For more information call : 216-382-7202

ro

Cash award and publication for winners; contest open to middle and high school students

 CLEVELAND –  Do you have a way with words, a passion for painting, or a skill for sketching? Creative writers and artists from Cleveland area middle and high schools are invited to enter the 2014 Yom Hashoah V’Hagvura (Cleveland’s commemoration of the Holocaust and heroism) Contest. Essays and works of art including graphic novel-style comics, paintings, and drawings portraying this year’s theme “Memory of the Holocaust: A Child’s Perspective” are sought.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for students to consider the lessons of the Holocaust from a unique perspective, and to creatively interpret that point of view through writing and art,” said Richard Rakos, Creative Arts Committee Co-Chair.

Entries will be judged on interpretation of the theme, originality and technique. Cash prizes totaling $2,500 will be awarded and the winning entries will be published in the Cleveland Jewish News. Winners and their schools will be recognized at the Yom Hashoah Commemoration on April 27, 2014.

The Yom Hashoah Creative Arts Contest and the Annual Yom Hashoah Event are sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Cleveland and the Kol Israel Foundation.

For more information and entry forms, visit www.jewishcleveland.org/YHCreativeArts or call Debbie Klein at the Federation at 216.593.2834.

(Hakhel)

As we enter the winter season (above the Equator), more and more of us will be wearing dark coats and black galoshes and boots, and bringing umbrellas to shuls, simchas and other public places. The inevitable (well, almost-inevitable) happens:

•  My coat is gone and a look-alike with someone else’s name is left in its place!
•  Reuven must have taken my boots!
•  I took someone else’s umbrella and I won’t be going back to shul until tonight!

HaRav Moshe Feinstein, Z’tl, (Igros Moshe, Orach Chayim 5:9, paragraph 7) provides us with his p’sak in these situations. His response is beautifully presented by Rabbi Pinchos Bodner, Shlita in The Halachos of Other People’s Money (Feldheim Publishers) page 199:

“If someone found that his coat, hat, rubbers, etc. was mistakenly switched, he is permitted to use the other person’s coat until he can find the owner and switch back. Although generally one may not use a found item without permission from its owner… when items are switched, it is customary for people not to mind if the other person uses theirs [unless there is reason to believe that the owner would object]. However, if it turns out that the other person did not switch with him, he must ask the owner if he wishes to be compensated for the use of his coat.

Any institution that has a coatroom with a lot of traffic where coats are occasionally switched should, preferably, institute a switched coat policy. The policy should state that anyone who leaves his coat or other article there, is doing so on condition that if it is switched, each party explicitly agrees in advance to give the other party permission to use the other person’s item. This policy should be posted on the bulletin board or in the coatroom for all to see.”

We ask that you discuss with your Rav, gabbai, executive director, etc. the possibility of instituting such a policy. You may save people walking home without a coat, hat, galoshes or the like in the winter weather. You will certainly feel your own inner warmth in accomplishing this very special bain odom l’chaveiro!

For further reference in this area, see Aruch HaShulchan, Choshen Mishpat 136:2); and the following contemporary Shailos u’Teshuvos: Shevet HaLevi 6:238, and Teshuvos V’Hanhagos 1:818.

Daylight savings time ends this Sunday morning, November 3rd at 2am giving us an extra hour to do something that we often don’t have a chance to do! But it also means that we have to once again revisit how we are able to find a minyan and daven on time. LocalJewishNews maintains a list of Mincha Minyanim here. Let us know if is there is anything wrong or missing. This year the end date for daylight savings time in Israel was changed so Israelis returned to standard time last week, some 3 weeks earlier than normal putting Israel 6 hours ahead of EST today and then after we return to standard time, 7 hours ahead.

Yavne High School will be chartering a bus to Toronto.  The bus will be leaving at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, November 7^th and returning at 11:00 p.m. on Sunday, November 10^th.  Any women or girls who would like a seat on the bus should call the Yavne office at (216)691-5838 ext.100.  The cost for the round trip will be $100 per person.