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A Zionist-religious bard

Posted On 08/25/2010 01:15:02

Crossing the bridge to the windswept park dedicated to the memory of her son, Leah Epstein pauses to point out every lovingly handmade element, from the deer sculpture to the macrame hammock. This clearing in the emerald Golan Heights provides a perfectly appropriate spot to memorialize Baruch Epstein, killed 10 years ago at 17 in a car crash. The quiet majesty surrounding the Epstein family in Keshet was part of Baruch's fiber and has been a source of inspiration to his poet-composer mother for 27 years.

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FROM IVY LEAGUE TO KIBBUTZ

Brought up in a Reform family in the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Leah (Laury) Kohlenbrener earned a bachelor's degree in comparative literature at Brown University and a master's degree in adult and continuing education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

She and a college friend booked a trip to Israel and Europe the following winter. Arriving a week ahead of her travel companion, she found free room and board at the Jerusalem religious outreach institution Ohr Somayach. Its classes affected her profoundly. "It was a whole new world for me," she says.

During the European leg of the trip, all she could think about was returning to Israel. For a while she worked as a facilitator for literature and film discussion groups in the Chicago public libraries, but then spent more time here delving deeper into Judaic studies and learning Hebrew at Kibbutz Be'erot Yitzhak near Petah Tikva.

ALIYA AND MARRIAGE

As her observance of Jewish practice grew, she moved to Monsey, New York, and took a job at Yeshiva University. She then relocated to the servant's room of a posh Fifth Avenue residence to be an au pair for a few months before taking off for Israel permanently.

The move was initially devastating for her parents, a pediatrician and a teacher. Epstein, who recently accompanied her widowed mother on a holiday in Eilat, says, "They didn't understand what had happened to their daughter. But as the years went by, they saw I wasn't fanatical and they saw how beautifully my children were growing up, and that brought them nahat [prideful joy]."

She was seen off at New York's Kennedy Airport by a couple of friends. "I was the only one on the flight making aliya. I had no relatives in Israel to greet me; I took my bags and found a cab for my free ride to Be'erot Yitzhak."

She continued learning in ulpan each afternoon, sometimes waking up at 4 a.m. to pack corn, other days picking oranges or gathering chickens - three in each hand - to be caged and trucked away for slaughter. She soon befriended Shraga Epstein, an immigrant from Montreal. "He worked in the orange groves, and they'd often put us working together there when they saw we might be a match," says Epstein.

During their engagement, she attended Machon Ora, a Jerusalem seminary with a more Zionistic orientation.

Her parents, sister and brother came for the fake nike shoes traditional kibbutz wedding in March 1982, where the newlyweds handed out oranges from their "Just Married" farm vehicle. The following year, along with four-month-old Baruch, they moved to Keshet in the Golan Heights. Epstein describes this small religious moshav as "a sort of Israeli Wyoming. Our sons all worked as cowboys during their vacations."

The Epsteins' married children Yonah, 26, and Malka, 24, each welcomed baby girls this year. Yisrael, 23, just finished his military service; 21-year-old Danna completed two years of National Service; Raphael, 18, will enter the army this summer; and Avraham is in ninth grade. Shraga Epstein is a kashrut supervisor and assistant cook in the moshav guest house, having served the moshav also as an irrigation specialist, refrigeration technician and chicken farmer.

Replica Cartier Roadster/Other Watches LIFE ON THE HEIGHTS

Keshet's 100 families live just three kilometers from Syria, on land won in the Six Day War and developed after the Yom Kippur War. Two other communities were also founded in this area the Syrians had first attacked.

"There have been uncertainties on and off the whole time we've lived here, although the government encouraged the settlement of the Golan," says Epstein, whose arrival at the time of the withdrawal from Sinai inspired her earliest poems.

"About 10 years later, when my home on the Golan was on the negotiating table, I rediscovered the poem 'Yamit,' which I had written back then," says Epstein.

