Mendy, A Place for Dinner in Cracow...

Miriam Said:
"My polish goye is very excited that I have a niece in Cracow."

Well, perhaps her niece can invite Mendy over for dinner. Read on...

Mr. Goldstein was visiting in Poland when an old lady called to him from her window, "Mr. Goldstein Mr. Goldstein, don't you recognize me? I am the woman who cleaned your home for ten years."
"Yes, Anna, I remember," he says.
"Come in," says Anna, "I would love to make you a coffee or something."
"Have you forgotten, Anna? I eat only Kosher"
"No problem," says she, "all my dishes are from your house."

Solon

Well............
Since the honorable directors of SOLON CHABAD do not have the time to share the news of their good fortune with their family I will take the liberty of telling how Rosh Hashana was in Solon Ohio.
Night Number One:
Many people. Nice speech. Chazan did well.
Day Number One:
Many many people. Nice chazaning from both Chazans. Nice leining from both Leiners. Nice speech. No dogs!
Night Number Two:
Few people. Too few for Rabbi to speak. Nice meal. Nice guests.
Day Number Two:
Nice Chazaning. Many many but not as many people. Nice leining from both leiners and Chazaning from... Nice blowing from blower. Nice blessings from blessers. Nice washing from washers. And nice fishees. Oh yeah Nice speech (this mention is superfluous).
Night Number Three:
Nice Melavah "Malkha" (in Aramaic as opposed to Hebrew) with the Matriarch and Patriarch.
For more information convince Miriam to post.

No Title

I was going through the files of pictures and i found these funny pictures.

Sasonkin kids

Mom & baby Sasonkin

Sasonkin baby GIRL - finally :)

For some reason I can only upload one picture at a time per post, so here goes a few of them...

Comment on Mendy F. letter

To Mendy, from Mommy.

Thank you so much for that report!
Now you are our partner in shlichus; now you know what we felt like for many years before the email was born.
No conection to the world, because phone calls were $5.00 a minute without exageration.We cannot imagine that today with free long distance but it was truly very lonely.
How do I know this if it was so many years ago? Because Rochele just brought me a bag of "treasures" that Bubby gave her with old letters that I had written in the early years here.
( I think the rest of you also got their bags, thanks to the organizational skills of Rochele and Mushkie and Chani Greenberg. They did one basket, five more to go.)

I wasnt exactly going to read all those letters, I was actually afraid of what I would find, so I decided to pick just one. IT was a Mazel Tov letter to Bubby (alevsky) who was in Israel and to Chani Glitzentstein after one of the kids were born. I had forgotten about it, but in the letter I had written Mazel Tov to Chani, and apologing for not calling her, but the reason I couldnt call her and was therefore writing her, snail mail because the last time I had spoken to her for "only" 15 minutes, we had gotten a bill for $75.00 (Australes at the time) equivalent without exageration to $75 American dollars.

So thats the story of being lonely; we didnt even have phone conection to the world.
So Mendy today you are lucky, there are actually cell phones..Enjoy the modern technology, as the REbbe would have said it was all created especially for the shluchim.

Mendy, this is my comment on your letter. Since the comment didnt go thru, Rochele posted it with her password.

We are enjoying the other posts, please keep it up.

Regards and a Gmar Chasima Tova to all,

from Sarah and Freedmans.

