Yemenite family from Satmar want to isra

NEW YORK - Na'ama Al-Nahari, a woman of Yemenite origin, and five of her 12 children were smuggled out of the ultra-Orthodox township of Monsey, N.Y., on Tuesday and flown to Israel on El Al, in a Jewish Agency covert operation that had been in the works for a few months.




According to the plan, a larger number of Yemenites living in Monsey were to be smuggled to Israel, but Satmar Hasidim in the township discovered the preparations and prevented their departure.

On Tuesday morning, Al-Nahari's five children were dressed in their school uniforms to mislead the neighbors. Early in the morning the family's belongings were put on a truck, and the mother and children were taken to the Israeli consulate in New York where they received visas to Israel. In the afternoon, the mother and children were taken to the airport and put on a flight to Israel.

Some 70 Yemenites who were brought from Yemen to New York by Satmar Hasidim a few years ago are believed to be living in Monsey, but the ultra-Orthodox community refuses to provide any information about them and their condition.

The Jewish Agency discovered that a few Yemenite families wanted to leave Monsey and immigrate to Israel, but an attempt to smuggle out a few families three months ago was foiled after the hasidim learned of the plan. A Jewish Agency source said efforts to bring the Yemenites to Israel will continue.

El Al slaps fine on smuggled Yemenite family

By Zohar Blumenkrantz, Haaretz Correspondent



El Al slapped a $250 fine for overweight luggage on the Yemenite family that was smuggled out of the ultra-Orthodox township of Monsey, New York, on Tuesday and that arrived in Israel Wednesday night.




Na'ama Al-Nahari and five of her 12 children were flown to Israel in a Jewish Agency covert operation that had been in the works for a few months.

The fine, imposed by El Al representatives at J.F. Kennedy Airport in New York, has drawn harsh criticism from immigration officials involved in bringing the family to Israel.

"Is this how El Al, Israel's national airline, welcomes the new immigrants who arrive in the country?" commented a source involved in the operation. "Instead of playing a role in the Zionist enterprise and immortalizing the arrival in the country of this special family of immigrants from Yemen, El Al chose to shame the family and demand payment of a fine for having more than two suitcases per passenger."

Some 70 Yemenites who were brought from Yemen to New York by Satmar Hasidim a few years ago are believed to be living in Monsey, but the ultra-Orthodox community refuses to provide any information about them and their condition.

The Jewish Agency discovered that a few of the families wanted to leave Monsey and immigrate to Israel, but an attempt to smuggle out a few families three months ago was foiled after the Hasidim learned of the plan. A Jewish Agency source said efforts to bring the Yemenites to Israel would continue.

Agency claims it rescued family
By STEVE LIEBERMAN AND ERIK N. NELSON
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: June 4, 2004)

A Jewish family who came from Yemen to Rockland became the center of international controversy yesterday after a pro-Israel agency claimed it rescued family members from the Satmar Hasidim.

As soon as Na'ama Nahari and five of her 12 children landed in Israel on Wednesday, the Jewish Agency claimed she and her family had been held against their will in Monsey by members of the Satmar Hasidic community, which brought the family to the United States in 1998.

The agency's assertions were denied yesterday by one of Nahari's children in Monsey and by Chaim Fruend, a Kiryas Joel resident who said he brought the Nahari family to the United States from the Arab country. Fifteen members of the Nahari family remain in New York.

The exodus of Nahari and five of her children to Israel pitted an agency that helps Jews immigrate to Israel against the Satmars, who oppose the state of Israel until it is established by the coming of the Messiah. The Satmars have actively brought Yemenite Jews to the United States rather than Israel for nearly two decades.

"I have no idea why they made up those things, these lies," Yechil Nahari, 23, of Monsey said yesterday of the Jewish Agency. "We are free to do what we want and the Satmars helped us a lot. My mother went to Israel because her mother is very sick. No one tried to stop her."

Mezal Nahari, 20, one of Nahari's daughters in Monsey, said her mother took the younger children because the youngsters wanted to be with her. She spoke for her father, Saeed, because he doesn't speak English.

"I don't know if they are coming back," she said yesterday.

Michael Landsberg, who runs the Jewish Agency's Aliyah Delegation in North America, said yesterday that he respects and understands Yechil Nahari's views.

