Editorial: Helping others — a Tisha B’Av collection

Issue of August 8, 2008

Ehud Olmert's announcement that he will not compete in the upcoming Kadima elections, and will step down after they are concluded, certainly must have bolstered the confidence of modest souls who secretly believe that the Five Towns area — not Washington, D.C. or Jerusalem — really is the center of the free world.

Moshe Talansky, the man who brought down the prime minister, is a local, after all.

This week's issue, coinciding with the weekend of Tisha B'Av, is full of examples of the power of the individual to make a difference in one life, in many, or in world events.

You can probably conjure up any number of scenarios in which an untrained person, confronted with someone else's medical emergency, might fail to act — to simply do nothing. Most people are not medically trained — too few of us have even mastered the simple skills of CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) or how to operate an AED (automated external defibrillator).

Yet, when Moshe Hill of West Hempstead realized the driver who had just struck his car had been taken ill, he did all the right things, calling for help and following the instructions of dispatchers over the phone until help arrived. Most people who suffer a seizure survive the experience, so perhaps it is hyperbole to state that Hill saved a life. Still, he certainly rose to a difficult occasion, and created a wonderful kiddush Hashem in the process — and that, we believe, is the true reason he merited a hero's honors in Hempstead Town Hall on Tuesday, and attention on our front page.

Rafael Medoff profiles a group of local people who took a stand, in this week's In My View column. He tells the story of a winning basketball team here on Long Island that refused to compete in Hitler's Olympics before World War II.

With the Olympics beginning in China on August 8, another individual who is creating a kiddush Hashem is David Gurwitz. Although he moonlights in the financial world, as our story jokes, there is no doubt that music is his true calling. A preternaturally able pianist, he is donating profits from a song on his first recording to victims of last spring's devastating Chinese earthquake.

While very few people play the piano well enough that people will pay to hear them, many more could possibly become foster parents, or even adopt a child in need of a home. We think you'll really enjoy one family’s true story, and we thank them for sharing it — one more way they were willing to help, not just their new son, but other children in the care of Ohel and other agencies.

Finally, in the latest installment of Alan Jay Gerber's Kosher Bookworm column, he reviews a new book that tells the story of IDF Major Roi Klein, z"l, who threw himself on a grenade so that the men under his command might live. Words are insufficient to describe his sacrifice, but everyone involved, including Alan, gives it their best shot.

All of these stories really point toward one middah — bein odom l'chaveiro, or interpersonal relations –– that, historically, we have needed to work on. With Tisha B'Av on Sunday, the losses we'll mourn include the Beit Mikdash destroyed on account of hatred, one for another. We hope you find these reports and features inspiring, and may this be the very last Tisha B'Av of sadness, before a future filled with joy.

Thanks for reading.