It is almost a year since I lost my Rebbe, and yet, because a bond as strong as ours is hard to sever, I still drive by his house on the way to shul. As I move my hand to open the door of my truck, reality sinks in, and I remember that Rabbi Janowski will not be joining me in person, not today and not tomorrow. Sadly, I drive on, as Rebbe would not want me to be late for shul.

Later in the evening, as I sit in my office doing paperwork, I slowly turn my head to the

Who can forget the beautiful, meaningful, and moving delivery of Rabbi Boruch Milikowsky’s holy words of mussar. It was a real zechus to have him as a rebbe. How I cherish his kind, soft words of encouragement. When he gave his talmid mussar, the talmid went away with a good feeling. He made you feel very special, even when you did something wrong. He always gave positive reinforcement and spoke directly to the problem, speaking openly to you as his talmid and also as his friend. He had a very warm relationship with each dorm boy, especially, acting as a father in many a way. I was a Baltimore resident, and I knew Rebbe as both a talmid and as a neighbor. His experiences in Europe, the Shoah, and Shanghai were transmitted to us, his talmidim, with the deep roots of his past Torah life, with his beautiful and unforgettable mussar words, and his very warm friendship.

On Monday night, the 22nd of Sivan, Baltimore lost one of the pillars of the community with the petira of R’ Zelig Ellenbogen, z”l. He was a man who was short in stature but a “giant” in spirit. He was a quiet man who was content to do great things behind the scenes. The adjectives used to describe him were: “regal,” a “prince,” a “mentch,” “honest,” “aristocratic,” “genuine,” an “ish gadol,” “a tzadik,” an “anav,” and a “man of integrity.” But probably the best description was given by Tony Goldenberg, who described him as “tough and soft.” He set high standards and led by example.

During her entire life, my wife Leah Marsh, a”h, was permeated with a love for Torah and mitzvos that was transmitted to her by her parents, z”l, Avraham Yeshayahu and Shifra Botwinick, who both came to America as children in the 1920s. Mr. Botwinick was born in Rakov, in Russia, and Mrs. Botwinick (nee Mirsky) in the Bais Yisroel section of Yerushalayim. Leah always strove to follow their example and to practice all the hanhagos they observed.

Until Leah was a teenager, her family lived in a small apartment in a tenement building on Madison Street on the Lower East side, where they gladly gave the best room to Leah’s grandmother, an almana. This delivered an unspoken lesson in kibud av v’eim which Leah never forgot. Within the family, her mother relied on Leah’s help in bringing up her younger brother, and she developed the sense of responsibility that became a key part of her character. Mrs. Botwinick always said, “If you need a job done properly, give it to Leah.”

This article is about Dina Machla bas Eliezer. It is not about Dina stories. We all have our personal stories about Dina. This article is about the friend that I knew, the friend that I loved. Dina Machla was a tzniusdik (modest) person full of integrity, emes (truth), and love.

Three for Dina

Simcha, Bracha, and Shalom: the Words of Dina Blaustein

by Lisa Friedman

“May you have a day filled with much simcha, much bracha, and much shalom.” That was the cheerful message on the phone machine of my dear friend, Dina Blaustein, a”h. Years earlier, before the illness that took her

I had planned to begin by enumerating the things I miss most about my mother, but I changed my mind when I realized how impractical it would be to list all 2,000. Suffice it to say that the pain of missing her on the first yahrtzeit is just as acute as it was 12 months ago.

My mother often said, “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” Judging by the hundreds of letters we received during shiva, and for many months after that, lots of people must have cared about how much she knew