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A supplement to
The Jewish standard
winter 2015

TALKING TABERNACLE IN FRANKLIN LAKES page 6

THE RABBI WHO MET KING ABDULLAH page 8
A SWEET TASTE OF TORAH IN FAIR LAWN page 12
THE PILOTS WHO FLEW ABOVE AND BEYOND page 39

Get in Gear for Summer Camp

Tu BShevat Crafts and Food
Sweet Dreams Are Made of This
Supplement to The Jewish Standard February 2015

NORTH JERSEY

Holy
together
Sinai Schools
honors hospital
page 22

JANUARY 30, 2015

VOL. LXXXIV NO. 19 $1.00

84

2015

JSTANDARD.COM

Cover Story

Inclusion by design
Sinai Schools honors
Holy Name Medical Center
for community partnership

Joanne Palmer

magine that you see a small group

of students working with an art
teacher, concentrating, creating,
learning.
Add the understanding that these children have developmental disabilities, and
that the art teacher is in fact an art therapist. Be sure, though, that when you add
this knowledge, you do not because you
should not let it detract from the clear
truth that there is joy in this learning, and
learning in this joy.
And then pull your gaze back to see that
these children are in a larger school, where
they have their own individualized learning programs but also sometimes mix with
more standard-issue students. You realize
that each group can learn from each other
without being overwhelmed by the others
very different needs, abilities, or interests.
And then pull back yet again, to see that
all this is in a Jewish environment, where

students of every ability are surrounded

by the sounds, sights, calendar, and passions of their people. Of our people.
Pull back just once more, and you see
love.
Thats the Sinai schools at work.
Sinai, which does not have its own facility, instead places students in two elementary and three high schools. Those three
high schools include two in Teaneck the
Torah Academy of Bergen County and
Maayanot Yeshiva High School for Girls
as well as the Rae Kushner Yeshiva High
School in Livingston.
Students are placed in the high school
that meets their needs, and although they
may enter when they are 14, they can stay
until they are 21. Kushners Sinai students
are more academically oriented, and the
focus is on preparing them for college or
other post-high school studies. But the
two schools in Teaneck the Rabbi Mark
and Linda Karasick Shalem High School at
Torah Academy of Bergen County and the

Cover: A student at Sinai at Kushner

works on his reading. Inset: Holy Names
Michael Maron recently visited Sinai at
RYNJ. Left: The billboard on Route 4.

22 Jewish Standard JANUARY 30, 2015

es

Cover Story

Rabbi Mark and Linda Karasick Shalem

High School at Maayanot Yeshiva High
School offer boys and girls more of a
practical education in life skills, Sam Fishman, Sinais managing director, said.
All of our educational methods are
research-based, and we are moving more
and more toward cutting edge, Mr. Fishman said. What makes us unique is
our inclusive model. There arent other
schools that I know of that serve the population that we serve within the context of a
regular school.
Although the schools in which Sinai is
set are Orthodox, not all Sinai students
are. We have children from families that
are barely or not at all affiliated; we have
families that are Conservative or Orthodox; we have Ashkenazim and Sephardim;

There arent
other schools
that I know of
that serve the
population that
we serve within
the context of a
regular school.
SAM FISHMAN

we have a segment from the Syrian community that comes from Brooklyn. We are
inclusive. The question for us is just who
can we help, Mr. Fishman said.
Students at the Sinai schools come from
across the tristate area and throughout
New Jersey, he added. Some commute
from New York Citys five boroughs and
Rockland and Westchester counties.
Every year, families relocate from across
the country to be able to send their children to one of our schools. In the last few
years, theyve come from Florida, California, and the Midwest. One family came
back from Israel in order to be able to send
a child to Sinai next year.
Right now, Sinai has 130 students in its
five schools.
This year, at its annual dinner (see box on

