Inside look at the making of a Torah

It turns out it does pay to have good penmanship — especially if you're in the Torah business.

On June 3, Jews around the world will celebrate the festival of Shavuot, which celebrates the revelation of the Ten Commandments to Moses and the Israelites who escaped slavery in Egypt.

To mark the occasion, members of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic sect in Brooklyn gave The Post a rare look at the world of Torah scroll making — a laborious process that's remained mostly unchanged for thousands of years.

The Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament handwritten exclusively on parchment, can fetch $20,000 to upwards of $120,000, a sky-high sum affected by one thing more than any other: good handwriting.

"You get something from a beginner that nobody knows, you're going to get something that looks like it was written by a first grader," said Rabbi Mendel, who prepares the animal hides.

To get the year-long process in motion, someone has to commission a new Torah — typically a synagogue congregation, or an individual who wants to donate one to a synagogue to honor a dead relative.

Mendel, 30, whose Crown Heights shop produces about three Torahs a year, starts the process by rendering the hides, which come to him either salted or frozen. "It's meat, it'll spoil," he noted.

Calfskin is usually used — about 65 animals are used to make a complete torah. The animal itself needs to be kosher — goats, deer, sheep can also be used to make torahs — but does not necessarily have to be killed at a kosher slaughterhouse.

The hides are first treated in a caustic lime bath, which helps separate the fats and oils in the skin.

They're stretched so they dry flat, and when ready, they're scraped, sanded and cut to size, with indentations made so that the scribe is able to write straight; new scrolls contain 245 columns with 42 lines in each.

Using a feather quill or reed pen, a specially trained scribe, called a sofer, is expected to perfectly replicate every letter of the Torah — all 304,805 of them — in the Assyrian-style Hebrew script.

Scribes — who make a declaration each time they begin work that their actions are for the holiness of the scroll — are not allowed to work from memory, and instead copy the letters from a kosher scroll, or certified copy of one, according to Rabbi Shmuel Klein, who is in training to be a scribe.

5th generation scribe Rabbi Moshe Klein finishes writing a new Torah in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.Photo: Ira Berger

Only black ink, traditionally prepared with tannic acid and iron sulfate, is allowed. And any mistake, or if the letters are too close together, will render the work un-kosher, and they'll have to go back to fix it.

"It's used as a parable — if one Jew has a problem, it doesn't affect just that one Jew — the whole Jewish nation has a problem," Mendel said.

Towards the end of the Torah, the scribe will leave an outline of the last few letters so that members of the community who commissioned the work can fill them in and have a hand in its creation.

The scribe checks his work, but so does modern technology. A scanner and computer program are used to ferret out errors, which are scraped out with a blade.

Members of the community participate in the completion of a new Torah by writing a letter with the assistance of the scribe.Photo: Ira Berger

When the scribe deems his work perfect, a thread made of sinew is used to tie the parchment sheets together to make one scroll, which can weigh about 25 pounds and stand two feet tall. The scroll is attached with sinew to two wooden shafts called atzei chayim — trees of life— covered with an embroidered cloth, and topped with an ornate keter, a crown, typically made of silver.

It's all a labor of love.

"The Torah is what keeps the Jewish people around, and that's why we're still around," Mendel said.

20.50 | 0 komentar | Read More

In my library: Kenny Leon

Things I Should Have Told My Daughter
by Pearl Cleage

I was the director who commissioned her four plays, and she sent me the galley of this book. Pearl has a very specific voice, and this is like an open journal of her life. It was scary to read someone writing about her love life, her political life, her feminism — scary in a good way!

Dr. J: The Autobiography
by Julius Erving

He's a good friend of mine — he was the best man at my wedding. I'm so proud of him. I think he's one of the most courageous people I know. You think he'd be bitter about all the things he's gone through — the loss of his son and his brother — but he always tells me, "My best days are still ahead." So when I put out a show, I always tell myself that, too.

Same Kind of Different As Me
by Ron Hall and Denver Moore

What's great about this is that it shows how our lives intersect and how our differences bond us. Denver is black, Ron is white. Ron's family owned the land that Denver's family worked. They went their separate ways and met again at a homeless shelter, where they ended up becoming best friends. It's a true story and an amazing book.