Landsberg said the agency first attempted to bring the whole family to Israel in December. He said their departure was stopped when two of the younger children couldn't make the flight because they were taken on a "play date" at the last minute by the Satmars.

"The family wanted to come to Israel," Landsberg said. "A representative of the family, just like other families in the past, came to us and asked for assistance to move to Israel."

Landsberg, whose family died in the Holocaust, said the organization's mission is to bring Jews to Israel, or rescue them from oppressive conditions. For decades, the agency has spirited Jewish refugees out of nations including Syria, Iran and Iraq.

"The Satmar promised to take them to a 'golden land,' but when they got here they found themselves in more of a Yiddish-speaking shtetl," Landsberg said, using the Yiddish word for small, insular town. "I am serving my people."

A Israeli Consulate official in New York would neither confirm nor deny the report, but said smuggling is definitely not something Israel is not involved in under any circumstances.

Israel does embrace the "law of return" principle, which allows the government to grant immigration visas to those Jews who wish to return to Israel. Israel and organizations like the Jewish Agency spend millions of dollars yearly on housing, education, and job training for refugees.

The issue of Yemenites and other Jews being spirited from Arab countries started with the founding of Israel in 1948, when nearly 90 percent of Yemen's 60,000 Jews were airlifted to Israel in what became known as "Operation Magic Carpet."

Many of the Yemenite Jews have maintained their ultra-Orthodox traditions going back 2,500 years. The traditions include reading the Bible in Aramaic. During the past two decades, the Satmar Hasidim have raised charitable funds among themselves to bring Yemenite Jews to the United States.

The Nahari family is among more than 168 Yemenite Jews who were brought to the United States from 1993 to 1998, Freund said yesterday. Many of the children were placed with families in Kiryas Joel, a Satmar community in Orange County, and attended schools in the community.

Freund said he started helping them after a Yemenite rabbi wanted the children educated in Jewish traditions, not the secular traditions in Israel. Freund said he had the approval from the community's rabbis in Monsey and Kiryas Joel. He said he many of the children brought here would go back to Yemen, Israel or London.

"We wanted to help Jewish people," Freund said. "We believe in giving charity and our charity was to bring them out from Yemen. We teach them Yiddish, English and help educate them. We respect them and help them keep their traditions."

Freund said he told Na'ama Nahari that if she left for Israel, she might have trouble getting back into the United States because of her immigration status. Freund said she had a green card.

Critics contend the Yemenite Jews are being used by the Satmars and, at times, Israel, and are losing their identity and traditions.

Asrim Issak, president of the Yemenite Jewish Federation of New York, said yesterday that the Satmars respect the Yemenite Jews' devout Judaism and ancient traditions. But, he said, the Satmars don't want the Yemenites immigrating to Israel. He said Satmar schools that accept Yemenite children force them to speak Yiddish and take up Satmar religious customs.

"I am critical of the Satmars and anyone else that bring Jews out of Yemen without a plan to help them," Issak said. "They take them out of Yemen and throw them into the streets without housing, education and jobs."

Moshe Friedman, secretary to Satmar Grand Rebbe Moses Teitelbaum, called the accusations that the Yemenite Jews were held against their will and exploited "ridiculous." He said the Israeli media, advocacy groups and immigration agencies just want to discredit the Satmars and people like Fruend for their charitable work on behalf of Jews.

"Some of the Yemenite people have changed their mind and either don't want to be religious or want to leave," Friedman said. "If they want to go to Israel, that's fine. We don't stop anyone. We don't recruit people."

When Nahari and her children arrived at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv on Wednesday, The Israeli media and Jewish Agency officials were waiting.

Nahari, her three daughters and two sons, ranging in age from 2 to 11, first visited with Nahari's mother in Rehovot and then settled into their temporary quarters in the Israeli government absorption center, south of Tel Aviv.

Such centers are found throughout Israel, featuring spartan apartments, subsidized classes in modern Hebrew, cultural activities and job placement services.

"They're petrified," said Michael Jankelowitz, a Jewish Agency spokesman in Israel. "They're worried about the fate of her husband and four (additional) children."

The Satmars have brought dozens of Yemenite Jews to New York "under the pretext that if they come to Israel, they will be forced to lose their religion, they will be forced to lead a secular life," Jankelowitz said.

