rabbijaffe

As the school year begins, and I will imminently attend meeting after meeting, I present:

The Top Ten Ways to Stay Awake at Meetings

I learned an important life lesson this past year. I can’t handle long meetings. I like to be very honest with myself. I’m sure there exist folk who can sit and happily watch as presenter after presenter goes on for hours. I’m not one of them, Therefore I made this list for the world…

and for me!

#10: Rapt attention. Focus on every word the speaker is saying. Try and see how you can apply their wisdom instantly… Oh, who am I kidding? No one can do that!

So, I present:

#9: Attach a Coffee IV. There’s no better way to regulate slow and steady mass intake of the beautiful chemical we call caffeine. Indulge!

#8: Stealing presenter’s material. Nothing’s better than a feeling of triumph. And nothing beats that repeat triumphant feeling as you smugly stroke the presenter’s pointer stick (etc.) each time they fumble for it or confusedly scratch their head.

#7: Heckling. Remember that classic moment from Back to School when Derek (Robert Downey Jr.) wanted to help his diving team out by heckling the other team? I can’t imagine a better way to stay focused than a foghorn at the speaker’s most critical moment!

#6: Stealing the show. Who can forget when, in the movie Catch Me If You Can, a young Leonardo Decaprio walked into a Fench class and saw no teacher in the room? What did he do? For an entire week he pretended to be the French teacher! (If you haven’t seen it, check here- it all begins at 8:21.)

So what should you do? Pop into the meeting before it’s up and running, walk to the front and get the ball rolling. You’ll be so proud of yourself you won’t even notice the endless hours of meetings with the real presenter.

#5: Excitement. Nothing makes a meeting more exciting than, well, making it exciting. I’d say it would be a good idea to heavily blur the lines between and a professional meeting and a gospel church. Think lots of “amen’s”, ”praise the Lord’s”, and a solid chunk of “Halleluja’s”.

#4: Unrelated questions. I once dared a friend of mine during a speech to raise his hand and ask, “What does this have to do with strudel anyway?” OK, so you ruin the presentation and lose respect from those around you… but the look on the presenter’s face at that moment is a memory that will last a lifetime!

#3: Cell phones. Maybe a bit more common in Israel, but I’ve most certainly watched as people answered their cell phones during classes and at weddings. They then proceeded to have normal volume, full fledged conversations. Rude? Yes. Fun? Probably. Might as well just leave that puppy on, and when the loud obnoxious ring goes off, answer it and say loudly and proudly, “Sure. This is an OK time to talk.”

#2: Sunglasses. Remember Weekend at Bernie’s? (Yes, I watched too many movies growing up.) An entire movie dedicated to two guys pretending a dead guy was still alive. The secret: Sunglasses. If you can trick people into believing a dead guy is still alive with shades, certainly you can nap to your heart’s content at a meeting without anyone noticing. Right? 

And the #1 best way to stay awake at meetings:

#1: Laptops and blackberries. Nothing looks more professional that clicking away at a laptop or pushing buttons on a blackberry. Even if all you’re doing is chatting with someone else across the room or playing video games. Just try not to shout out a random “YES!” (unless you can time it with the meeting- see #5).

I hope this helps me and all others start off the new year the right way!

There is an oft repeated statement that basically summarizes the Jewish perspective on faith in God:

“Even if the sword is placed against the neck of a person, he still should not despair of [experiencing] G-d’s mercy.”

What this basically means is: Even when hope seems irrelevant, the situation is so desire that trusting in Divine mercy just seems inane or even irresponsible, don’t give up, not even for a moment.

It’s hard to believe. It’s even harder to live by.

But sometimes the world will shock you.

Sometimes you don’t need to look any farther than the front page of the news to find out how true this statement really is.

Girl missing since 1991 found alive, police confirm
By Taylor Gandossy

(CNN) — A girl abducted in 1991 as an 11-year-old has been found alivein California, the El Dorado County sheriff’s office said Thursday. Jaycee Dugard is in good health, the office said in a statement, but provided no details.

To read the rest of the story, click here.

Have the most spiritually uplifting Shabbat imaginable!!

Yesterday as I circled the BWI Airport mindlessly and endlessly, releasing an obscene amount of carbon dioxide emissions, I had time to pause and reflect…

In my short 32 years so far of being on this planet I’ve watched the many technologies around me evolve so tremendously that most people have forgotten how we used to do things.