Shana Tova from Moscow, Russia

Hi everybody out there in the world!
cuz actually I'm NOT in the world.
I would like to welcome all of you to Moscow Russia. PERIOD.
in case you guys don't know yet I'm spending my year on shlichus in the yeshiva in Moscow. What a experience in life let me tell you, it all started in yeshiva @ the end of last year when I was told I'm going to Moscow yeshiva for shlichus, (so far so good), I went to camp for the summer and 2 days after camp I get a phone call that in a week you have a flight to Moscow! Now you guys have to understand that to walk in to Russia you need a visa to get a visa you need a passport that does not expire a least for the next 6 months and I did not have that! So beezras hashem I was able in a week to make a new passport and a visa! (cuz this was in America still).
Anyways with a lot of help from above a week later I boarded my plane to aerofloat! I said boarded a plane to aerofloat? I meant to boarded a plane(?) to aeroflap! Cues this is Russia broken seats no service, I mean there is service but very slow, I mean not slow you get it but UNTIL you get it, but once you get it you get it, anyways you guys got it?! Already in JFK you have to understand this airline hired a company to board the plane and check in so when you want to speak about something to do to the airline for example kosher food you need to go to the airline representative but I only saw 2 of them one by the checking counter how I did not speak to and one by the gate which I spoke to but I was lucky because after I spoke to him he left for the rest of the day.
is someone reading so far?
so as I was saying we arrived in Russia! And I meant it because the airport looks like any other domestic airport, and we arrive at the immigration that the room is as big as the alevsky's dining room and living room together (not including the kitchen)with 10 booths that only 5 of them work with no special booth for Russians tourists and so on, but the problem was that the computer system was down, so we stood in line to get INTO Russia (not out) for 3 hour's with people skipping lines and so on "vedal", thank the one above after immigration we found our luggage (in case you guys did not know we are a group of 6 bochurim) and a bochur that works @ yeshiva came to pick us up- with yeshivas van, on the way to parking lot he tells us "by the way this is Russia and I did not bring a limosuine to take you guys to yeshiva" so we hoped for the best, but the best did not happen, a broken down van that is meant to take cargo there fore there is no windows that opens (windows yes but not that opens), and tow benches pushed in for us to sit, and so we were off to yeshiva with a ride that takes 45 minutes took 2 and a half hours cuz traffic here I don't wish anybody:) (and I mean it).
when wee arrived at the yeshiova we were surprised, the yeshiva is located in a camp site but we get there its al gated with bobwire and so on we did not no if this was the right camp but it was when we drove in we were more surprised a butyfull campus the dorm was very nice we arrived and went straight to eat (cuz food on the plane we did not have) and let me tell surprised I was cut besides katoshkes that we for sure had the food was very good and it is still is.
what ever this is but the problem is that this is a camp site 45 minute drive from Moscow but there is no phone line so we live on cell phones and calling cards (which are actually cheap), and once a week we come to Moscow and here I am in marina roscha (the JCC) Lazars shul and there is internet writing up my life story that was to long for someone to read, (but not for me to type when its my only connection to the world) not including the first week when we came here there was no internet so I was tow and half weeks with no connection to the world!.
so I am here once a week with my connection to the world.
may we all be inscribed in the books of life and a happy and sweet new year to all of you from Moscow Russia
Truly Yours,
Mendy Freedman

Shana Tova

I would like to wish Shana Tovah to my whole family.. and a little update after Rochie's coaching, encouragement and nudging :) ... funny i am a little jetlagged even though i didnt make it to china - this year Dinie actually begged me to come (instead of vice versa) well sorry charlie... if you dont need me when i want to and can come then you will learn your lesson the hard way... Just Kidding... really I am actually not homeless this year and i have a mission/job to stay in yeshiva and be here for the boys.

"Well if you cant fly to China" she says, "at least feel like it!!!" spend 2 days and nights finding me a bochur to come daven! well i did (kind of) just that and sat from 2 pm on monday for about 16 hours (almost) straight finding her someone to come - now this is Shanghai, CHINA and you would think that everyone is just RUNNING to shanghai... well i got news for you, i got more "no"s in those bunch of hours then in my whole life together... for whatever million reasons and excuses they could give. When someone finally said yes, i started getting excited until he realized that he needs a visa... and he says "one second - do i need a passport to make a visa? I never had a passport in my life!" Oyoyoyoy

Finally a shidduch at 2 AM then to buy him a ticket - I am not sure why... but i spared them the headache of finding and buying and stayed up another 4 hrs until we got a credit card # and with the help of ctownbochur haggled away at the internet... until we settled an KoreanAir with an overnight stay in S. Korea :-) well when u wake up a couple of hrs b4 the flight dont expect the best... they're lucky that they got a good bochur who is dedicated and flexible...

that's all for now

Ksiva Vachasima Tovah to all and truly sincere wishes for a happy and sweet new year בגשמיות וברוחניות with many happy blessongs and Besuros, Nachas from all your children, and בני חיי ומזוני and in a Oifen of רויחי and MOSHIACH NOW!!!!

