Over a ton of care packages bring the Jewish holiday spirit to over 400 troops

Press Release

“Thanks for being my hero.” Nine year old Rachel of the Monmouth Torah Links Hebrew School in Morganville, NJ wrote these words in a letter she sent out.  Was it to some Hollywood star, basketball player or rising political star?  Nope, it was to a US soldier stationed in the desserts of Iraq, fox holes in Afghanistan or a US battleship in the Pacific Ocean.
Rachel and her friends wanted to show their support and appreciation to the American soldiers who are currently serving overseas. They joined a wonderful program called “Purim TreaTs for Troops”.  The idea was to assemble Purim packages, or Mishloach Manot in Hebrew, that are traditionally given to friends and family on the holiday of Purim, and then mail these packages to the soldiers stationed overseas.  Purim this year falls out on Friday, March 21st and is the celebration of the Jewish victory of Queen Esther over the evil Haman who wanted to destroy the Jewish nation many years ago.
This innovative program is run by Hebrew Schools in the ToTal network throughout the United States.  ToTal, the nationwide Talmud Torah Network is a project of THE AFIKIM FOUNDATION (http://www.afikimfoundation.org).  In its fourth year, ToTal has grown to over 80 locations nationwide and expects to open many new sites next year.  The ToTal experience provides children with a Jewish educational program that is innovative, inventive and fun.

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By Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill
National Guard Bureau

BALADIA CITY, Israel – National Guard Citizen-Soldiers and -Airmen could one day exercise at a state-of-the-art urban warfare training center here.

From a distance, the National Urban Training Center (NUTC) looks like a bustling desert town. But it’s a purpose-built mock-up on a real-life scale designed as a training ground for military operations on urban terrain (MOUT).

“This is a world-class site that the Israelis have built,” LTG H Steven Blum, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, said during a December visit. “We probably should have a facility like that of our own; in the interim, we should explore the opportunities to train here.”

Blum and other National Guard leaders toured the NUTC with Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) officers during a four-day visit to Israel to bolster the Bureau’s relationship with the
IDF Home Front Command and discuss joint exercises and other possible exchanges under the aegis of the U.S. European Command.

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Editor’s Note:  A previous article detailing LTG Blum’s trip to Masada in Israel came from the National Guard news.  This is another of three articles in the On Guard about the trip.

By Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill
National Guard Bureau
HAIFA, Israel – Studying how to respond to sustained terrorist attacks against a U.S. city, National Guard leaders visited Haifa,
which in late summer 2006 was an Israeli city under fire.

LTG H Steven Blum, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, stopped here Dec. 4 during a four-day visit to Israel to bolster the Bureau’s relationship with the Israeli Defense
Forces (IDF) Home Front Command and discuss joint exercises and other possible exchanges carried out under the aegis of U.S. European Command (EUCOM).

Blum’s third official visit to Israel included meetings with Maj. Gen. Yitzshak (Jerry) Gershon, Home Front commander, and other senior IDF military leaders; briefings on lessons learned from the 2006 Lebanon War; and visits to military installations and historic and cultural sites such as the Negev Desert, Masada, Jaffa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

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No report yet on the success of the Jewish War Veteran’s Capitol Hill Action Day(s), held March 5th and 6th.

It makes one proud to be associated with this group, that they are out there actively seeking change and protection for past and present warriors.