I’ve watched as wired, touch-tone phones gave way to two-inch long cell phones that somehow manage to instantly adapt to different hemispheres (and include digital cameras).

I’ve watched as cassettes (which always got all tangled up inside the player) gave way to digital players that store more music than some old radio stations in something that looks like a credit card. 

I cannot forget the two or three little blurry images on the screen of my old Atari 5600 when I accidentally mistake a modern video game for a movie.

And where do we start with computers!? Floppy disks, IRC, and dial-up are a few things that pop into my head as I type on a gorgeous little lap-top that probably goes 4-million times faster than my first computer.  

But for some strange reason the mighty airport always feels exactly the same. In these 32 years it feels like planes still get just as delayed as ever. Luggage is lost left and right (and it feels like there are more luggage thefts now then when I was growing up). For reasons unbeknownst to me we still have to show up ridiculously early, so our five hour flight can magically turn into a seven hour experience. And that horrific luggage pick-up!! It amazes me that in these 32 years no one has bothered coming up with a way that our luggage isn’t handled worse than trash at a landfill. In these 32 years no one has created a system that reduces the time between groggy, irritated people getting off of an expensive flight to the time they actually get to leave the airport. And no one has invented a method that doesn’t result in a dozen people simultaneously rushing that awful rotary luggage thing, only to find that they pushed over an old lady and injured their wrist only to grab somebody else’s luggage! 

But wouldn’t it be nice to think that it at least hasn’t gotten worse?

I’m pretty certain when I was a child my shoes got to stay on… unlike my sweet and innocent little 2-year-old, who must remove her shoes due the possibility of her concealing advanced explosive devices.

Could they not at least use their highly advanced technological knowhow to invent some cute little portable device that allows them to screen my profile for possible threat levels before they send me in mindless circles? Do we really feel at all safer because dozens of men in silly yellow vests are wandering around the arrivals section shmoozing with each other, and occasionally making people who are waiting to  pick up their relatives drive around some more when they have a momentary need to feel authoritative?

I feel that with a little concerted thought and attention we truly can have feelings of safety and security in an airport without extreme inconvenience. Is our country so technologically inept that they can’t figure out in the one hour I waited at the airport that I am not a security risk?

Don’t we deserve more?

Every time I read a parsha like Parshat Ki Teitze (and many others) that have a section dealing with lashes, I flash back to my youth and an unforgettable news story that was the talk of the entire United States.

Do you remember Michael Fay? This was a young man who was caught vandalizing in Singapore, and was sentenced to six lashes with a Singapore caning rod. People wouldn’t stop talking about. “How could they hurt an American citizen?” one would say. “It’s their country and they have the right to enforce their laws however they choose,” another would say. “I’ll go there and endure the lashes for him,” one crazy gym teacher offered.

These are three thoughts that always cross my mind when the subject comes up:

1. A punishment like caning seems inherently wrong. How can a modern society consciously perpetuate a system which advocates a violent reaction to non-violent crime? And imagine the effect on the human being who administers these lashes! By using such techniques we inevitably create a society that revels in violence…

Perhaps…

2. On the other hand, there is (for the most part) no concept of prison in the Torah. The bulk of penalties mentioned are the death penalty (rarely enforced), monetary compensation, and our subject: Lashes. If I believe, as I do, that God is perfect and His Torah is perfect, how can I doubt that this is not one of the most effective means of dealing with criminal behavior, even if I don’t fully understand the logic behind it?

3. Perhaps the most unshakable thought: Neither the death penalty, nor the modern prison system have demonstrated in any way shape or form their ability to deter crime, and the prisons are certainly not reforming their inmates into quality, law-abiding citizens. And I can’t help but wonder: Has any American even considered doing the most mild act of vandalism in Singapore since Michael Fay’s incident, while vandalism continues to fill our every nook and cranny?

What’s your opinion?

In this week’s parsha, Parshat Ki Teitze, we are given what could be argued is the “grossest commandment”. In the holiest document ever written the Jewish military is given instructions to (please pardon me) relieve themselves outside of their encampment, as well instructions to bring a shovel along with their weapons for convenient and hygienic disposal of said relief.

So I ask: In a text so sacred and so careful about not speaking of anything superfluous, couldn’t we have done without the brief guide to military bathroom procedure?

* * *

But I digress.