Shanghai Greetings from Dinie

OK guys, I have been inspired by shmulie & rivky's incessant blogging to actually post...except...I can't figure out how. When I thought I got it figured out, they asked for my username (uh....) and password (you gotta be kidding - I'm an Alevsky, how am I supposed to remember that?) So here I am, posting as a comment to yet another wonderful and informational post by the Friedmans (with the i.e.)This site must be really important cuz I actually sat down to read this when I gave myself an hour to finish a gazillion other things. I haven't posted till now bc I actually forgot we have this blog and it was REALLY fun to read those 123's (yes I'm a bit behind) and VERY nice to read up on all the fam's happenings posted by Shmuli!!
Yes, this may be unusual as a comment, and if you'd actually like to see the china blog you'll have to tell me how to do this (or help me figure out my id). Just for a taste...has your 5 yr old child ever told you that she is so upset that her heart is breaking to pieces inside of her? Or have you heard from your 3 yr old that putting on clothes is not really his minhag? ok, I know you want to hear about china, not about my kids... so, when I get on, you'll hear all about the smart pple here and how they keep us entertained, especially when they want to help us and do us favors, like letting out all the water in our Mikvah and otzar so they can clean it for us as a 'surprise' and then it doesn't rain for another month. You know, those kind of things. Or how about last shabbos when my jacket kept slipping till I noticed that the tailor put the snaps on inside out so you can't snap, you can only align and tie your belt quickly bc you have not prepared anything else to wear...yup, there's gotta be perks to living here, we do have help, and they can even wash the dishes with the same rag that they wipe the floor and then wipe those wet dishes.
OH NO. I have to put in my username and password to post even this comment. I guess you'll be seeing this thru the webmaster, Rochie.
And really, acharon chaviv, a ksiva v'chasima tova & a shana tova u'mesuka to y'all.
Dinie

Cleveland Take #2

This is Rivky's Take on Shabbos in Ceveland (Not to mention the trip to cleveland oy what a terible trip we had. We basically sent the whole afternoon siting. First we sat in tracffic for an hour then we sat in the airport lobby for an hour and finally we sat be the gate so we coud get onto the plane and sit on the runway for an hour. . .just to give you an idea of what Rivky's take on shabbos in cleveland is gonna look like. And now, Rivky'take...)

Wednesday night we had Shmuli Glitzenshtein over for supper, which was so nice! Now, you have to understand, he has no telephone. There was no way to contact him and invite him. I asked my husband Shmuli to go into 770 and find him. Not knowing what he looked like, I described him as a cute Israeli, with diples. That was a nice try, Shmuli came back saying there are hundreds of Israeli bochrim there, am I looking for a 16 yr old or a 20 year old (beard or no beard?) In the end we brainstormed that Shmulik was at our L'chaim, Yud Shvat. So Shmuli sifted thruogh all the pictures, found a picture of Shmulik, studied it VERY well, and off he went to 770 again again to find his new nephew! And find him, he did!
Rochele and Mushkie came as well and helped cook supper (a pleasure guys, any time! Thanks!)
They brought with them a smiley face cookie broken in half for our 1/2 year anniversary!!

Ok, more than that, we had a wonderful Shabbos in Cleve, got to be at Estie's baby's Kiddush, visited Zaidy and Bubby Kazen, Miriam and Kaila (her Chanie is tiny, but nevertheless a real Sasonkin!

Happy Birthday to Ari Sasonkin who turns 4 yrs old tomorow. Kaila ordered cupcakes from Ungars for his class to celebrate!

That's all for now!

Rivky

(See folks, my wife and I both agree wholeheartedly that this shabbos was, well, simply very nice and that's all for now.)

so far, so far.

Hi folks,
Folks is what folks would call many folks when reffering to many folks at a time. Folks also means parents. So we just spent Shabbos at the folks of you all in cleveland and naturally I had the opportunity of doing as many of my Father-in-law's duties as he could convince me to do.
The weather in cleveland is rather 'skitzo'. When we arrived it was sicky snd humid followed by a hazy morning and a nice cool day. That was followed by a nice cold morning and a hot sunny afternoon, which, if ou can bleive this was followed by today.
We had a chance to farbreng, learn, daven and eat with the folks (reffer to the first paragraph) of this comunity and (just to keep those who are in on the thing that's in to be in on...) we have no comment.
Thanks for listening,
Yours Truly

Hi everyone, today (sunday) since we didn't have any school we (Rochele and Mushkie) went to the shluchim office to visit rivky at work and to check out the blogger since we don't have any internet access in the dorm! We also ate @ uncle moishy and aunt rivka friday night. It was a lot of fun - mayer kotlarsky was there with his whole family for a wedding, so it was really entertaining.
Happy anniversary to Bubby and Zaidy Alevsky and Kazen, Miriam and Zushe...and to anyone else that we forgot.
And for anyone that saw Kaila's letter on the topica, Mendy turned 21, not 20.

