Englewood resident Dr. David Arbit has spent much of his adult life hearing about the Shoah.

“My father-in-law is a survivor,” says the physician, who practices in Fair Lawn. “At every bar- or bat mitzvah, he would get up and speak about his experiences.”

Now, however, Arbit can add many more firsthand accounts to those he already knows. As the physician designated by the March of the Living program to accompany this year’s honorees — some 16 former U.S. servicemen who were among the first to arrive at Europe’s many concentration camps during World War II — the doctor says he now has both new information and detailed verification of his father-in-law’s stories.

In the late 1800s, seeking funds to build Alabama’s Tuskegee University — then Tuskegee Normal School — the author and educator Booker T. Washington went up north to solicit help from known philanthropists. Among them was Chicago resident Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck, and Co.

“A lot of northern philanthropists were looking to help out with education in the South,” said Tracy Hayes, field officer and project manager for the Rosenwald Schools Initiative of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

In the end, she said, Rosenwald’s contribution would help not just Tuskegee, but the cause of public education throughout the south — and the nation as a whole. Through his efforts, some 5,000 schools were opened for African American children, some of which still function today.

In the late 1800s, seeking funds to build Alabama’s Tuskegee University — then Tuskegee Normal School — the author and educator Booker T. Washington went up north to solicit help from known philanthropists. Among them was Chicago resident Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck, and Co.

“A lot of northern philanthropists were looking to help out with education in the South,” said Tracy Hayes, field officer and project manager for the Rosenwald Schools Initiative of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

In the end, she said, Rosenwald’s contribution would help not just Tuskegee, but the cause of public education throughout the south — and the nation as a whole. Through his efforts, some 5,000 schools were opened for African American children, some of which still function today.

BEIT EL – Alex Traiman stands under a tarp in his spacious backyard as 10-year-old Tmima turns cartwheels on the lawn.

“This is our home,” says Traiman, pointing to his single-floor apartment filled with books and children’s toys. “We did not come here to trample on anyone’s rights — we came here to raise our children with values and ethics, and to settle the Land of Israel.”

Through the haze on an unusually cold day in late April, the barren Judean Hills and, farther to the west, the modern office towers of the Palestinian city of Ramallah provide the background for his emotion-filled statements. Traiman, a documentary filmmaker, came to Israel from New York with his family eight years ago, moving to the settlement of Beit El.

Special to The Jewish Standard

Maurice Sendak revolutionized children’s literature in a career that spanned almost 60 years, but he did not think of his books as stories for children. They were stories he told himself. “I chose the picture book form because I could hide myself in it and talk about whatever I like,” he said in a telephone interview several years ago. “That it works for children is wonderful, but that is not what I set out to do.”

Sendak, who died on Tuesday at the age of 83, was best known as the creator of the horned and fanged “Wild Things.” Whether his drawings were of mischievous monsters or innocent-faced children, teeming theatrical tableaux or delicate portraits detailed with crosshatching, his style is hard to mistake for anyone else’s. He imbued his characters with an old-world yet timeless quality, their round faces, squat bodies, dreamy, closed-eyed stances or bare-footed romps a balance of movement and motionlessness, of floating, morphing shapes yet energetic immediacy. Even when his theme was brooding or melancholy, his characters reflected the hopefulness of childhood.

A grassroots petition urging the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for a minute of silence at this year’s London games in memory of the Israeli athletes murdered at the Munich Olympics in 1972 already has attracted more than 20,000 signatures. The response so far has surprised even those most passionate about it.

“This is on a big scale and a different way than we could pull it off,” said Ankie Spitzer, widow of Andrei Spitzer, the fencing coach who was held hostage and murdered on Sept. 5, 1972, along with 10 members of the Israeli Olympic delegation to the Munich games.

“It’s heartwarming. I just read the petition [the online comments], and it’s marvelous,” Spitzer said in a telephone interview from Israel, where she lives. “I usually have words, but in this case, it’s very special.”

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama enjoys the support of three-fifths of Jews in the United States, according to the latest American Jewish Committee survey. The result is a significant improvement over where he stood a half-year ago in the organization’s polling.

The poll, released Monday, shows Obama with 61 percent of the Jewish vote, as opposed to 28 percent for Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who is the presumptive Republican nominee.

That is an improvement for the president over an AJCommittee survey in September, when Obama scored 50 percent and Romney 32 percent.

Is Israel’s game of chicken getting ready to backfire?

In recent months, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have been more explicit than ever about the likelihood of an Israeli strike on Iran to keep it from obtaining nuclear weapons capability.

A number of current and former top military officials are now suggesting that the duo has gone too far, turning what was meant to be a calculated bluff into a commitment to a strike that could accelerate Iran’s nuclear program and engulf the region in war.

Are Barak and Netanyahu merely posturing, or are they really intent on waging war?