There’s another bizarre Jewish-ism I would like to discuss for just a moment.

Every Shabbat and holiday we do two things at our meals. First we make a blessing over the wine, called kiddush. And shortly after we making the blessing of HaMotzi on the challah (bread).

One of our traditions is that the challah must be covered when we make the kiddush. And if you ask just about any observant Jew why we cover the challah he’s bound to give you a cryptic answer that sounds something like this:

“So we don’t embarrass the challah.”

If you push for an explanation, it will likely be:

During the week if we were to eat bread and drink wine, we would first make a blessing on the bread, and afterwards the wine. But on Shabbat and holidays when we switch the normal order of things, we cover the bread so as to not embarrass it while it stands before the wine in its “downgraded status”.

Some might hear such an explanation and give a satisfied “Oh.”

Others might retain high levels of curiosity. Now I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but last time I check the entire scientific world is in agreement that bread has never and will never experience an emotion. So why then are we basing one of our weekly practices on such a peculiar notion?

* * *

The answer to this question is amazing, and those who don’t understand it are missing a major chunk of what it means to understand Judaism.

You see, it’s true. We couldn’t care less about embarrassing an inanimate object. But we care to the highest degree imaginable for each other.

Every time we cover that challah, or we look at that covered challah while making kiddush, we are supposed to think to ourselves: Wow, if I do this every single week and on every single holiday just to prevent embarrassment to something void of emotions, how much more so should I be overloaded with extreme sensitivity to all those around me, all those who do feel emotions!?

And if you search throughout many of our commandments and traditions you will see that many of them serve the purpose of trying to make us ultra-sensitive to the needs of others.

* * *

Which brings us to our original question.

Search the annals of warfare and you’ll notice one major horrific pattern that is consistent throughout all generations and locales. Soldiers very quickly and commonly fall into moral decay while fighting their battles. The history of war is riddled with tragic stories of ethical atrocities including rape and stealing and wanton murder of innocents.

The Torah wants more from its soldiers.

Our sensitivity to appropriate behavior must be on an exalted level. The Torah doesn’t just tell us not to rape and maim. It tells us to keep our encampment pure, clean, and holy. One who is paying such fervent attention to the details of the relatively small things will ideally be constantly reminding himself not to ever come anywhere near the serious misdeeds that can so easily plague a soldier.  

Do you know the definition of “misplaced compassion”?

Taking a prisoner convicted of a crime that resulted in the deaths of 270 innocent people, and releasing him early because he suffers from prostrate cancer, so he can die in peace with his family.

I think many in this world truly don’t understand what compassion is all about.

There is a time and place for any and all human behaviors and emotions. But there also exists a time and a place where the seemingly perfect emotion (such as love, humility, or compassion) needs to be withheld to create the correct results.

What if a person were to see, God forbid, his sister being raped, and he had a clear shot at the rapist without any risk to his sister? Would he argue, like the Scottish government, that he should be compassionate to the rapist, who, after all, is a human being deserving of living out the rest of his life? Well, I know what I would do…

You might disagree with this statement (frankly, that doesn’t bother me):

There is a concept of a person giving up his right to live. When one can wantonly take away the life of one innocent person (let alone 270!), he has forfitted his freedom, and has declared that his life is no longer sacred.

To be compassionate to a murdered is not compassion. It is showing that you have never understood or will understand what true mercy is all about.

The Lockerbie bomber forfeited any and all rights as a human being, and the Scottish government demonstrated how little they know about the world.

When one shows compassion to those deserving of none, this will eternally mess with one’s minds and emotions, and continued terribly tragic decisions are inevitable.

Oh heroic Lockerbie murderer, wave goodbye forever to the ultra-compassionate Scotland.

(Please see parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 of where I write about this concept and its application to the first king of Israel, as well the modern Israeli government.)  

On March 5th of this year I set out to start a blog. I wrote my first post not knowing whether or not I’d be stopping in a matter of weeks, and with very little if any direction (still working on the direction).

So now, as I write my 100th post I’m here to give my top ten reasons why I’m still plugging away at these blog posts nearly seven months later:

10. Today.com pays me to do so. OK, this one’s real lame, considering the amount I get paid. One doesn’t receive payment until you reach $50, so at the rate I’m going I’ll be celebrating my first check with my 1000th post. But hey, it doesn’t hurt to know that someday it will be there.

