Leora

Windows in Backyard

Windows on a shed in a backyard in Highland Park and far window on a house – can you guess what time of day it is?

For more window views, visit:

Cape May Zoo Pics

I’ve been wanting to post my photos from our trip to the Cape May County Zoo in southern New Jersey from last August. I hope you enjoy the tour.

I think they painted a mailbox zebra colors and wrote “Zoo Donations.” The zoo is free, so donations are greatly appreciated.

I don’t know what kind of bird this is, but it was wandering around, mingling with the zoo guests. Maybe a guinea fowl?

This is a bald eagle. It was hard to photograph him in his cage.

The flamingos were fun to watch. See that gull who looks like he owns the place?

Here’s Mr. Gull again, resting with the flamingos.

I cannot remember the name of this animal, but it had tons of energy.

Giraffes are beautiful animals.

Animals behind fences, like the leopard, were harder to photograph.

This zoo guest had a great time. Photos of family come out nicer when everyone is having fun.

NJPlaygrounds has more photos of the zoo and the nearby playground.

Thanks for coming with me to the zoo!

Red Rose Hip

It’s been bleak here – lots of gray, and yesterday it rained all day. But at least the rose hips are bright red and cheery.

For more posts with a little or a lot of red, visit Ruby Tuesday:

Zoo Drawing: Animal Identification, Please

My daughter has once again contributed a drawing for you to explore. Nu, so what do you see?

Thanks for playing!

Week with Zoo Flowers

On My Blog

Please read my post on child sexual abuse: Protect Children from Abuse – thank you to everyone who left comments.

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere

• Discovered this week that a fellow Highland Parker, Joel Levy, has a blog called Becoming a Black Belt in Life. I discovered it because he stopped me on the street (I seem to have a reputation as a blogger) and told me about it!
• Jew Wishes has reviews on books by one of my favorite authors, Aharon Appelfeld: Iron Tracks, Badenheim 1939 and Laish.
• I really liked Robin’s photo of Shefayim Beach and Ann’s photo of a male pine grosbeak bird.
• Ilana-Davita talks in this post about books she is reading, so I will tell you that I just ordered three books: Stones by Michael Rockland, The Jew of Home Depot by Max Apple, and Flat Belly Diet by Liz Vaccariello. Flat Belly Diet is actually for my father; he is always interested in healthy diets, and someone must have recommended this book to him. If you meet him, you would say, why does he need to lose weight? He doesn’t. He needs to keep any fat he has and to stay healthy. I’m curious about the book.

Oh, and a brief parsha quiz: Who is Putiel? (and isn’t that a fab name?).
Annual link to the froggy song.

Mom Daughter in Sepia

I love the way portraits look in sepia. I took a piece of a photo that my son took and used this tutorial called Basic Sepia Tone Old Effect. In the tutorial it suggests changing the whole image to Grayscale; instead, I just used Desaturate on one layer in Photoshop.

Here is the original cropped section of the photo in full color. I used the clone stamp tool to change my husband’s bright lime t-shirt into the coloring of the tree behind. Here’s a good tutorial that demonstrates the use of the clone stamp tool.

For more photos with sepia, visit Sepia Scenes:

Caption Girl Studies Laptop

I was thinking of using a detail of this photo for this post called Why Use Thumbnails, and I would write: “Is she creating a great thumbnail layout for a blog?” Instead, I’ll just ask you to provide your own caption.

Protect Children from Abuse

One statement in particular struck me as Mutty Weiss spoke about child sexual abuse to a large audience at Congregation Ohr Torah in Edison, New Jersey. He said the worst experience for a survivor of child abuse is silence and protection of the perpetrator. Speaking to a group of supportive people, on the other hand, helps give a survivor his humanity back.

The talk was part of a series by the Orthodox Forum of Highland Park/Edison. In addition to the talk by Mutty Weiss, Rabbi Yosef Blau, Mashgiach Ruchani at YU and current President of the Religious Zionists of America spoke about his experiences with setting up programs and policies to prevent and educate about sexual abuse. Rabbi Blau had been involved in the Baruch Lanner case (which was only mentioned in passing at the talk).