page 27), Sinai is focusing particularly on its

vocational program. Among its honorees is
Michael Maron, the president and CEO of
Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck. Representing the medical center, Mr. Maron
is to receive the Community Partnership
award in recognition of the jobs, support,
and care it has provided Sinais students
over the course of many years.
We thought that there could be no
better time than now to celebrate brotherhood, the universal value of helping
others, tikkun olam, helping to make the
world a better place, Mr. Fishman said.
This is a community partnership, rooted
in faith. (That faith, in Holy Names case,
is Roman Catholic.)
In fact, Holy Name has a huge electronic
billboard on Route 4. One of the photographs in the rotating display includes the
logos of both Sinai and Holy Name. and
you can see that when you drive, larger
than life, Mr. Fishman continued. We are
recognizing Holy Name as a good neighbor, and as a partner in recognizing the
needs of our community.
We call it a partnership because our
relationship with Holy Name goes back
more than 15 years. Sinai is 33 years old.
It began with an elementary school program, but grew with its students. The need
for a program for preteens and teenagers
soon became clear. It was shortly after
we established a high school that we had a
need for work/study and vocational placements, Mr. Fishman said.
Holy Name was one of our earliest
vocational settings, he continued. Over
the years, Holy Name has made students
welcome at a variety of jobs, things like
transporting supplies and mail from one
area to another within the hospital, transporting patients for discharge, stocking the
bikkur cholim room, and so on.
We have found that our students have
always been so comfortably and so warmly
welcomed.
Now, perhaps at least in part as a result
of Holy Names example, places across
Teaneck have welcomed Sinais students.
So many businesses and organizations
and schools and shuls have embraced our
students, and provided settings for them
for the work/study and vocational training, Mr. Fishman said.
And beyond the specifics, we wanted to

Children feel great about

themselves when they are
successful at a task. Here,
students at Sinais two elemetary school programs,
the Rosenbaum Yeshiva
of North Jersey and the
Joseph Kushner Hebrew
Academy, beam with pride
as they display their work.
PHoToS ProVIDeD BY SInaI SCHoolS

Jewish standard JanUarY 30, 2015 23

Cover Story

A few years ago, a Sinai student at

a vocational program at Holy Name
pushes a wheelchair.

24 Jewish Standard JANUARY 30, 2015

take the opportunity at the dinner to recognize the role that Holy Name plays in our
local Jewish community. Even though it is
a Catholic institution, Holy Name makes a
point of reaching out to members of the
entire Bergen County community at large,
making sure that people of all faiths feel
welcome. And Holy Name is a strong supporter of Israel, has a Shabbat room available, does so much for the community.
Just in terms of anecdotal proof, we
hear about how our supporters feel about
Holy Name. The outpouring of warm
responses weve received in response to
the dinner has been beautiful.
With all the horrors in the world right
now, the timing seems right, Mr. Fishman said. Shevat achim gam yachad
thats the second line of Hinei Mah Tov,
the beginning of Psalm 133. In English, its
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
for brothers to dwell together in unity.
Je suis gam yachad, Mr. Fishman said,
evoking the catchphrase Je suis Charlie
Hebdol that resulted from the massacre
at the magazines office in Paris and giving
it a Jewish twist.
Rabbi Mark and Linda Karasick of
Teaneck were among the four couples
who founded Sinai, and their passion for it
and its mission is as strong as ever. Rabbi

Mark Karasick is our chairman today, Mr.

Fishman said. Mark and Linda really are
the heart and soul and face and builders
of Sinai.
They are the parents of four sons, two of
whom were Sinai students.
Their connection to Holy Name is strong
as well. It is physical they are neighbors.
It is emotional the hospital has provided
medical care to the extended family. And
it dates back to the beginning of the hospitals vocational program with Sinai. The
first student we placed at Holy Name was
Avi Karasick, Mr. Fishman said.
We have found that Holy Name always
has been respectful of us, and our respect
for them has grown considerably over
time, Rabbi Karasick said. We have
accepted them as a neighbor, and we have
respected their growth. And they have
respected us. They dont tell us what to do.
For maybe close to three decades,
a group of people from our shul, Beth
Aaron, goes there every Shabbes for bikkur cholim, to visit Jewish patients there,
Rabbi Karasick said. They were always
greeted warmly by the staff and by the pastor who acts as chaplain there.
Sinai placed the Karasicks sons in different environments. Avi and Yacov are
two sons of the same parents, but they