The agency has "rescued" other Yemenite Jewish families from New York and two families from a Hasidic sect outside of London, Jankelowitz said.

"They take away their passports and they are held hostage," he said, adding that refugees from Yemen are used in the Satmars' appeals for donations, "but the money never gets to the families."

One of Nahari's daughters spoke New York-accented English to Israeli television crews and other media after arriving at Ben Gurion Airport, saying she looked forward to life in Israel.

When asked if the Jewish Agency was doing what it has accused the Satmar of doing, Jankelowitz said "that's total hogwash. No one kidnapped them. They came on their own free will."

Monsey Rabbi David Eidensohn, who is Hasidic but not affiliated with the Satmars, said Yemenite Jews have a difficult time adjusting to the United States. He said the ultra-Orthodox Yemenite community is respected because their members maintained the ancient cabalist traditions of Judaism.

"People who come from a different country and a primitive lifestyle may not find living here easy," he said. "They are a lost community that really can't find its roots. Some of the Yemenite and Jews have made the transition and some saw the Zionists as their saviours. This whole issue involving the Yemenite Jews is very complicated and doesn't lend itself to a black and white situation."



Erik N. Nelson reported from Tel Aviv. Staff writer Shawn Cohen contributed to this report. Reach Steve Lieberman at slieberm@thejournalnews.com or at 845-578-2443.Erik N. Nelson reported from Tel Aviv. Staff writer Shawn Cohen contributed to this report. Reach Steve Lieberman at slieberm@thejournalnews.com or at 845-578-2443.


Agency claims it rescued family
By STEVE LIEBERMAN AND ERIK N. NELSON
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: June 4, 2004)

A Jewish family who came from Yemen to Rockland became the center of international controversy yesterday after a pro-Israel agency claimed it rescued family members from the Satmar Hasidim.

As soon as Na'ama Nahari and five of her 12 children landed in Israel on Wednesday, the Jewish Agency claimed she and her family had been held against their will in Monsey by members of the Satmar Hasidic community, which brought the family to the United States in 1998.

The agency's assertions were denied yesterday by one of Nahari's children in Monsey and by Chaim Fruend, a Kiryas Joel resident who said he brought the Nahari family to the United States from the Arab country. Fifteen members of the Nahari family remain in New York.

The exodus of Nahari and five of her children to Israel pitted an agency that helps Jews immigrate to Israel against the Satmars, who oppose the state of Israel until it is established by the coming of the Messiah. The Satmars have actively brought Yemenite Jews to the United States rather than Israel for nearly two decades.

"I have no idea why they made up those things, these lies," Yechil Nahari, 23, of Monsey said yesterday of the Jewish Agency. "We are free to do what we want and the Satmars helped us a lot. My mother went to Israel because her mother is very sick. No one tried to stop her."

Mezal Nahari, 20, one of Nahari's daughters in Monsey, said her mother took the younger children because the youngsters wanted to be with her. She spoke for her father, Saeed, because he doesn't speak English.

"I don't know if they are coming back," she said yesterday.

Michael Landsberg, who runs the Jewish Agency's Aliyah Delegation in North America, said yesterday that he respects and understands Yechil Nahari's views.

Landsberg said the agency first attempted to bring the whole family to Israel in December. He said their departure was stopped when two of the younger children couldn't make the flight because they were taken on a "play date" at the last minute by the Satmars.

"The family wanted to come to Israel," Landsberg said. "A representative of the family, just like other families in the past, came to us and asked for assistance to move to Israel."

Landsberg, whose family died in the Holocaust, said the organization's mission is to bring Jews to Israel, or rescue them from oppressive conditions. For decades, the agency has spirited Jewish refugees out of nations including Syria, Iran and Iraq.

"The Satmar promised to take them to a 'golden land,' but when they got here they found themselves in more of a Yiddish-speaking shtetl," Landsberg said, using the Yiddish word for small, insular town. "I am serving my people."

A Israeli Consulate official in New York would neither confirm nor deny the report, but said smuggling is definitely not something Israel is not involved in under any circumstances.

Israel does embrace the "law of return" principle, which allows the government to grant immigration visas to those Jews who wish to return to Israel. Israel and organizations like the Jewish Agency spend millions of dollars yearly on housing, education, and job training for refugees.