9. In this new age when people want to find out about a person, everybody knows what they do. They google them, of course. But I fear that if I maintain a minimal online presence, then I have no idea what trash someone might discover if they look me up. With this blog I get to set the agenda. Now if someone wants to google me, they’ll find plenty of things out there. And almost everything will be under my terms.

8. You never know what kind of impact a few simple words might have on someone. I’m a firm believer that if you keep trying to reach a person’s heart you’ll increase the likelihood that the “right place, right time” might magically roll around. What do I know about this world? For all I know twenty years from now someone’s going to ask me if I’m the Rabbi Jaffe from this blog. When I say that I am, they might tell me that something I wrote hit home with them at just the right moment. I helped give them the strength and to desire to (fill in the blank). And it all would happen because I bothered to sit here doing this.

7. It gives me another motivation to follow the news. Whenever it seems like the news is so darn repetitive and manipulative that I just can’t take it anymore, I can think to myself that no matter what I find, I always have the ability to put my own spin on things. I don’t need to just rely on what some reporter wants me to feel. I have all the reason in the world to look, think… and write.

6. It motivates to stay on top of the weekly Torah portion. Judaism provides me with countless sources of what to write about, and luckily for me there’s new stuff each week for an entire year. And once again, I get an opportunity to think about things and write about them in my own words.

5. Sometimes I know I feel something, but I’m not yet ready to put it in words. For example, I knew something about Obama’s health plan irked me, but I felt at a loss to logically explain why. So I wrote this blog, and it cleared my mind. Now I feel like I know pretty much exactly how to explain how I feel.

4. I get to learn a trade. There are so many great and important things to learn about that can help improve my blog, things like HTML and Search Engine Optimization (and this “trick”), and I want to become a master at all of them. There is nothing more fulfilling than learning new and interesting things, especially ones that can potentially be used for so many other purposes as well.

3. When I was in high school and college I used to write all the time. I was even a writing minor at my university. But I get so little opportunity in my adult life. In my opinion writing is a skill like any other skill. You get better the more you practice, and you get rocky the more you slack off. My writing has basically been on hold for way too long, and it’s time I get back in  shape.

2. One word: Catharsis. The ability to write about whatever is on my mind whenever I want is both thrilling and an effective way of releasing mass amounts of inner tension. It’s like a personal therapy, and I feel like a better person because I do it. If I had this reason alone, I would still be writing.

1. It’s fun. I’ll admit it. I thought blogging was silly… I still do… But it’s fun silly. Some people like video games when they need down time. I have a blog.

See you in #101!

I have a confession.

I’m not as good of a person as I’d like to be. I would love to be a great person, but some times I feel like I’m only taking teeny little baby steps towards my goal, and other times I feel like I’ve just taken ten steps backwards.

And these feelings destroy me. They make me hurt so much inside.

Two years I discovered something that I can do that makes me feel worlds better about myself. Two years ago I decided to fight what I consider to be my one and only fear, and give blood for my first time. And I felt beyond good. Here I have the opportunity to perform one of the highest levels of tzedaka (charity), giving where neither the donor nor the recipient known one another. Pure selflessness.

Not to mention the fact that I’m literally giving a piece of myself to do the right thing. And let’s not forget that I can potentially save up to three lives by simply giving a half-hour of my time and a day of feeling run down.

My reasoning: Albeit not the most Jewish of perspectives, I almost felt like whatever Divine punishment I might receive for the bits and pieces of lousy things I have done and do, couldn’t possibly compare to how much God must love someone who saves the lives of His precious children.

I had planned to write today’s post after giving platelets for my first time. I planned to write about how I wanted to start off the Hebrew month of Elul, the month dedicated to teshuvah (repentance) in preparation for Rosh Hashana (the Jewish new year), by saving lives. By giving a part of myself.

But I plan… and God, well, He has His own ways…

Four points!

Four points above the maximum level of diastolic blood pressure, and I’m sent home to write about how painful it feels not to be able to help.

And I cannot shake the feeling that if I’m not able to help, if I’m not able to start off my Elul saving lives instead of doing the wrong things, it’s because I’m not worthy. It’s because it’s not what God wants for me right now.

And it hurts so much.

And all I can do is…

try again tomorrow…

As part of my self-imposed summer initiative to learn all sorts of interesting things, I stumbled upon this great website from the Center for Homeland Defense and Security.