are as different as any kids are different

from their siblings, Ms. Karasick said.
Avi needs more structure, but you cant
put him down at a desk, putting pieces of
things together.
He worked at Holy Name delivering
mail. He is very gregarious, and it gave him
the opportunity to talk to people.
I remember Avi coming home with his
Holy Name nametag. It said Avi Karasick.
Staff. I think he even had a blue jacket that
had his name on it. He was so proud.
Yacov Karasick worked in a number
of different places, Rabbi Karasick said.
The longest was in Maadan. That was
maybe six years ago, and to this day, every
time I walk in there Im Yacovs father.
The friendships and the relationships that
started there are maintained.
Teaneck really all of Bergen County
is an unbelievable community, Ms. Karasick said. The fact that we are able to go
into businesses and establish relationships
in places that are not Jewish I always
marvel about Holy Name. It has crosses!
We dont expect that such places will
embrace our kids but they do.
Why? Well, its not all pure goodness,
although its also goodness, she said. The
benefits go in both directions. Its win-win.
See Sinai page 26

Cover Story

Sweet Boy
A look at stigma, finances, and Sinai
Joanne Palmer
Why do parents send their children to
Sinai schools?
Because the schools innovative program allows developmentally disabled
Jewish children to develop the skills
they need to live in this world, to make
friends, not to define themselves by their
disabilities. Because the school pays
close attention to each child and spends
a huge amount of time, care, experience,
and love in tailoring a program that gives
each child what he or she needs to live
as independently as possible and as joyously as anyone else.
Why do parents not send their children to Sinai Schools?
Ah, that is an easier question to answer
in some ways, but the answers to this one
are devastating.
Finances and stigma.
Thats according to Sam Fishman, the
schools managing director.

He tries to help solve the first

problem and defuse the second at the annual dinner, itself
Sinais biggest fundraiser, by
creating a video that looks at the
very human dynamics behind a
familys decision to send a child
to the school. This years video,
Sweet Boy, looks at the Leiter
familys decision to send their
son Binyamin to Sinai.
Finances first.
It is extraordinarily expensive to provide the level of personal attention that
Sinai gives each child. Our uniqueness,
and the length to which we will go to
craft a program, costs a fortune, Mr.
Fishman said. Our costs begin at about
$70,000 per child per year, and go up
from there. There are few families that
can afford anything close to that.
Thats what our dinner is about. One
of the beautiful things is that people get
it. They understand that it is a fact of life

that there is a certain percentage of children born into this community who have
this need.
If you are blessed with a child with
this need, the chances are that you wont
be able to do it on your own, so we are
able to say that we are here.
As an admittedly extreme example,
he talked about a 5-year-old boy who
was admitted to Sinai. He is brilliant,
on the autistic spectrum, and legally
blind, Mr. Fishman said. You have the

combination of a kid who is locked into

his own world and who has a soaring IQ
he was doing sixth-grade math at 5.
Creating a program for him was a challenge bringing in a teacher for the visually impaired to teach him Braille, keeping him intellectually challenged, and
teaching him boundaries and the social
skills that any kid with hyperactivity and
autism has to learn.
We undertook this as a challenge.
Programming for this child costs us
over $100,000 to do this. There is no
ability within his family to meet this.
We view it as our mandate and our mission. Where else is this child going to
turn? We are thrilled to put something
together for him.
And then the stigma.
Its real, Mr. Fishman said. It has
existed as long as I can remember. I faced
it personally. When he was that age, my
own son, who went to Sinai, didnt look
See sweet boy page 27

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Cover Story
Sinai
from page 24