The issue of Yemenites and other Jews being spirited from Arab countries started with the founding of Israel in 1948, when nearly 90 percent of Yemen's 60,000 Jews were airlifted to Israel in what became known as "Operation Magic Carpet."

Many of the Yemenite Jews have maintained their ultra-Orthodox traditions going back 2,500 years. The traditions include reading the Bible in Aramaic. During the past two decades, the Satmar Hasidim have raised charitable funds among themselves to bring Yemenite Jews to the United States.

The Nahari family is among more than 168 Yemenite Jews who were brought to the United States from 1993 to 1998, Freund said yesterday. Many of the children were placed with families in Kiryas Joel, a Satmar community in Orange County, and attended schools in the community.

Freund said he started helping them after a Yemenite rabbi wanted the children educated in Jewish traditions, not the secular traditions in Israel. Freund said he had the approval from the community's rabbis in Monsey and Kiryas Joel. He said he many of the children brought here would go back to Yemen, Israel or London.

"We wanted to help Jewish people," Freund said. "We believe in giving charity and our charity was to bring them out from Yemen. We teach them Yiddish, English and help educate them. We respect them and help them keep their traditions."

Freund said he told Na'ama Nahari that if she left for Israel, she might have trouble getting back into the United States because of her immigration status. Freund said she had a green card.

Critics contend the Yemenite Jews are being used by the Satmars and, at times, Israel, and are losing their identity and traditions.

Asrim Issak, president of the Yemenite Jewish Federation of New York, said yesterday that the Satmars respect the Yemenite Jews' devout Judaism and ancient traditions. But, he said, the Satmars don't want the Yemenites immigrating to Israel. He said Satmar schools that accept Yemenite children force them to speak Yiddish and take up Satmar religious customs.

"I am critical of the Satmars and anyone else that bring Jews out of Yemen without a plan to help them," Issak said. "They take them out of Yemen and throw them into the streets without housing, education and jobs."

Moshe Friedman, secretary to Satmar Grand Rebbe Moses Teitelbaum, called the accusations that the Yemenite Jews were held against their will and exploited "ridiculous." He said the Israeli media, advocacy groups and immigration agencies just want to discredit the Satmars and people like Fruend for their charitable work on behalf of Jews.

"Some of the Yemenite people have changed their mind and either don't want to be religious or want to leave," Friedman said. "If they want to go to Israel, that's fine. We don't stop anyone. We don't recruit people."

When Nahari and her children arrived at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv on Wednesday, The Israeli media and Jewish Agency officials were waiting.

Nahari, her three daughters and two sons, ranging in age from 2 to 11, first visited with Nahari's mother in Rehovot and then settled into their temporary quarters in the Israeli government absorption center, south of Tel Aviv.

Such centers are found throughout Israel, featuring spartan apartments, subsidized classes in modern Hebrew, cultural activities and job placement services.

"They're petrified," said Michael Jankelowitz, a Jewish Agency spokesman in Israel. "They're worried about the fate of her husband and four (additional) children."

The Satmars have brought dozens of Yemenite Jews to New York "under the pretext that if they come to Israel, they will be forced to lose their religion, they will be forced to lead a secular life," Jankelowitz said.

The agency has "rescued" other Yemenite Jewish families from New York and two families from a Hasidic sect outside of London, Jankelowitz said.

"They take away their passports and they are held hostage," he said, adding that refugees from Yemen are used in the Satmars' appeals for donations, "but the money never gets to the families."

One of Nahari's daughters spoke New York-accented English to Israeli television crews and other media after arriving at Ben Gurion Airport, saying she looked forward to life in Israel.

When asked if the Jewish Agency was doing what it has accused the Satmar of doing, Jankelowitz said "that's total hogwash. No one kidnapped them. They came on their own free will."

Monsey Rabbi David Eidensohn, who is Hasidic but not affiliated with the Satmars, said Yemenite Jews have a difficult time adjusting to the United States. He said the ultra-Orthodox Yemenite community is respected because their members maintained the ancient cabalist traditions of Judaism.

"People who come from a different country and a primitive lifestyle may not find living here easy," he said. "They are a lost community that really can't find its roots. Some of the Yemenite and Jews have made the transition and some saw the Zionists as their saviours. This whole issue involving the Yemenite Jews is very complicated and doesn't lend itself to a black and white situation."