I just completed their course entitled the Global Jihadi Threat, and I thought it was extremely interesting and informative.

These are some of the most interesting things I took away from the course:

1. There is an ongoing debate across Europe about what is the best general method for preventing their country’s Muslims from radicalizing. Integration into the society (France, to the extreme) or multiculturalism, i.e. retention of native culture within the overall society (England).

2. A strangely large percentage of American Muslims do not believe the 9/11 attacks were carried out by Arabs.

3. The threat is almost impossible to fully eliminate. Picture this: Kid gets frustrated, someone finds him online and convinces him that:

a. the only way to deal with the “enemy” is through violence.

b. the kid is basically nothing, but can become an exalted martyr in moments through violent jihad.

Next thing we know there is a disorganized group of extremist Muslims functioning out of one of their basements. And no one will know that it existed until its two late.

And these types of groups can be functioning in scores of places across the entire globe.

* * *

Courses like this are fantastic because it’s something everyone talks about, but few really knows the facts.

* * *

There are a few other courses available on the website, and so far I highly recommend it. (And it’s free!)

*Just one caveat: You need to justify why you want access to these courses. It shouldn’t be too difficult, though. I said I was a school teacher at a Jewish day school and wanted to be better informed about how my country defends itself.

Enjoy!

I remember it like it was yesterday. The feelings and emotions I received as I stared at the Holocaust memorial service at my university. But despite all the melancholy and sadness, I couldn’t shake a thought that repeatedly passed through my mind. The purpose of the program was to read names of Holocaust victims for the entire 24-hours of Yom HaShoah. Anyone who signed up would come at their assigned time and read names for five minutes. A very nice idea, but all I kept on saying to myself was this: Each month Hillel struggles for days or weeks to try and get people to come to a Shabbat dinner. Advertisements galore, tons of programming, and a lot of great people to spend time with, and we never managed to get even one hundred people together for a meal, and sometimes far less than that. Whereas a sign-up sheet goes up for this memorial event, and within a few hours hundreds of Jews come out of the woodworks to fill up the entire sheet.

I thought: What is wrong with my people? We’re obsessed with our own death and destruction, doomed to spend eternity dwelling on past tragedies, not focusing for a moment on living the truly meaningful Jewish life available to all of us.

And I vowed to myself that I was going to avoid Holocaust studies. I wasn’t going to be this misfortune-obsessed Jew that I had in an instant grown to dislike and fear.

And despite this feeling which I still harbor, over ten years later I am a teacher of Holocaust studies, and I try to insert Holocaust studies into my other curricula whenever possible. And my topic here is certainly not why we should not teach Holocaust studies, but rather why we should be introducing Holocaust into our curricula at an earlier age.    

How did I come full circle? 

Recently I was walking through the hallways of my school and I overheard a couple of 5^th graders insulting one other.  It’s a mildly commonplace occurrence, but this time I was taken aback by their particular choice of insult words. One of them called the other a “Nazi”. The other was upset, but only because he was insulted, not because of the specific insult thrown at him. After speaking with the kids briefly I realized they had absolutely no idea what a Nazi was, or any other details of the Holocaust for that matter. Words like “Nazi” and “Hitler” had entered these kids’ ears dozens of times, each time in a negative context, but as far as they could tell there was nothing worse about calling someone else a “Nazi” than calling them a “jerk”. 

 I was thoroughly unnerved by the fact that many words, terms, and concepts had entered the vernacular of both these children, without them having even the slightest clue what any of it meant. And I realized that sheltering our children from the existence of such horrors is both improbable, and irresponsible. Our precious children should know and understand why it is so horribly wrong to imply that a friend is capable of doing the actions of the Nazis.

Furthermore, I’m now teaching a class on Holocaust history to seventh graders. I recognize the looks on their faces when they feel someone has done them a disservice by not sharing with them relevant pieces of information. They don’t understand why no one ever told them the Nazis wantonly massacred six-million innocent men, women, and children. And if they were aware of these murders, they don’t understand why no one ever mentioned to them the phenomenal stories of resistance or survival during the Holocaust, or the stories of the many gentiles who risked everything trying to save the lives of a few Jews. Or they resent the fact that America was presented to them as heroes who swooped into Europe to save the poor and wretched Jew. I feel it is tragic when a Jewish child learns minutiae about the Nazi Holocaust in 7^th or 8^th grade, and some of the most essential and fundamental details of the events that took place are a complete shock.