These two young violinists, Sinai students at Kushner, have just finished a concert
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They are high-functioning kids. They are

extremely reliable, honest, and dependable. They can be tremendous workers,
and they enjoy their work. They can do
the most menial jobs stocking shelves,
putting together pieces of something
and they will do it very conscientiously.
They show up on time, they dont
steal, and they are cheap to employ.
But still the fit has to be right.
For example, she continued, Downs
kids are comforting, warm, cheerful,
nonjudgmental. They can deliver mail
working with supervisors, where there is
not much chance for error. On the other
hand, other Sinai students are capable
of doing computer work. They are at all
different levels.
We are very blessed, Ms. Karasick
said. You know the saying that it takes
a village? It has taken a village and we
have a village.
You cant do it yourself. She and her
family didnt have to, and now they are
making sure that others can have the
support that they had.
Esther Klavan is the director of the
Sinai school at TABC.
The vocational component of our
high school is fundamentally important to many of the families, to the point
where, when I interview prospective
kids and their families, they say they
think its the most important, Ms. Klavan said.
Families are intrigued; they know
that their children will be excited about
starting a job when they start high
school, and they are excited to know that
they will have multiple and varied experiences in the workplace.
Because a students stay in high school
can be as long as seven years, that
means seven different work experiences, with gradually increasingly independence, she said.

When they start at 14, their work time

is limited to an hour and a half a week.
Generally there is one job coach to two
students. Gradually, over the course of
their time with us, we increase the duration and decrease the support, as we see
that the student is capable and the location encourages it.
The program is tailored personally to
each child. When we get new students,
we dont always know their strengths and
interests, although extensive interviews
with new students and their families are
designed to draw out as much as is possible in that fairly abstract setting. We
do our best, based on what we know. The
more we learn, the more it changes.
What we really strive to do here,
because of the nature of the students,
is to provide a functional academic curriculum, combining the life skills and
academic skills they need for their lives.
We work on What does this individual
student need to know to be able to have
a budget, open a bank account, travel to
and from his job, be as independent as
he can be in this world?
We teach them life skills, shopping,
food preparation. And it is all within a
Jewish environment that allows them to
embrace their Judaism and foster their
social skills and opportunities among
Jewish high schools boys and girls.
Thats the balance. We could do any
of that in a box but we do it in someone elses box. In other words, instead
of trying to keep the students cocooned
in a world where everyone else is just
like them, they are provided with a balance of that safety and a chance to interact with others, who are less like them,
in a larger but still safe world.
I have learned over the years that
what my students contribute to that box
is as significant as what they gain from
it, Ms. Klavan said parenthetically.
Back to Holy Name, it was a trendsetter, she said. A decade and a half ago,

A Sinai Kusher student uses magnets as she learns to read Hebrew a task
that often challenges children with language-based disabilities.

Cover Story
they welcomed our young men with disabilities, at a time when it was not popular to do so. Now you can walk up and
down Cedar Lane or West Englewood
Avenue, or even go to Party City or Modells or Staples, and see people with disabilities as workers.
Nowadays its very typical and
expected for individuals of all abilities
to be working, either as volunteers or
as employees, but then it was much less
popular. But Holy Name welcomed us.
She talked about a student of hers who
worked there a few years ago. They welcomed him, and he was independent
there, she said. I would just drop him
off, and he would go to the volunteer
service lounge, where the volunteers
often retired people would wait to be
called. He would sit with the other volunteers, and accept any task.
I visited him there, and saw that he
was warmly welcomed by the other volunteers as an equal. We worked hard to
get him there, because we felt that once
we did, it would pay off. And it did!
Michael Maron said that Holy Name
does not work with developmentally
disabled people just out of charity, but
because it is mutually beneficial. The volunteers and employees do good work.
Beyond that, It is a good reminder to us
all of who we are and why we are here,
he said. It keeps everybody a little more
tuned in and little more on their toes as
to the purpose of being.
Mr. Maron believes that the Sinai
schools and Holy Name Medical Center
are profoundly similar. For me personally, and for us as a whole, we applaud
Sinai for being a beacon of light for

Sweet Boy
from page 25

that different from Binyamin.