Erik N. Nelson reported from Tel Aviv. Staff writer Shawn Cohen contributed to this report. Reach Steve Lieberman at slieberm@thejournalnews.com or at 845-578-2443.Erik N. Nelson reported from Tel Aviv. Staff writer Shawn Cohen contributed to this report. Reach Steve Lieberman at slieberm@thejournalnews.com or at 845-578-2443.

הטקסט שלך כאן

Yemenite son defends Satmars
By STEVE LIEBERMAN
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: June 8, 2004)

Yechil Nahari feels his family has been used by an Israeli immigration agency against Satmar Hasidic Jews who he says gave his family a new life in Monsey after bringing them out of poverty and persecution in Yemen.

Nahari, 23, yesterday denied the contention of the Jewish Agency and a Yemenite support group in New York that the Satmars tried to block his mother from moving to Israel and that secretive tactics were needed to break the hold ultra-Orthodox members had on the family.

The end result is Na'ama Nahari and five of her 12 children arrived in Israel last week to great fanfare by the Jewish Agency, while her husband, Sayid, and seven children stayed in Monsey.

Yechil Nahari, who is married with two young children, said the Jewish Agency used his family and made up a tale about spiriting them out of the country to discredit the Satmars. The Satmars don't believe the state of Israel should exist without the coming of the Messiah and admittedly discourage Yemenite Jews from immigrating to Israel.

"It's not right to lie about the Satmar," Yechil Nahari said yesterday inside a small Monsey restaurant off Route 306. "No Satmar stopped my mother. They have helped us. My mother wanted to go see her sick parents in Israel. She had visa problems, and this group offered her a free ticket.

"She wanted to Aliyah, to immigrate. My mom is like the boss. My father didn't want to leave and didn't want to leave the other children behind. They had a problem inside the family."

The Jewish Agency, whose mission is to assist Jews who want to immigrate to Israel, contests Yechil Nahari's conclusion about the Satmars' role. The agency and leaders of the Yemenite Jewish Federation claim Na'ama and Sayid Nahari asked for assistance. Na'ama Nahari agreed to take her youngest children and an older daughter, after an attempt to bring the entire family to Israel in December failed.

In December, two of the Naharis' younger children were taken on a "play date" by Satmar members on the day the family planned to fly off to Israel and were not returned for two days, said Iddo Katz, director of the agency's Aliyah Center in New York City. Katz maintains the Satmar members intimidated the family.

"We then came up with a plan to help them overcome the Satmar influence," Katz said. "They came to us. We agreed to take a few of them. We are not going to get into an argument with the Satmars or anyone else. Our job is to help people who want to come to Israel. This was difficult."

Yemenite Jews represent Orthodox Judaism dating back 2,500 years, maintaining their unique traditions in an Arab land dominated by Muslims. They read from the Bible in Aramaic and speak Hebrew, while maintaining their dress and culture from centuries ago. They were considered outcasts among world Jewry because of their lifestyle.

But when Israel became a state in 1948, 90 percent of Yemen's 60,000 Jews were airlifted to the Jewish state in what became known as Operation Magic Carpet.

Satmar members have brought nearly 170 Jews out of Yemen during the past 15 years to Great Britain, New York City, Monsey and Kiryas Joel in Orange County.

The treatment of Yemenite Jews has been debated in Israel and in the United States.

Some Satmars tell the Yemenites they can't be religious in secular Israel. Critics claim the Satmars strip the Yemenites of their culture, separate them from their countrymen, and teach them Yiddish and other Satmar traditions, leaving them ill-prepared to live in the modern world.

"From our view, they are being held hostage," said Dalia Kirinsky, a Yemenite Jew who belongs to the Yemenite Jewish Federation of New York. "Yemenite families in Monsey and Monroe are afraid to speak out, and their passports are taken from them. They are being brainwashed.

"These Satmar activists have divided up families. Why should a Yemenite have to learn Yiddish and go to a Satmar yeshiva? Why can't they have their own schools, like in Israel?"

