The Way It Iz

In September of 2018, global sportswear company Nike unveiled their ad campaign with former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. The ad’s wording was simple: “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.” The message played off of Kaepernick’s willingness to sacrifice his NFL career to stand up for a cause in which he believed, namely racial justice for black Americans. It took about one NFL season for Kaepernick to be out of a job as an NFL quarterback, and his backers say that his refusal to stand for the National Anthem prior to games is the reason for it. 

On Monday, Facebook and all of its platforms stopped working. For a period, there was no Facebook, no Instagram, and no WhatsApp. As a matter of fact, at the time of writing this, they are all still down. Facebook and all of their subsidiaries embarrassingly and ironically had to update us through Twitter. During that time, millions of users around the world were without some of the tools upon which they had become so reliant. In fact, some of us had to resort to ancient technologies such as so-called short-message service, electronic mail, and something know as a telephone call.

It’s not often that a subject of my article contacts me after publication. After all, not many of them know I exist, and even fewer of them care that I do. That is generally the territory I occupy. I tend to write pieces that yell at the clouds without having a tremendous impact. That changed last week. My piece on a long-time staple of the West Hempstead community became a talking point in that neighborhood, but it also took off in certain kosher food online groups, sparking debate about the move. It was then that I was contacted by Eric Fiedler, the owner and operator of Hunki’s. He wanted his chance to tell the community just what happened – and why. I agreed to meet him at his new shop in Woodmere, where I sat down with him and his wife Chaya to learn the story behind the exodus of Hunki’s from West Hempstead.

Now that Pfizer has applied for emergency use of their COVID vaccine for children between the ages of 5 and 11, you may have a lot of questions about what happens next. So I thought it may be prudent to issue some predictions regarding how the next several months will go in the fight against the pandemic. Please note that this information is not based on any secret information or a behind-the-scenes look at the CDC; it is merely based on observations over the last year-and-a-half and what previous actions can predict about the future.

Having a business being synonymous with a city is a rather peculiar concept. We see it most of the time when it comes to sports franchises. For anyone remotely aware of any team sport, you can probably name a city that plays home to one, and someone else will be able to name the team associated with it. But there are other businesses that take on the same role as fixtures of the community. Ford and GM with Detroit, Starbucks with Seattle, Coca-Cola with Atlanta. Big businesses, like sports franchises, are often intrinsically tied to the city in which they are headquartered.

It is not uncommon for a member of a religion to seek the guidance of one particular individual. The concept of a rebbe muvhak, or primary teacher, refers to the person from whom one gains the majority of his knowledge.  We also frown upon so called “posek-hopping,” where one may go from rabbinic authority to rabbinic authority until the preferred answer is found. This concept is not exclusively found in Judaism. Evangelical Christians tend to stick to one church and pastor. Gurus serve the same purpose in many Far East religions. When it comes to dealing with spiritual matters, it is often easier and more intellectually honest to tie oneself to someone or a group of people whom you can revere.