Tempest Rising
by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

Set in Philadelphia in the 1960s, it's a complex story about people who grew up poor, have their own business, the business goes south, the father dies and the three daughters are separated when their mother is institutionalized. I think it would make a good film, and I think Phylicia Rashad wants to produce it.

20.50 | 0 komentar | Read More

This week’s must-read books

Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters
An Eccentric Englishwoman and Her Lost Kingdom
by Philip Eade (Picador)

A courtier's daughter runs off to help rule an exotic, far-away kingdom — but it's not the next "Game of Thrones" novel. In fact, this story, chronicled by journalist Eade in his first book, is true. Born in 1885 in London, Sylvia marries Vyner Brooke — "the last white Raja" of Sarawak in 1911. (His family ruled the land for three generations). We get a picture that includes too much drinking, prostitutes, odd relatives and flying saucers. Plus an end to the British colonial way of life with Japan's invasion of Sarawak in 1941.

Note to Self
by Alina Simone (Faber and Faber)

Pink-slipped from her cubicle job at a Midtown law firm, Internet-obsessed Anna (she collects spam) — who, of course, lives in Brooklyn — allows her more stable friend, Leslie, to be her life coach. Of course, that doesn't stop her from trolling Craigslist — and she answers an ad to work with experimental filmmaker Taj, who is active in the Nowism art movement. First-time novelist Simone, a Ukraine-born Brooklyn resident, has a sharp, satiric eye for observation.

Down the Shore
by Stan Parish (Viking)

Tom Alison and Clare Savage come from different worlds: Tom, with Jersey Shore roots, is raised by a single mom who's a caterer; Clare comes from wealth. But both boys, seniors at New Jersey's prestigious Lawrenceville school, are in trouble. Tom's been busted for dealing pot, and his admission to Columbia has been revoked. Clare's parents have disappeared after his financier father is accused of a Madoff-like scam. Both wind up at St. Andrew's University in Scotland, where they've escaped for different reasons, in Parish's coming-of-age novel.

Tibetan Peach Pie
A True Account of an Imaginative Life
by Tom Robbins (Ecco)

With the author of such irreverent classics such as "Another Roadside Attraction" and "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues," the subtitle here could just as well be "An Imaginative Account of a True Life." Robbins, who reveals his mother's pet name for him was "Tommy Rotten," insists this is not an autobiography, writing that "only authors who are household names should write autobiographies . . . but those rare homes in which [my name] is spoken with any regularity are likely to be under police surveillance."

Dark Aemilia
A Novel of Shakespeare's Dark Lady
by Sally O'Reilly (Picador)

We all know Shakespeare wrote love sonnets. Now, O'Reilly's new novel brings us the Bard's sonnet-writing lover and sonnet-inspiring muse. In this fictional take on Shakespearean-era poetess Aemilia Layner, a smitten Will pursues Aemilia, a lady of the court, and carries on an affair with her until she becomes pregnant. Later Aemilia meets the real Macbeth, and also employs witchcraft to save her child. Historical fiction, with the emphasis on the fictional liberties.

20.50 | 0 komentar | Read More

Justin Bieber caught using N-word in racist joke

Pop star Justin Bieber was caught on camera dropping the N-word, while telling a tasteless joke to pals.

Bieber is seen sitting on a couch with a woman, whose face has been blurred out, when he asks, "Why are black people afraid of chain saw?"

A male pal off camera tried to stop Bieber from finishing the joke: "Dont even say it, don't say it," according to the video posted on the London Sun's website.

But Bieber can't help himself and delivered the nasty punchline: "Run n–ger, n–ger, n–ger, n–ger, n–ger."

The Sun reported that Bieber's team knew about the offensive video clip and had offered big bucks to keep it quiet.

A rep for the puny pop star could not be immediately reached for comment.

Bieber, 20, was believed to be 17, still sporting his signature mop top, when the video was recorded.

It was allegedly shot as part of his 2011 documentary "Justin Bieber: Never Say Never," but it didn't make the final cut.

Warning: Graphic Language

20.50 | 0 komentar | Read More

Former New Jersey Nets, Devils owner killed in fiery plane crash

PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia Inquirer co-owner Lewis Katz is among the seven people killed in a fiery plane crash in Massachusetts, the newspaper's editor said Sunday.

Bill Marimow confirmed Katz's death to Philly.com, saying he learned the news from close associates.