Mushkie, Rivky and Rochele

Quiet Alevskys - isn't that an oxymoron?

Woah Shmuli, I think everyone here on this silent alevsky blog is just sitting back, relaxing and enjoying the Friedman humor show! Or, since no one ever heard you speak before... they must've assumed that they clicked onto the wrong family blog :)

Now finally since Rivka and Henya and everyone else is back from their summer vacations, be sure you put aside your few shabbos dollars that you would have cooked with, and use it for your long awaited visit to the famous Capital. Our guests are treated with top quality service. Look, we gotta practice on everyone so we'll be ready when we have some really important (local) guests over. JK - family is the most important. But first come first serve goes to those who participate on the family blog.

Anyway, it's great that you remind us of your 1/2 year anniversary... we definitely can't compete with your excuse of 'a big family, too many to remember'.... but as I'm sure you figured out by now, our family can definitely compete (and fail) with your familys memory :)

Next time I'll update everyone (or whoever is priviledged to read this) about our fun life in DC. We've been meeting quite a few interesting people here, and got a few funny things to share.

And last but not least, let's see if everyone in this family will live up to their totally-proven-quiet-keep-to-themselves-non-opinionated-kazen-alevskys, or they'll have what to add to this blog until Chanukah.

Don't all shout out at once! Actually, maybe this time you should!

Holiday Greetings

I would like to wish a Happy Sukkoth...or Chanuka to the next person who reads this blog.
Now I know I haven't been so vocal lately, especially since I met all of you my family members ,I haven't said more that the amount of words you can count using only your G-d given didgates, but c'mon! -By that I mean 'lets all share the thoughts that we think when we are the most bored' and that has to happen on a blog and conveniently the alevskycentral blog is a place to do just that.
In the image of G-d I'll be the first:
It is getting chillier in the big apple. Rivky got to take today (for those of you who are just checking in 'today' was Friday Elul 16, yep about two months ago) off from work so she could spend the day at home... hard a work. Ironic aint it?
We are now in the process of finding tickets so we could come into Cleveland for the Shabbos of Yossi and Estie's baby kiddush, which will Iy"H be a lot of fun, and we'll get to see the new baby which is also gonna be fun Iy"H.
We would all like to wish Rivky (nee Alevsky) a happy half year 'anniversary' with best wishes for health, happiness, longevity, nachas from her family, both immediate and extended, both old and newly acquired, a Ksiva vachasima tova, and bon apatite, along with many more Iy"H.
Last night was my Bubby Gordon's birthday and I honor of this Rivky arranged a beautiful party of all the einiklach that are in NY plus my Bubby's sisters and brothers-in-law. We would like to thank her for that from the very bottom of our Friedman hearts, none of us would have done anything like that ourselves so we owe you a big one.
And last but not last, and surely not the most important, we will be eating by uncle moishe's house tonight, and that will be very fun 'cause he has got the greatest stories and the greatest way to tell the greatest stories, I mean a man could just sit and listen to those stories all night. In other words I'm very excited because I think this will be the first shabbos that aunt Rivka is making this season.. and she make a very good steak.
and that's all I have to say.'
Good shabbos everyone, we'll see you all soon,
but one at a time!

New York, New York is really the name of this place

Hi guys.
In an attempt to navigate this 'even easy for computer illiterates' website I discovered that I might not even qualify as a 'computer illiterate. Any way we in NY are having a fine time, because the girls just came back for school but school hasn't really started yet so they're here but they're not grumpy.
We are also very excited that Shmuly Glitzenstien is coming and we are anxiously awaiting his arrival, albeit we don't know when that is supposed to be. And we are very excited to know that Kaila had a baby and we did find out even though it was never made official on the official Alevsky Blog.
And speaking of official, Rivky and Chaim Boruch Lipsker are officially the Rebbe's Shluchim to UCF and the other fine campuses of Orlando, Florida.
...After Zushe's Birthday party he and his cutest shalom named Shalom hopped on a flight to NY, there they engaged in all sorts of new yorky activities like buying yarmulkas and eating kingston's pizza. And then since his Tatty wanted to go to the Ohel and farbreng on his birthday he left his darling son at our house!! For the whole night!! And believe you me it was quite a treat, and guess what I bet you cant, so ill tell you shalom spoke on the phone to none other than Itche Kadoozy himself, and Itche told Shalom that it was passed his bedtime!
Any way Rivky is at the Tuesday night young ladies shiur and I am supposed to wash the dishes before she gets back so ...