Mutty Weiss described his childhood as one where his father, a teacher in a yeshiva, had unrealistic expectations for him. After attending a more modern yeshiva, he was sent to spend a week with Avraham Mondrowitz. At the time, Mutty said, he thought of Mondrowitz as the “coolest guy ever.” What happened that week, however, wasn’t so cool, as Mondrowitz treated him really well and then invited him into his bed at night. Mutty said he put the whole incident behind him until he was about 18, and he saw Mondrowitz again. He described the episode as pointing a gun to a baby; the baby doesn’t realize he should get angry be fearful. When at age 18 he finally told his mother, his mother couldn’t accept the story. But after a rosh yeshiva asked him whether he would trust his children to Mondrowitz, he realized there was something to his trauma.

Here are some of the questions he asked:

1. What is the community’s responsibility to support survivors of abuse?
2. What went wrong? How can this happen?
3. How does one balance prosecution with due process for the molester?
4. How can we better protect children?
5. What is the role of law enforcement and mental health professionals?

Mutty Weiss strongly encourages parents to be involved with their children. As an example when someone asked him about internet protection programs, he responded: What kind of relationship to do you have with your child? He suggested using exposure to the internet as a way to open up dialogue with one’s child. One needs to respect a child’s feelings. Also, don’t just have one talk, have many. He suggested this video by Rabbi Benjamin Yudin, Talking to Our Kids About the Birds and the Bees: Sanctifying the Intimate.

I was impressed to learn he had spoken to Police Chief Stephen Rizco and Detective Joe Vassalo of the Highland Park Police Department to learn how they handle a child abuse report. Throughout the evening, everyone emphasized reporting possible abuse to the authorities. A social worker who sees abuse too often as part of her job in a New Jersey public school says she often calls DYFS and that is what one should do if one suspects abuse. Here’s what the Highland Park Police does with an abuse case: 1) the Middlesex prosecutor is called and a special investigator is put on the case. 2) Evidence is collected. 3) Highly-trained people assess the case. Even in our tiny borough, the police have had (unfortunately) to deal with hundreds of cases.

A few notes on Rabbi Blau’s speech: he mentioned a program set up in the Los Angeles area by social worker Debbie Fox to educate teachers and staff about signs of abuse. He also mentioned the recognition that mikveh ladies should and sometimes are trained to recognize signs of domestic abuse. There is a program approved by Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky regarding abuse, but it has not been implemented. In general, he said it would be OK to go to rabbis if they had more training.

More on this topic:

• Combating Abuse: A Model That Works (about Debbie Fox’s program)
• From Boy Scouts of America: Youth Protection and Adult Leadership
• More on Mondrowitz from Ha’aretz
• Jewish Survivors of Sexual Violence Speak Out (a blog)
• Jewish Press: Saving Our Children From Abuse
  From the article:

  Orthodox children who have been sexually abused likely lack the vocabulary (not just literally the words, but also the concepts) to express to an adult what has happened to them. A concept such as pedophilia is almost certainly never explained to an Orthodox child; neither is the blamelessness of a pedophile’s victims. An overwhelming emotional and moral confusion can numb young abuse victims for decades – indeed, the majority of victims never disclose.

If you ever have the opportunity to hear Dr. David Pelcovitz speak, he is excellent on the topic of sexual abuse. He spoke in Edison a number of years back, and Rabbi Blau mentioned his name (Dr. Pelcovitz now speaks about these topics to smicha students – students about to become rabbis – at YU). One of the key elements of his speech was children have an instinct for something being wrong; it is our job as parents to make sure children understand and trust that instinct for dangerous behavior, instead of the child feeling that he or she is to blame.

Update: link to listen to the talk

Review in a Burning Bush

*** Worth a Read: a post about a talk by an adult survivor of child sexual abuse. – now posted – Protect Children from Abuse ***

Nature Notes: Birds in Back

It seems the time to see birds in my backyard is midday on a warmish day after a cold spell. Then they come in groups. All of these photos were taken through a window, so they are a bit fuzzy. The robins were bouncing around from tree to tree a few days ago.

A male cardinal was in the far end of my backyard. The telephoto lens on my camera allowed me to see this little guy.

I don’t often see blue jays in my backyard, but last week a group visited. They had a female and a male cardinal with them, too.

I wasn’t the only one birdwatching; I got a fuzzy photo of the neighbor’s cat, but you’ve all seen a cat before. This one was just lolling about in my garden, watching for possible prey. I bought a bird feeder in a sock at the supermarket (that I haven’t seen touched by bird or squirrel), and I found a window bird feeder online that I will order soon. After I get some work done.