daughters may feel uncomfortable going to shul without their mothers sitting next to them, showing them what to do etc. And since for girls there is no obligation to daven with a minyan or hear kriyas Hatorah, and their mothers are not modeling shul going, they do not go even as they get Bas MItzva age. So that leaves older girls, singles, and middle-age women+, who often do go to shul on shabbos.
I’m not sure that going to shul is enough in any case to counter the issues that the OP was describing, especially if it turns into a fashion show or involves a shul with lots of talking during davening or leining. I don’t think boys are immune from today’s challenges because they go to shul daily and more frequently on shabbos. Also, just because girls are not in shul, does not mean they havee no means to be connected- they also go to school, seminaries, shiurim, shabbos afternoon programs, etc. Girls can find much meaning in tefilla, especially in private, and that is a way to connect to Hashem even without a minyan and shul.I don’t want to grow up because maybe if I did, I wouldn’t be a Toys R Us kid…
I remember getting my first bike as an afeikomon present. It was pink and white with tassels on the handlebars.
Toys R Us was a chol hamoed traditional outing for us…My favorite sections were the books and the stuffed animal aisle. (yes, it was a long time ago) Now when I buy my kids toys, it’s Amazon. But the last time we were in the US, we took our then 3 yr old to Toys R Us just for the experience. He tried out all the cars and played with the toys on display. Can’t do that on Amazon.