Here are their key 2008 legislative goals:
• Mandatory Funding
The VA health care system needs a stable funding mechanism to ensure health care “supply” is
available to meet and care for the growing demands for services.
JWV especially desires to see the VA upgrade polytrauma and other specialty care services for
OIF/OEF veterans with multiple trauma injuries including traumatic brain injury (TBI) and severe
eye injuries.
• Wounded Warrior “Seamless Transition”
JWV recommends a major overhaul of the disability ratings process to provide wounded service
members comprehensive and fair disability ratings and benefits prior to their medical separation or
retirement form active duty.
• A Total Force Approach to the Montgomery GI Bill (MGIB)
JWV notes that no significant upgrades to the MGIB have been enacted since prior to 9/11. This is
unacceptable. A weak GI Bill harms recruiting, hurts transition to civilian life, and denies the nation
the time-tested benefits of a better educated, higher-paid workforce with military experience.
• VA Disability Benefits System
The number of initial claims and appealed claims for service-connected disabilities continues to rise.
JWV recommends the VA automate the claims processing system and move to a paperless
environment as soon as possible.
JWV also believes it is most important to establish uniform standards and procedures for ratings
claims.
• Disabled Veterans Tax Fairness
For thousands, even tens of thousands of disabled veterans, VA decisions on their appealed claims
can take years to resolve. JWV wants Congress to enact “look back” legislation to remove the threeyear
statute of limitations for filing amended tax returns for veterans who have not received timely
disability determinations from the VA.
• Protection of Veterans Personal Identity and Information
JWV commends the VA for elevating the Chief Information Officer and centralizing management
oversight of information security.
JWV urges Congress to conduct regular oversight hearings to identify weaknesses in the VA’s
information security and to order appropriate corrective actions.
• Homeless Veterans
Veterans make up a disproportionate share of homeless people, representing roughly 26 percent of
the homeless. The number of OEF/OIF veterans who are homeless is on the rise including homeless
female veterans.
The VA should expand outreach and intervention programs directed at homeless veterans.

Services set for Chicago soldier Bitton who died in Iraq
By Robert Mitchum and Mary Owen | Tribune reporter
February 25, 2008

Services for Cpl. Albert Bitton, a 20-year-old Chicago Army medic who died last week in Iraq, have been scheduled for Tuesday afternoon at a Chicago synagogue, his family said.

A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m Tuesday in Congregation Adas Yeshurun, 3050 W. Touhy Ave., Chicago. The burial service will follow at Memorial Park Cemetery in Skokie.

Bitton was so proud of his Army service, friends said, that he wore his uniform everywhere when he returned to Chicago on leave—even to the bowling alley and park.

“He always wore those super-shiny shoes,” said friend Benjy Kandelman. “He never had a scuff on them.”

Bitton was killed along with two other soldiers in Baghdad when the Humvee they were in hit an improvised explosive device Tuesday, according to a statement from the Department of Defense. He was part of the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), the department said.

The West Rogers Park resident joined the Army in December 2005 and had been stationed in Iraq since October. He was scheduled to return home for leave in August, his family said, and to complete his tour in January 2009.

Bitton is survived by his wife, Melissa Handelman; his parents, Elie and Sylvia; and his sisters, Elizabeth and Jackie

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UPDATE: A revision on the Forward’s blog as well as a communication from Mr. Treiman has indicated that indeed, positive attention is being called to the Jewish War Veterans.  Don’t forget, Capitol Hill Action Day is March 5-6th.  You need not be a member of the Jewish War Veterans (though if you’re Jewish and in the service or have been in the service, you should be) to care about pressing issues.

Perusing the Forward’s blog this morning, I came across this entry about the latest issue of the Jewish War Veterans’ magazine.

The blogger indicates that this cover of The Jewish Veteran “may very well be the greatest Jewish magazine cover in the annals of our people’s history.”

I tried to comment to the article to seek clarification, but their comment section seemed broken.  I would like to understand as to whether or not this was sarcasm.

One need not read deep into this website or other Jewish publications that Jewish veterans—past, present and future—have a stake in this election in terms of our benefits.  I am very concerned that the cavalier treatment of a very serious topic may be all too telling about the state of American Jewish cultural consciousness.

You’ll find no shortage of aspiring social justice activists amongst our youth, but there remains yet one Jewish group steadfastly dedicated to military advocacy, comprised of veterans.  It’s certainly not experiencing a groundswell in membership, either.

Whatever walk of Jewish life we come from, we cannot merely concern ourselves with this or that candidate’s position on Israel, or rejection of voices like Farrakhan.  If justice we are to pursue, then the cause of the wounded or aged warrior should be important to us.  The JWV doesn’t have the budget of the American Legion or the VFW, but it pours its heart into its efforts and its publications, and should not be mocked.

Hopefully, the Forward will clarify for us whether or not Daniel Treiman was earnest in his praise of The Jewish Veteran cover.  We have and will continue to put our lives on the line.  We deserve to be taken seriously whether we employ primates or not.

