UP FRONT
This Unbee-lievable Sukkot Find
Is A Real Sting Operation
ELLEN BERNSTEIN
Special to The Jewish News
T
he buzz going around
this holiday season is
that you (yes, you!) can
have a "bee-free" sukkah.
Yellow jackets — the
scourge of Jewish families
who dine beneath a sukkah's
leafy boughs — can be
eradicated, according to the
marketer of a new trap for
wasps and bees. Simply
hang it outside a sukkah and
it will suck up flying insects
like a high powered vacuum.
No more rows of overturn-
ed Dixie cups keeping the
winged pests at bay, prom-
ises distributor Steven Ber-
man, co-owner of Modern
Enterprises. Only a part-
time venture, the 34-year-
old Wall Street executive
says he is making a bee-line
to the bank with nationwide
holiday sales of the traps.
Launched in 1989, the bee-
trap biz was conceived as a
summer sideline to put Mr.
For information about
Yellow Jacket Traps, con-
tact Modern Enterprises,
37 Dakota St., Passaic, N.J.
07055, (201) 471-2972.
Berman's partner, Mark
Kaplan, 29, through a
yeshiva in Israel. This year,
the two entrepreneurs find
themselves doing an unex-
pected swarm of business.
"I told Mark, 'we're going
to sell these for the holidays
so you can go back and
learn,' " Mr. Berman says.
"We've held
contests. One guy
counted 200 yellow
jackets."
— Steven Berman
"It started as a sideline, but
it's gotten bigger than that.
Everybody in the Jewish
community is hearing about
it."
The partners sold 5,000
this season, targeting the
traps to Jews who
customarily take their meals
in their sukkah. By no
means a fly-by-night opera-
tion, the businessmen plan
next year to expand into
lumber and home improve-
ment outlets.
Patented by two retired
lumberjacks in Oregon, the
design of the Oak Stump
Farm Trap is fairly simple,
drawing on a yellow jacket's
predilection to meat, fish
and sweet drink.
The trap consists of a
plastic half-gallon container
fitted with piping — a cross
between a daisy motif cookie
jar and drug-smoking
paraphernalia. The user
puts fresh meat or fish in the
tube (non-jelled gefilte fish
works very nicely). Then he
or she unscrews the cap and
pours in a cup of sticky sweet
stuff. Apple juice gets the
highest marks.
Within minutes, the
yellow jackets swarm about
the hanging trap. They go in
and, for lack of smarts, can't
get out.
In a few days, the trap is
sloshing with wet-winged
critters. Time to flush out
the jar with a garden hose
and re-bait.
Lest he be stung by rab-
binic criticism, Mr. Berman
actually received assurances
beforehand that the device
wouldn't violate Torah law
prohibiting physical work on
Shabbat and some holidays.
Trapping insects, unless one
is about to be stung, is for-
bidden.
.
Dangling inobtrusively, a yellow jacket trap seduces bees so families can
enjoy festive outdoor meals in a sukkah.
"There's no activity on
your part. You put it up
before the holiday," Mr.
Berman says.
So, how well does it work?
"We've held contests," the
entrepreneur enthuses.
"One guy counted 200
yellow jackets."
The 20-acre woodland is
located on the site of a JNF
forest destroyed three years
ago by arson. Forty-two
years ago, the hill on which
the new saplings are taking
root was the home of the
Haganah's Outpost 16. The
Haganah, the Jewish
defense force in pre-state
Israel from 1920-1948, es-
tablished the outpost during
the 1948 War of In-
dependence to protect
Jerusalem's strategic
lifeline to the coast. The out-
post played a key role in the
Haganah's military cam-
paign to shatter the Arab
blockage and liberate the
city's entrapped Jewish
population of 100,000.
Souter Finds
AJCongress Foe
Now that should make any
skeptic, a true bee-liever. ❑
ROUND UP
Holocaust Tracing
Center Opens
Washington, D.C. — The
American Red Cross this
week announced the opening
of the Holocaust and War
Victims Tracing and Infor-
mation Center, following the
International Red Cross'
receipt of newly released
documentation of 400,000
names of people who died or
were interned in Nazi death
camps.
The Tracing and Informa-
tion Center, which is based
in Baltimore, provides
tracing services for those re-
questing information about
friends and relatives, and
verifies internment for sur-
vivors seeking compensa-
tion.
The new documentation of
400,000 names was provided
by the Soviet Union, con-
fiscated by the Soviet Army
when it liberated Nazi death
camps at the end of the war.
The documentation in-
cludes the names of 130,000
prisoners used for forced
labor in various German
firms; the names of 200,000
victims who died in Dachau,
Sachsenhausen, Gross Rosen
and Buchenwald; and 46
Sterbebucher, Death Books,
containing 70,000 death cer-
tificates from Auschwitz.
Those seeking information
about family members may
contact the Red Cross, 1-800-
848-9277.
Israel Ceases
Dog Operations
Alexandria, VA. — The
Israeli Ministry of Defense
had agreed to stop operating
on live dogs for the purpose
of desensitizing paramedics
to the human carnage of
battle, Concern for Helping
Animals in Israel (CHAT) re-
ported this week.
The operations will be
replaced by alternative
methods of preparing the
paramedics for the sight of
blood and wounds.
The agreement stipulates
that operations on live dogs
will be replaced by opera-
tions such as tracheotomies
and laporotomies (ex-
ploratory abdominal
surgery) performed on
human cadavers from the
police department's forensic
pathology laboratory, and by
the visiting of emergency
rooms in local hospitals.
USY Dedicates
Forest In Israel
Sha'ar Hagai, Israel —
The United Synagogue
Youth, the youth depart-
ment of the Conservative
movement's United Syn-
USY members dedicate the new
Native Forest.
agogue of America, recently
dedicated the Jewish Na-
tional Fund's Native Forest
in Sha'ar Hagai in Israel's
Judean Hills.
Outpost 16 is part of a 10-
year forest development
program between USY and
the JNF. As part of the pro-
gram, USY students help
JNF foresters prepare bores
for young saplings, hoe
weeds and rehabilitate fruit
groves.
Washington (JTA) — The
American Jewish Congress
last week became the second
Jewish group to urge the
U.S. Senate to reject the
nomination of Judge David
Souter to serve on the U.S.
Supreme Court.
A Senate Judiciary Com-
mittee source said there
were no plans to recall
Souter before its scheduled
Thursday morning vote on
whether to send the nomina-
tion to the Senate floor for a
vote.
The National Council of
Jewish Women last week
joined other major abortion
rights groups in opposing
Souter at the committee
hearing. Since then, the Na-
tional Association for the
Advancement of Colored
People and the Leadership
Conference on Civil Rights
have also voiced their oppo-
sition to Souter.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 5