A buried white sand city of our tomorrow pushed away. A reminder of our confusion about building Jewish destiny.

"Somehow as a brand-new immigrant, I was able to understand. I think I was writing to myself in the future."

Around that time, she had started putting melodies to her compositions, so she set "Yamit" to music. After the uprooting of the communities in Gush Katif, she added another verse and renamed the song "Yamit-Katif."

"Our souls are programmed to connect to the land and take messages from it," says Epstein, a member of the Poets' Forum of the Golan.

Keshet's pristine beauty and lack of internal roads allow its children extraordinary independence and bonds with nature, "but sometimes you want to see lights or go get an ice cream," says Epstein, admitting to occasional cravings for the "brown cow" root- beer floats she enjoyed as a child.

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Bank on us for a greener future

Posted On 08/25/2010 00:03:43

BUSINESS chiefs and politicians today join The Northern Echo to call for the Government to build the proposed green investment bank in the Tees Valley.

The bank - a pledge contained in the coalition agreement between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats - would distribute Government funding and secure private investment for green businesses and infrastructure.

The Tees Valley is poised to play a major role in efforts to reduce Britain's carbon footprint and create a low-carbon economy.

The Government has identified the area as an ideal location for a new generation of green power stations that will pioneer carbon capture and storage technology.

The first is set to be constructed on a site at Eston Grange and may be operating as soon as 2015. Regional development agency One North East is also pressing ahead with plans to make Teesside and Tyneside major hubs for wind farm development.

Tees Alliance Group Energy Solutions is spending [pounds]20m on a manufacturing hub to support wind turbines in Haverton Hill, Billingham. In addition, turbine towers for the world's largest wind turbines may also be built in Tees Valley.

MPs in the region believe the Tees Valley would be an ideal location for the bank, which they hope would create employment, bring investment and enhance the region's position at the forefront of the low-carbon sector.

The closure of the Corus plant, in Redcar, east Cleveland, with the loss of 1,700 jobs, and the collapse of Garlands call centres, which employed 621 staffin Hartlepool and 359 in Middlesbrough, means it is more important than ever that Tees Valley becomes a vanguard for the green revolution, the region's leaders say.

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Although the Treasury has yet to confirm details of the bank, the campaign launched today aims to ensure that Tees Valley is the front runner in the race to host the bank's administrative centre.

James Wharton, the new Conservative MP for Stockton South, will this week write to the new Energy Minister Chris Huhne to put forward the Tees Valley as the preferred location.

Mr Wharton said he would like to see the area become the nation's capital for green industry, adding: "If we can bring the green investment bank to our region, it will not only help with investment, it will also help us Swiss Replica Turn-O-Graph Rolex Watches to further enhance the green industries which are already starting to provide future jobs." Liberal Democrat MP for Redcar, Ian Swales, said: "We have to attract these kinds of Government public sector jobs to the Tees Valley."

Mr Swales will write to his Liberal Democrat colleague and Business Secretary Vince Cable to urge the Government to consider the Tees Valley.

Potential sites include Lingfield Point business park, in Darlington, and Billingham House, Billingham. John Orchard, director of Marchday, which owns Lingfield Point, said: "The green investment bank is a marvellous idea."

Jenny Chapman, Darlington's Labour MP, said: "I think the North- East is poised for lift-off in terms of these new green industries and I think we need to take every opportunity we can to bring these jobs and skills to our region."

The campaign also has the backing of agencies dedicated to economic development in the Tees Valley.

Neil Kenley, Tees Valley Unlimited's director of strategic investment and marketing, said: "We are constantly looking for investment opportunities and the green agenda is certainly a priority area."

According to the Treasury, details of the green investment bank are likely to be unveiled in next month's budget.

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Courting Change

Posted On 08/24/2010 23:47:45

One of attorney Raymond Zenkert's specialties is litigation, and he said there's no shortage of people seeking redress for grievances--but they're being more careful about the venue.