The Gulfstream IV crashed as it was leaving Hanscom Field about 9:40 p.m. Saturday for Atlantic City International Airport in New Jersey, said Matthew Brelis, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Port Authority, which operates the air field.

"There were no survivors," Brelis said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the people on board and their loved ones."

Katz was one of two business moguls who bought out their partners last week with an $88 million bid for The Inquirer, which also operates the Philadelphia Daily News and the news website Philly.com.

The winners vowed to fund in-depth journalism to return the Inquirer to its former glory and to retain its editor, Marimow.

"It's going to be a lot of hard work. We're not kidding ourselves. It's going to be an enormous undertaking," Katz said then, noting that advertising and circulation revenues had fallen for years. "Hopefully, (the Inquirer) will get fatter."

Katz, 72, made his fortune investing in the Kinney Parking empire and the Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network in New York. He once owned the NBA's New Jersey Nets and the NHL's New Jersey Devils and is a major donor to Temple University, his alma mater.

Officials did not speculate on what they think caused the crash. They said the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate and determine what happened.

Nearby residents recounted seeing a fireball and feeling the blast of the explosion shake their homes.

Jeff Patterson told The Boston Globe he saw a fireball about 60 feet in the air and suspected the worst for those aboard the plane.

"I heard a big boom, and I thought at the time that someone was trying to break into my house because it shook it," said Patterson's son, 14-year-old Jared Patterson. "I thought someone was like banging on the door trying to get in."

The air field, which serves the public, was closed after the crash. Brelis said responders were still on the scene early Sunday morning.

An aviation expert who spoke to New England Cable News said various explanations for the explosion were possible.

"The engine could implode, if you will," said Steve Cunningham of Nashua Flight Simulator. "A turbine wheel could separate, there could be a fire in the combustion chamber. Or a fuel leak could also create a fire of that nature."

Hanscom Field is about 20 miles northwest of Boston. It was used by the Army Air Corps and military operations dominated until it became both a military and civilian facility in the 1950s. Massport currently manages it as a regional airport serving mostly corporate aviation, private pilots, commuter air services, and some light cargo.

20.50 | 0 komentar | Read More

In my library: Kenny Leon

Things I Should Have Told My Daughter
by Pearl Cleage

I was the director who commissioned her four plays, and she sent me the galley of this book. Pearl has a very specific voice, and this is like an open journal of her life. It was scary to read someone writing about her love life, her political life, her feminism — scary in a good way!

Dr. J: The Autobiography
by Julius Erving

He's a good friend of mine — he was the best man at my wedding. I'm so proud of him. I think he's one of the most courageous people I know. You think he'd be bitter about all the things he's gone through — the loss of his son and his brother — but he always tells me, "My best days are still ahead." So when I put out a show, I always tell myself that, too.

Same Kind of Different As Me
by Ron Hall and Denver Moore

What's great about this is that it shows how our lives intersect and how our differences bond us. Denver is black, Ron is white. Ron's family owned the land that Denver's family worked. They went their separate ways and met again at a homeless shelter, where they ended up becoming best friends. It's a true story and an amazing book.

Tempest Rising
by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

Set in Philadelphia in the 1960s, it's a complex story about people who grew up poor, have their own business, the business goes south, the father dies and the three daughters are separated when their mother is institutionalized. I think it would make a good film, and I think Phylicia Rashad wants to produce it.

18.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Testing the tests

In the debate about the best way to reform New York's underperforming public schools, there is no shortage of proposed solutions — from charters and choice to more professional development and higher pay for teachers.

But no reform can succeed without an accurate and objective measure of where our students are in their learning. That's why testing and teacher evaluations continue to be both vital and contentious. And it's also why we're so troubled by what has turned up with the grading of the Regents English exams this year.

For years, teachers graded Regents exams taken by students in their own schools. This year, the Regents Board changed the policy. They decided tests would be graded by teachers outside the school.

Lo and behold, when New York City teachers weren't grading their own students' tests, the failures rose — from 27 percent in 2012 to 35 percent in 2013. In 73 of the city's public schools, the number of students to achieve the passing score of 65 plunged by more than 20 percent.

Ouch.

You'd think the results of an experiment in more objective grading might embarrass city officials when it revealed their students weren't doing as well as they had thought. But Mayor de Blasio doesn't think much of tests.

Only a few months ago, the de Blasio administration announced that for grades 3-8, test scores will no longer be the chief determinant of whether students should move on to the next grade. Instead, the administration said it will implement a more "holistic" policy, taking factors such as classroom attendance into determining grade promotion.