Nitzan Gilady, an Israeli film director, did a documentary on a Yemenite family that came to Monsey. The film, "In Satmar Custody," focused on Lauza and Yahia Jaradi, whose 1-year-old daughter, Hadiya, died from head trauma in 1998 during what Rockland authorities contended was abuse.

While the Bergen County medical examiner ruled the child's death a homicide, the Rockland District Attorney's Office found no evidence to charge the mother.

The Jaradis, who first settled in Kiryas Joel before the Satmars moved them to Monsey, said their daughter had fallen accidentally. A Family Court judge placed the remaining Jaradi children with Satmar families in Kiryas Joel. The parents now live in Israel.

Speaking from Israel yesterday, Gilady said the Satmars lured Sephardic Jews from Yemen to the United States with promises of a prosperous life and religious freedom. Gilady said he believed the promises were false and money raised never went to the Yemenite families.

"From what I learned, the Yemenites lose their religion and identity," he said. "They don't have their own synagogues or schools. They live in strictly Hasidic neighborhoods, cut off from other Yemenites. They so much depend on their sponsors that they are like prisoners.

"They are taught to pray differently and don't have a way to explore their own culture. They are taught to be Satmars. The women are asked to shave their heads and wear wigs, like Satmar women."

The issue of the Yemenite Jews has been contested in Israel, where the Knesset's Immigration and Absorption Committee held hearings in 2000. Shlomo Jarfi, a leading member of the Yemenite community in Israel, told the panel that 30 Yemenite children were being held in the United States by Satmar activists.

Jarfi said anti-Zionist Satmar representatives offered parents in Yemen hundreds of dollars to send their children to study in the United States, claiming Israel would cut off the children's sidelocks and abduct the wives and daughters of Yemenite families.

Satmar leaders said their only intention was to help their fellow Jews, and the Yemenites were not controlled by the community nor denied the right to travel to Israel.

Gilady said Yemenites coming from a backward nation also found culture shock in Israel, but the government provided them with the means to maintain their religious traditions and get housing in neighborhoods with their fellow immigrants from Yemen. Israel absorbs immigrants from the around the world.

"They are great people, naive in a way," Gilady said. "It's unfortunate, what is happening to them. They are good people."

Yechil Nahari and his cousin, Manam Zareb, 26, said yesterday that the Satmars had been nothing but generous to their family. They said their family members and fellow Yemenites had traveled to Israel and back to Yemen without any problems from the Satmars.

Nahari, who works as a supervisor in a private school, said the Satmars rescued his family from poverty and prejudice, opening doors for them in the United States. Nahari said he lived in Israel and married there before going back to the United States.

"They don't hold our passports. They don't do anything of the things the Jewish Agency said," Nahari said. "They believe in helping their fellow Jews; that is all. For me, I don't care if my parents live in Israel or they live in America, as long as they live together."



Reach Steve Lieberman at slieberm@thejournalnews.com or 845-578-2443.Reach Steve Lieberman at slieberm@thejournalnews.com or 845-578-2443.

ג) נכון הדבר שכותבת בהנוגע לנוסח האריז"ל, אשר תיקן הנוסחא שלו, בסדר מלוקט מכמה נוסחאות באופן אשר מתאים יהי' לכל, וכמבואר בארוכה בספר לקוטי אמרים מהרב המגיד ממעזריטש, שהוא הי' רבו של בעל המחבר ספר הפלאה וס' המקנה גאוני עולם אשר ספריהם נלמדים בכל הישיבות.

ד) המתפלל בבית הכנסת אשר הנוסחא שם אחרת היא, רשאי היחיד להתפלל בנוסחא שלו, ואין בזה חשש כלל וכלל [כמובן באם יחיד זה אינו עובר לפני התיבה בתור שליח הצבור], אלא שע"פ הנ"ל יש לעשות זה בדרכי נועם ומבלי הדגשה.

ה) ע"פ האמור לעיל בסעיף ג' מובן שאפשר לשנות מנוסח אשכנז לנוסח ספרד ומנוסח ספרד לנוסח האריז"ל שהוא נוסח חב"ד, אבל לא להיפך, ולכן נכון שתמשיך בנוסח התפלה (שכפי שכותבת) שכבר התחילה וממשיכה בזה, ובודאי שתעשה זה בדרכי נועם ושלום, והסכמתה המלאה של המורה שלה תי' - ודאי גם כן תקבל.