He remembers how hard it was in
shul, the comments he overheard,
the worldview that excluded his son,
somehow seeing his behavior as a
result of moral weakness.
The sad result is that we see parents who delay in seeking our help,
who have their children in other
schools in the community, who fight
with their schools. Educators often
tell them that this is a kid who would
do better at Sinai, but the parents
fight it. They say, I think that she can
get by for another year, if I just throw
a shadow on it. If I just do this, if I
just do that.
I hear them say I think the kid can
get by. That is a very low standard.
In the video, the Leiters talk about
the stigma. Life was hard at home
before Binyamin entered Sinai; his
three siblings couldnt invite friends
home, the family could not go to
other peoples Shabbat dinners,
everyone else was dependent on his

everyone else to see, he said. We, too,

are a faith-based organization providing
services. Their services are to the misfortunate and educationally needy. Ours
are to the sick and infirm. And so we are
in parallel.
The passion we both bring to what
we do, and the deep reason for why we
do it, are both based in our faith, so partnering will show the community what
unites us rather than what divides us.
He is touched by the way the school
integrates its students with those in the
larger school. That is incredible, he
said. If we could incorporate that spirit
more into our daily lives, that would
make this a far better world.

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Who: Sinai Schools

What: Annual dinner
When: Sunday, February 8; dinner at
4:45, program at 6:30
Where: Teaneck Marriott at Glenpointe Hotel
Why: To support Sinais work
Honoring: The Community Partnership award will be presented to
Teanecks Holy Name Medical Center,
with CEO and President Michael
Maron accepting on behalf of the
hospital.
Also honoring: Shelley and Ruvan
Cohen of Manhattan; Dr. Elie and
Nancy Elmann of Englewood; Rabbi
Brian and Laurie Gopin of Bergenfield; Rabbi Shimshon and Ashley
Jacob of Jerusalem, formerly of
Livingston; and Judy and Nathan
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moods. Life was chaotic.

Binyamin went to schools that were
not right for him, including a public
school. Nothing worked, and he did
not fit in. Still, his parents hesitated.
As they talk about it on the video,
you can see it in their faces, in their
voices, in the way that they look at
each other. The emotion is unmistakably real as they talk both about the
chaos of life before and the safety and
relief of life now.
To some extent, Mr. Fishman said,
the resistance to accepting the need
for special education is generational
the idea that acting out is the kind
of misbehavior that merits punishment. I think that our community
has come a long way in accepting
and including individuals with special needs but we have a long way
to go, he said.
Sweet Boy, like the other videos
Sinai has produced, humanizes the
problem. It is meant not only as a fundraiser but as a consciousness-raiser
as well. It will debut at the Sinai dinner, and then will be available online.

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Editorial
Standing with Sinai

t should be easy to decide to send a

child who is a candidate for the education it offers to Sinai Schools.
Developmental disabilities are a
fact of biology, not morality. Children do
not act in ways that differentiate them
from most of their peers for fun, or out
of laziness, wickedness, or lack of caring.
Children with development disabilities
are just children in fact, they are our

children. And when they grow to be adults,

they are still part of our community, and
of our world.
But there still is a stigma attached to
many kinds of differences, including this
one. Parents often are loathe to admit that
their children need any kind of special education, even as their lack of special education makes their families lives a nightmare
of chaos, anger, and resentment.

The Sinai Schools, founded by parents

who refused to let their developmentally
disabled children slip away from them
through neglect or purposeful blindness,
is an extraordinary institution. It not only
educates its own students, paying them
the sort of close attention that leads to the
right and singular education for each one,
it also allows them to stay in the outside
world. It also lets the other students in the

schools where Sinai houses its programs

learn not to fear the developmentally
disabled, or to shun then, but to accept
them simply as other human beings, other
schoolmates, other Jews.
We think that Sinai Schools is simply
amazing, and we wish it every success. We
hope that anyone in the community who
can support it will consider doing so.


JP

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