"To litigate something properly, it might take two to three years and cost up to $40,000 or $50,000," he said--perhaps not worth it to litigants seeking awards in that ballpark, or less. That's why many are opting for alternatives to the courtroom such as mediation and arbitration.

It's just one example of how an economic recession that has crept into every corner of American life is affecting law firms as well. Other types of legal services--real estate is a notable one--have seen a decline in business during the downturn as well, said W. Rockne Palmer, one of Zenkert's partners at DeLeo, Angell, Palmer & Zenkert in Westfield.

"I would say the recession has had a shifting impact," Palmer noted. "For instance, the real-estate law business has dropped, but the need for family-law services has increased."

Family law is one of Palmer's special-ties, and "I can sense that financial tensions are having a tremendous effect on many families, and wholesale sexy lingerie that results in the need for legal advice regarding matters such as the dissolution of the marriage, financial planning, and changes in estate planning."

The recession is hitting estate planning in the sense that many people who planned on leaving their house to their kids can't do that because they need the equity in their homes to stay afloat now, he explained.

"The financial tensions are, in many cases, causing turmoil in the household and just breaking up families--some of whom are trapped in their marriages," Palmer said. "No longer can one or the other walk out the door and find an apartment, because a lot of times, they don't have the money to do that anymore. So they're prisoners in their own marriages."

That's the legal world in a nutshell right now, as the recession has dried up business in some niches but presented new opportunities in others. In this issue, Business West examines some of those affected specialties, and how area law firms are riding out the uncertain times.

Cutting Back

Tamara Loomis, writing recently in The American Lawyer, noted that law firms are dealing with more serious contraction in business than in past downturns.

"Historically, the legal sector has weathered recessions better than many other sectors have, buoyed by the attendant surges in litigation and bankruptcy work," Loomis notes. "That's what's happened, for instance, amid the wave of corporate scandals--the so-called Enron era--that followed the bursting of the high-tech bubble. Not this time."

Instead, she explains, firms are hurting, their profit margins squeezed by a combination of sagging caseloads and record-high expenses. "The result; the now-familiar litany of mass layoffs, salary freezes and cuts, deferred start dates for first-year associates, and canceled or downsized summer programs."

"From the feedback I'm hearing, some firms in Boston have significantly reduced staff and somehow managed to be more profitable than they were previously," said Robert Lefebvre, a partner with Celinas & Lefebvre in Chicopee. That might not be the case locally, he added, but everyone has had to deal with the general economic turmoil in someway.

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"We are a small firm, but we've also become more efficient--and maybe in some ways more profitable," he told BusinessWest. "The economy has caused everyone to take a look at the ways they're doing business, any waste or unnecessary stuff that's going on, and help them retool."

The sluggishness of the real-estate market is well-documented, and, naturally, attorneys who focus primarily on real estate have been among the hardest-hit, Lefebvre said. "Some are taking on other practice areas that they hadn't done in a long time, like divorces or bar advocate work--which is too bad for people who normally do those types of work.

"We have a diverse practice, and that's helped keep business steady," he added, conceding that the firm's real-estate services have slowed along with everyone else's--with some exceptions. Specifically, the federal government's tax credit for first-time homebuyers has spurred a good deal of recent activity.

The credit was set to expire in November before the deadline was extended to April 30 to get a deal under contract and June 30 to dose. "There was a lull in January and February, then it got busy again," he said.

Palmer's real-estate legal services spiked along with the tax credit as well, he said, but compared to several years ago, it's still very much a buyer's market, and a slow one. "We've been receiving purchase-and-sale agreements, but it's still down a level or two from where it was just a few years ago," he said. "People who are able to buy property are getting tremendous deals."

But Palmer was surprised to be handling home-sale contracts the week after the deadline, Breitling Replica thinking the buyers had simply failed to take advantage of the credit. Then he realized that waiting until May put pressure on sellers who did not dose a sale in April, who may have panicked slightly and settled for a lower price. "All real estate is a risk," he said. "But these buyers had a strategy."

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