הבמענה למכתבו בו כותב בהנוגע לשינוי נוסח התפלה שלו,

וכמדומה עניתי מכבר - שנכון הדבר שיתחיל להתפלל בנוסח חב"ד, והרי ידוע סיפור חסידים הראשונים אשר רבנו הזקן בירר הנוסחא שלו מששים סידורים, אלא שעפ"י המבואר במ"א שיש לשנות מנוסח אשכנז לספרד ומנוסח ספרד לאר"י, אבל לא להיפך. לכן צריכה החלטתו להתפלל בנוסח חב"ד להיות על מנת שלא לחזור.

שאלתו מתי יתחיל בזה, אינה מובנת כי כיון שהחליט כנ"ל, למה ידחה ההתחלה.

ובמ"ש שמעורר הדבר תמהון, הנה כל אלה שהתחילו בראשונה בנוסח חב"ד בטח ג"כ עורר תמהון, ובכל זה הרי התחילו להתפלל כך. וחוג המתפלל בנוסח זה הולך ומתפשט

שלום וברכה!

ע"פ פקודת כ"ק מו"ח אדמו"ר שליט"א רשמנו את ביה"ס בית רבקה בפאריז לרשת בתי ספר שתחת הנהלתנו.

בחבילה מיוחדת שולחים אנו לכם את התכנית הרגילה לבתי הספר "בית רבקה", ואם הנכם מוצאים לנחוץ להנהיג איזה שינוים בתכנית ביה"ס בית רבקה בפאריז בהתאם למצב המקום, נא להודיענו הצעתכם בזה.

ההברה בלמודים בבתי הספר בית רבקה היא אשכנזית,

Israel News

Rescuing Yemenite Jews from New York?
By Rachel Pomerance



NEW YORK, June 8 (JTA) -- The elaborate passage of Yemenite Jews from a New York City suburb to Israel has prompted a torrent of allegations.

The Jewish Agency for Israel, which runs immigration and absorption, says its secret mission brought a Jewish woman and five of her children to Israel last week, raising suspicions that the family was held against its will by the surrounding community of Satmar Chasidim.

As evidence, the agency cited an effort last December to move the entire 21-member Nahari family to Israel. But two of the children mysteriously went missing hours before the flight to Israel, said Michael Landsberg, director of the Jewish Agency's North American aliyah delegation. The whole family canceled the trip.

''Anyone can translate it the way anyone would like to translate it," he said.

One Nahari son rejects the notion that family members were held against their will.

''It's not right to lie about the Satmar," Yechil Nahari told The Journal News, a suburban New York newspaper. ''No Satmar stopped my mother. They have helped us. My mother wanted to go see her sick parents in Israel. She had visa problems, and this group offered her a free ticket."

Yet Mrs. Nahari and her children are in Ashkelon's Beit Canada absorption center, a spot typically reserved for new immigrants, not visitors.

When Yemen allowed its Jews to emigrate in the early 1990s, Satmar Chasidim, who are ideologically opposed to the idea of a Jewish state before the Messiah arrives, brought dozens of Yemenite Jews to the United States instead of to Israel. Among them was the Nahari family, which came eight years ago.

The Satmars promised the Naharis and other Yemenites idyllic conditions in the United States but kept them in tight, crude quarters and took away their passports, according to the Yemenite Jewish Federation of America and the Jewish Agency.

In some cases, they even forced Yemenite women to marry Satmar men who were disabled or unappealing, and exploited them for fund-raising, said various members of the federation.

Rabbi Chaim Freund, who said he brought the Naharis from Yemen to the community in Monsey, N.Y., vehemently rejected all charges against the Satmars and said he knew all along about the family's plan to visit an ailing relative in Israel.

''Never have Satmars taken any passport from any Yemenite Jew or any other Jew," he said.

Furthermore, he said the Yemenite Jewish Federation does not represent the Yemenites in the Satmar community.

''Yemenites in Monsey have no connection with any Reform Jews which don't observe the Shabbos and kosher," he said.

The Yemenite Jewish Federation, which is funded by the UJA-Federation of New York and is not a Reform group, insists that some Yemenites are being held against their will, and that all their moves are choreographed by the Satmars.