The problem here is obvious. School attendance, of course, is important. But just showing up for class doesn't mean a student is learning. The only way to know whether students have mastered the material they are being taught (and are ready to move up to the next level) is to test them.

We understand that moving away from honest and objective measures makes it politically ­easier for mayors and chancellors presiding over a failing system. But it is a grave dereliction of their obligation to our schoolchildren.

If they're not learning, the school system needs to know — and not simply pass them up the chain until they drop out or leave high school without the skills they need for college or work.

18.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

The pensions that ate New Jersey

Of the many challenges New Jersey faces — sky-high taxes, budget projections that keep falling short, a Supreme Court that likes to mandate spending — there is no darker cloud over the state's future than its massively underfunded pension system.

That much ought to have been clear when Gov. Chris Christie last month suspended promised state contributions to the pension system to close a budget shortfall. He promised to lay out a plan for pension reform some time soon.

It can't come soon enough. Back in January, a report from the Common Sense Institute of New Jersey warned that without serious reforms, the system is headed for bankruptcy. The main reason for this is the outdated system of promising defined benefits rather than the defined-contribution system that dominates in the private sector.

As one coauthor of the report put it: "Defined-benefit plans and politics are a toxic combination."

Gov. Christie recognizes that. In 2011, the governor and the Legislature took a stab at reform, and they improved things somewhat. But it simply wasn't enough. Steve Malanga of the Manhattan Institute points out that Jersey's problem is far larger than anyone has admitted: The Garden State now devotes 14 percent of its tax revenue to pensions — four times the norm.

The governor is right that the pension crisis has been decades in the making, and he's inherited a big fat mess from his predecessors. He's right that the Democratic solution — raise Jersey's taxes even higher — won't work. And he's right, too, that the state needs to shift pensions for new public employees away from a traditional defined benefit to a 401(k) investment plan or some combination of both.

But the governor also needs to take the lead in addressing the spending that has driven the state into the ditch. Pension reform is necessary, but so is cutting spending so the state can make its pension payments. The truth is, genuine reform will require unpopular cuts in spending.

If the governor's suspension of pension payments leads to honest talk about the size of the problem before Jersey and a radical restructuring of its pension program, Christie will have done Jersey a real service. But if all we get is half-measures and no hard choices about spending, it will only mean kicking the can further down the road.

Douglas Roberts, who as state treasurer under then-Gov. John Engler engineered Michigan's fix in 1996, says pension reform is possible only when you have "a very strong leader who is basically willing to go where other people haven't gone." This is Chris Christie's moment — if he'll take it.

18.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Inside look at the making of a Torah

It turns out it does pay to have good penmanship — especially if you're in the Torah business.

On June 3, Jews around the world will celebrate the festival of Shavuot, which celebrates the revelation of the Ten Commandments to Moses and the Israelites who escaped slavery in Egypt.

To mark the occasion, members of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic sect in Brooklyn gave The Post a rare look at the world of Torah scroll making — a laborious process that's remained mostly unchanged for thousands of years.

The Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament handwritten exclusively on parchment, can fetch $20,000 to upwards of $120,000, a sky-high sum affected by one thing more than any other: good handwriting.

"You get something from a beginner that nobody knows, you're going to get something that looks like it was written by a first grader," said Rabbi Mendel, who prepares the animal hides.

To get the year-long process in motion, someone has to commission a new Torah — typically a synagogue congregation, or an individual who wants to donate one to a synagogue to honor a dead relative.

Mendel, 30, whose Crown Heights shop produces about three Torahs a year, starts the process by rendering the hides, which come to him either salted or frozen. "It's meat, it'll spoil," he noted.

Calfskin is usually used — about 65 animals are used to make a complete torah. The animal itself needs to be kosher — goats, deer, sheep can also be used to make torahs — but does not necessarily have to be killed at a kosher slaughterhouse.

The hides are first treated in a caustic lime bath, which helps separate the fats and oils in the skin.

They're stretched so they dry flat, and when ready, they're scraped, sanded and cut to size, with indentations made so that the scribe is able to write straight; new scrolls contain 245 columns with 42 lines in each.

Using a feather quill or reed pen, a specially trained scribe, called a sofer, is expected to perfectly replicate every letter of the Torah — all 304,805 of them — in the Assyrian-style Hebrew script.