And I fear the worst: If we don’t present them with the facts at an early age, they’re going to flip on the news one day and their first impressions of the Holocaust are going to be from a despotic leader of an enemy country telling our impressionable young children that the Holocaust was either exaggerated or never happened at all. It is our duty to ensure that we set the tone for how they perceive the Holocaust.

I imagine if and when I present my thoughts to the average parent I will immediately be inundated with those who say that it is too difficult for our young children to handle such horrors. Their young and innocent children will neither appreciate nor be able to handle such knowledge. At the risk of sounding overly tongue-in-cheek, those same parents might very well then bring the child home to watch a couple of episodes of a TV show where terrorists maim and kill thousands of people, and then play a video game where they themselves will shoot a few thousand more. Our kids are hardly sheltered in our generation, and I find it terribly difficult to justify not teaching our kids about essential and relevant points of recent Jewish history, while constantly exposing them to horrors on a day-to-day basis that will give them no benefit whatsoever. The children of our generation, for better or worse, can handle a lot more than we give them credit for, and it’s our responsibility to channel that ability strategically. (That being said, I think Holocaust studies should be introduced in stages, and the really graphic content should be saved for later ages.)

So, how did I come full circle in my beliefs in if and when to place Holocaust studies in our curricula?

            First and foremost, I do believe a Jew is fully obligated to know about his past. There are more than enough essential life lessons scattered throughout the entirety of our long and detailed past to justify an in depth study into any and all elements of our history. And knowledge of the Holocaust is essential for having a thorough and complete knowledge of our history.

             Secondly, the Holocaust provides a starting point to connect with Judaism that many Jews would otherwise not receive. I said earlier that Jews came from all over my university campus to memorialize the Holocaust. Whether I like it or not, Jews throughout America are becoming less and less connected with their people and their faith. Any subject, be it joyous or tragic, that could be utilized as a starting point for Jews to connect to their people is inherently positive. I have taught many a class on numerous Jewish subjects where, regardless of the passion in my voice, students’ eyes glazed over. And I’ve watched those very same students listen with rapt attention when the subject matter changes to the Holocaust. I can’t explain why my people connects so powerfully to past suffering, but they do. I would be irresponsible if I didn’t use that knowledge to draw students in to a wider array of Jewish wisdom.

             Despite everything I have just written, I still do not in any way, shape, or form feel that my initial observations were flawed in the slightest. I still hope deep down that the average Jew could focus the majority of his attention on living a positive Jewish life, rather than brooding over atrocities of the past. However, I’ve come to realize that this idea should not preclude Holocaust studies, but should serve as its guide.

              A well-balanced Holocaust curriculum should be overloaded with stories of how Jews resisted, both physically and spiritually, the everyday miseries of the Holocaust. The student needs to have a powerful faith in his ancestors. A comprehensive Holocaust curriculum should be replete with story after story of those who fought long and hard with everything on the line to do whatever they could to save innocent lives. The student needs to restore his faith in the innate goodness of mankind.

              But the Holocaust provides us, perhaps, with the ultimate opportunity to fulfill all of what I’ve spoken of in this article. I tell my students each and every class that the Holocaust never really ended. We live in a post-Holocaust era, where our choices are directly connected to the events of those dreadful six years. We have the choice to try and flee anti-Semitism. We have the choice to say to ourselves that the only true way to avoid future suffering is to abandon our roots and try our hardest to blend in with those around us. These choices are errors, and symbolize a victory for anti-Semitism over the Jewish nation.

              But we also have the choice that we should make. That we must make! Every single day that we as a people succeed in life and simultaneously choose to identify as Jews, we are retroactively performing the greatest resistance to the Holocaust known to man. We are standing up in the face of humanity’s worst tyranny and shouting at the top of our lungs, “You hurt us. God knows you hurt us bad. But look at you and look at us. Your thousand year regime is no longer and is remembered only in the negative. And we the Jews continue to thrive and prosper. We won, we won, we won!!”   

              The only true way to memorialize the Holocaust is to live as a Jew.               

              In conclusion, I believe that our children are capable of handling knowledge of the Holocaust at ages which are traditionally considered “too young” (perhaps around 5^th grade), but I think the best methods of teaching the Holocaust are abounding with the message that living as a Jew is the best if not only way to live one’s life after learning about the atrocities of the Nazi Holocaust.