Dr. Elie Krakowski is no stranger to the readers of the Where What When. We interviewed him over 20 years ago, shortly after his move to Baltimore, and over the years he has graciously agreed to contribute articles in response to our pleadings. Now we turn to him again to explain the current crisis in Ukraine.

Dr. Krakowski, mostly retired now, has a PhD in international relations from Columbia University in New York. During the Reagan administration, he was Special Assistant to the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon. He coordinated multimillion-dollar programs in humanitarian aid and contributed to presidential national security directives. He helped U.S. intelligence agencies improve the way they collect, analyze, and distribute intelligence data. His main role while at the Pentagon was as an architect of American policy on Afghanistan. He also participated actively in the negotiating process that brought an end to the Soviet-Afghan war.

We were looking forward to a week of family simchas in late December. My niece Miri Rosenbaum’s chasuna would take place in Baltimore on Tuesday night, December 28. On Wednesday, we had the wedding of my husband’s niece in Lakewood. Thursday was the bar mitzvah brunch of a nephew, with the niece’s sheva brachos in the evening. We were going to stay in Lakewood through Shabbos sheva brachos. Since all these simchas involved close family, we planned to take our children with us and had reservations to fly from Ft. Lauderdale to Baltimore at 7:21 Monday evening.

Israel’s latest operation in Gaza, a few weeks ago, ended like most of the other conflicts and campaigns over its 73 years of statehood: in military victory but widespread vilification by the nations of the world: in other words, a bittersweet victory.

But there was one conflict, whose “yahrzeit” is this June,

Mt. Everest is one of the world’s most remote spots. To get there from Kathmandu, you have to walk through the Himalayas for days to the remote town of Lukla. Or you can take a turbulent half-hour flight to Lukla, the most dangerous airport in the world. Once you land, it’s a seven- to twelve-day trek to Everest Base Camp at the foot of the great mountain. On Everest itself, the weather is unpredictable with high winds and surprise blizzards. You risk altitude sickness, frostbite, and exhaustion, and you can die from an avalanche or a fall.

You would think people would avoid this place, yet thousands have visited it. Thousands more yearn to go. It is so crowded that there are “traffic jams,” lines of climbers ascending or descending in single file. With no way to pass each other, if you are stuck too long in the “death zone,” you can run out of oxygen and simply collapse. Rescue missions are almost impossible, and those who do not make it will lie frozen in this wasteland forever.

Pinchus Shnier of Baltimore went to Mt. Everest. Here is his story.

What’s new at the Kotel? The question seems oxymoronic. The Kotel is, after all, the very definition of “old,” a remnant of antiquity transported into the present. But, far from being an irrelevant curiosity of the past, it is the focal point of the world. For us, the Jewish People, this is no metaphor. But the Wall and its surrounding Yerushalayim are also at the center of contemporary global politics – a perpetual obsession of the UN, Western governments, and the media, which cast relentless and disproportional condemnation at this holy place.

What is new – though perhaps not yet evident – is happening below the surface, like the Kotel’s Tunnels and archeological excavations themselves. As the world comes to the Kotel – one person, one tour group at a time – reverence and love are growing within individuals across the globe who intuit deep meaning in Yerushalayim and the G-d of Israel.

At the levaya, people spilled from the chapel into the lobby and out onto the sidewalk. At the shiva house, the door opened and shut, opened and shut, as the community came to share the family’s grief. The mailbox overflowed with cards and letters, and the emails poured in.

Soon enough, shiva was over. The mourners and the visitors went home. The door remained shut at the house-with-the-cow-in-front, and the cards and letters were packed into an oversized ziplock bag and put away.

These are the sorrowful postscripts to the life of Mrs. Laure Gutman, a”h. Yet it was just as Pirkei Avos attests: “Aizeh hu mechubad? Who is honored? Hamechaved es habrios. One who honors others.”