My novel MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL is a fictionalized account of my first nine weeks as a new army officer’s wife in the spring of 1970.  The novel has been nominated as a semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition.  You can download the first few pages for free at the link below.  And if you have an Amazon account, you can scroll down the page to “create your own link” and post a review, which helps the book get noticed.

Regardless of how the novel does in the final judging, I’m publishing it through a print-on-demand publisher, and the whole novel will be available on Amazon in a few weeks.  The novel talks about Sharon Gold’s experiences as a Jew in the army during that turbulent time of the Vietnam War.  (Officers’ wives are considered “in the army” also.) I’ve saved all the original documents and I’ll be posting some on the website I’m having designed.

Now I’m working on the next novel—MRS. LIEUTENANT IN EUROPE—which will deal with living in Germany only 25 years after the end of WWII and being part of the armed forces keeping the Russians from invading Western Europe during the Cold War.  I also have the original documents from that time.

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The big buzz word of Web 2.0 seems to be social. To be honest, I still can't bring myself to use a lot of these new social networking sites. However, there are a few sites out there I've begun to use and find tremendously useful.

Going along with this trend, I've decided to bring JIG into the fold. I've added a few minor features that will hopefully enhance your experience as a user, and also help to promote some of the articles on our website.

The first thing you may notice is the addition of a few options at the bottom of each post. Digg is a service that promotes stories based on how many people recommend (or digg) them. If you already use Digg, all you have to do is click on the link at the end of an article, and it will post it to Digg's site.

Next up is a link to del.icio.us. In it's simplest form, delicious is a way to organize your bookmarks online. There is a social aspect to it that allows users to share (and make popular) some of your own bookmarks. There are 2 new features on JIG in regards to delicious.

• Clicking on the del.icio.us link allows users to quickly add a JIG page to their bookmarks
• If you are a del.icio.us user and you want to submit a link of interest to the writers here at JIG, just tag any bookmark with the tag "for:jewsingreen". It will automatically pop up on our bookmarks and we'll check out the story.

Finally, there is flickr. For those that live under a rock, flickr is the largest photo repository on the web. JIG now has its very own flickr group. I've uploaded most of the photos from our gallery to the site, but the idea is that now it's much easier for all of you to share your photos with us. If you are a flickr user, just add any photos of interest to the "jewsingreen" photo group and we'll see it.

Enjoy! Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

“Shabbat Across America/Canada” is an unparalleled display of unity and Ahavat Yisrael, created in the hope of making certain that every North American Jew will have the opportunity to celebrate Shabbat!

Imagine an entire Friday evening dinner devoted to people who want to know more about Judaism! Its an interactive prayer service, joyous Shabbat dinner complete with song, ritual and lively discussion. It is fun-filled evening of camaraderie that unifies Jews everywhere as one people. Tens of thousands of Jews at hundreds of locations across North America will celebrate Shabbat together on March 7, 2008, many for the first time!

Want to Attend Shabbat Across America 2008?

Call 1-800-44-Hebre(w) and we’ll make sure you are invited!

For more information, visit here.

HEBREW SCHOOL SEEK TO SUPPORT TROOPS
The national network of Total Hebrew schools is sending mishloach manos Purim packages out.  Read the attached files for further details.

Letter to Rabbi Robinson
Totally Treats Flier (PDF)

40% OFF JPS BOOKS
The Jewish Publication Society is offering a 40% discount on all books and other publications to all military chaplains and lay leaders. Go on line to www.jewishpub.org and browse through the catalog. Once you decide on a book contact email Dolores Verbit at . Send a check or give her a credit card and she will sent you the book. It is a great deal.

PASSOVER PACKAGES
To ensure that the right number of packages get to the right people I need you to email your current address and number of packages needed by 28 FEBRUARY 2008. We need to have the most current list. Please email your information EVEN if you have not moved from your present duty assignment. This information will ensure that we have the most up to date list.

Thank you for your cooperation.

NOTE: The Subject line on your email should read Passover Packages 2008.  Send emails to .

Includes items such as macaroons, fruit slices, chocolate-covered matzo, etc.