Scribes — who make a declaration each time they begin work that their actions are for the holiness of the scroll — are not allowed to work from memory, and instead copy the letters from a kosher scroll, or certified copy of one, according to Rabbi Shmuel Klein, who is in training to be a scribe.

5th generation scribe Rabbi Moshe Klein finishes writing a new Torah in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.Photo: Ira Berger

Only black ink, traditionally prepared with tannic acid and iron sulfate, is allowed. And any mistake, or if the letters are too close together, will render the work un-kosher, and they'll have to go back to fix it.

"It's used as a parable — if one Jew has a problem, it doesn't affect just that one Jew — the whole Jewish nation has a problem," Mendel said.

Towards the end of the Torah, the scribe will leave an outline of the last few letters so that members of the community who commissioned the work can fill them in and have a hand in its creation.

The scribe checks his work, but so does modern technology. A scanner and computer program are used to ferret out errors, which are scraped out with a blade.

Members of the community participate in the completion of a new Torah by writing a letter with the assistance of the scribe.Photo: Ira Berger

When the scribe deems his work perfect, a thread made of sinew is used to tie the parchment sheets together to make one scroll, which can weigh about 25 pounds and stand two feet tall. The scroll is attached with sinew to two wooden shafts called atzei chayim — trees of life— covered with an embroidered cloth, and topped with an ornate keter, a crown, typically made of silver.

It's all a labor of love.

"The Torah is what keeps the Jewish people around, and that's why we're still around," Mendel said.

18.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

This week’s must-read books

Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters
An Eccentric Englishwoman and Her Lost Kingdom
by Philip Eade (Picador)

A courtier's daughter runs off to help rule an exotic, far-away kingdom — but it's not the next "Game of Thrones" novel. In fact, this story, chronicled by journalist Eade in his first book, is true. Born in 1885 in London, Sylvia marries Vyner Brooke — "the last white Raja" of Sarawak in 1911. (His family ruled the land for three generations). We get a picture that includes too much drinking, prostitutes, odd relatives and flying saucers. Plus an end to the British colonial way of life with Japan's invasion of Sarawak in 1941.

Note to Self
by Alina Simone (Faber and Faber)

Pink-slipped from her cubicle job at a Midtown law firm, Internet-obsessed Anna (she collects spam) — who, of course, lives in Brooklyn — allows her more stable friend, Leslie, to be her life coach. Of course, that doesn't stop her from trolling Craigslist — and she answers an ad to work with experimental filmmaker Taj, who is active in the Nowism art movement. First-time novelist Simone, a Ukraine-born Brooklyn resident, has a sharp, satiric eye for observation.

Down the Shore
by Stan Parish (Viking)

Tom Alison and Clare Savage come from different worlds: Tom, with Jersey Shore roots, is raised by a single mom who's a caterer; Clare comes from wealth. But both boys, seniors at New Jersey's prestigious Lawrenceville school, are in trouble. Tom's been busted for dealing pot, and his admission to Columbia has been revoked. Clare's parents have disappeared after his financier father is accused of a Madoff-like scam. Both wind up at St. Andrew's University in Scotland, where they've escaped for different reasons, in Parish's coming-of-age novel.

Tibetan Peach Pie
A True Account of an Imaginative Life
by Tom Robbins (Ecco)

With the author of such irreverent classics such as "Another Roadside Attraction" and "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues," the subtitle here could just as well be "An Imaginative Account of a True Life." Robbins, who reveals his mother's pet name for him was "Tommy Rotten," insists this is not an autobiography, writing that "only authors who are household names should write autobiographies . . . but those rare homes in which [my name] is spoken with any regularity are likely to be under police surveillance."

Dark Aemilia
A Novel of Shakespeare's Dark Lady
by Sally O'Reilly (Picador)

We all know Shakespeare wrote love sonnets. Now, O'Reilly's new novel brings us the Bard's sonnet-writing lover and sonnet-inspiring muse. In this fictional take on Shakespearean-era poetess Aemilia Layner, a smitten Will pursues Aemilia, a lady of the court, and carries on an affair with her until she becomes pregnant. Later Aemilia meets the real Macbeth, and also employs witchcraft to save her child. Historical fiction, with the emphasis on the fictional liberties.

18.18 | 0 komentar | Read More