''The Yemenite people don't know anything other than what Satmars are telling them, and they are afraid," said a member of the Yemenit Jewish Federation who asked to remain anonymous.

The Satmars are holding the Yemenites ''hostage," the woman said.

''Why in the world do we need the Israeli government to come here and do the Entebbe?" she said, likening Jewish Agency efforts in the Nahari case to the Israeli military's 1976 rescue of passengers whose plane had been hijacked by terrorists to Uganda.

A spokesman for the Jewish Agency, Yarden Vatikay, said the Naharis had been ''brainwashed," told that their sidecurls would be cut and that they would become ''goyim" if they moved to Israel.

Moshe Friedman, secretary to the Satmar rebbe, Moshe Teitelbaum, said the charge that the Nahari family was held against its will was ''ridiculous."

''I'm certain there's no such thing," he said. It's ''all political business."

The Jewish Agency made up the story out of pique that some Yemenites elected to come to the United States rather than Israel, he told JTA.

Samuel Heilman, professor of Jewish studies and sociology at the City University of New York and currently a fellow at Hebrew University's Institute for Advanced Studies, said the episode highlights a larger ideological conflict.

This is ''just another skirmish in the ongoing war between the Satmar anti-Zionism and the Israeli pro- Zionism," Heilman said.

When religious Yemenite Jews emigrated to Israel in the 1950s, Israelis attempting to absorb them into the fledgling, secular country pressured some to relinquish their religious customs.

In a few notorious cases, children who had become separated from their parents during the move to Israel were given to secular Israeli families, while their parents were told the children had died. Their ordeal came to light only decades later.

The ''Yemenite child became a kind of symbol of the worst excesses of the Zionist state," Heilman said.

In the early 1990s, when Jews again were told they could leave Yemen, Satmars tried to ''save them from secular Zionism and save them from the loss of their religion and bring them to the true Jewish homeland -- namely, Satmarville," Heilman said.

Meanwhile, Zionists have been trying to show that ''until these people are brought to the Jewish state, they're not really free," he said.

For five of the Nahari children and their mother, the journey to Israel began in the wee hours of June 1, when the family surreptitiously packed their bags, Landsberg said.

Later that day, the Jewish Agency sent a van to pick up the five children, who were dressed in their school uniforms. Their mother, who said she was going out to visit her father, joined them in the van, which took them to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport.

The rest of the family remained in New York.

''I didn't take them from their houses by myself. They asked for that," Landsberg said. ''We're just helping them. Whatever they want to do, we are helping them."

Scores of Yemenite Jews live in Orange and Rockland counties, according to David Pollock, associate executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.

Orange County also has many Satmars; many of them live in a village called Kiryas Joel. The balance of New York's Satmar community is centered in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg.

The episode suggests that the relationship between Yemenite Jews and Satmars in Rockland County is complex.

The Yemenite Jews were ''induced to come here and their basic needs were taken care of in some way," Pollack said. The question is ''if they knew about all of their options, would they choose differently" -- to stay in New York or emigrate to Israel.

That, Pollock said, ''probably varies from family to family."

Ephraim Isaac, president of the Yemenite Jewish Federation, charged that the Satmars exploited and abused a naive group.

He said that the two Yemenite families he visited in recent years lived in a cramped apartment, ''almost like a jail room."

When he went to visit, Isaac said, ''each time I was told not to come during the day because they're being spied upon by the community."

It's a ''shocking, disgusting story that the Jewish community is partly responsible for," Isaac said, referring to American Jewish groups that pushed for the Yemenites' exit from Yemen but lacked a concrete follow-up plan for their resettlement.

Joel Petlin, an administrator in the Kiryas Joel school district, denied that the Yemenites were being abused.

Petlin said his bureau, which runs English-as-a-second-language programs for Yemenite Jews, would ''be the first line" in catching any kind of funny business.

''They're welcomed, they're brought into the school system, they're given places to live, food to eat, and every resource is made available to assist them in their resettlement," Petlin said. ''People are free to choose to stay or go.'' JTA END

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סוכנות שליחים פרובירען נאך צו באשמוצען סאטמארער אויפטוען וועגען תימנער אידען, הגם וואס נאך דעם וואס די משפחה איז ארויסגעקומען קעגען דעם בלבול אויף סאטמאר היט ער מער זיינע ווערטער.