Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/700431
30150 Telegraph, Suite 444 Bingham Farms, MI 48025 Your Financial Issues THAV GROSS has been solving problems since 1982. Be sure to tune in to Law and Reality – Sunday mornings at 11 AM on TV20. Your Legal Issues thavgross.com lawandreality.com Do NOT use your IRA or Retirement to Pay Credit Card Debt. Elderly clients often come to our office seeking help with their debt situation. In almost every case, before they have come to see us, they have withdrawn retirement funds - IRAs and 401ks - to pay bills. I cringe at this. It is a terrible mistake. Retirement funds are there to provide the supplemental income beyond social security that is needed to cover living expenses through retirement. When we stop working – our income is capped but inflation and our lifespans are not. You must make sure retirement funds are used wisely. IRAs and retirement funds are protected in bankruptcy – which means you can keep that money and eliminate the credit card debt. Another little known fact is that a normal creditor cannot garnish or levy on your social security income. These two facts – combined – mean that you should NOT use your retirement funds to pay down debt. If you're retired and in this situation – you should come see us right away. If your parents are in this situation – you need to take action now. When their funds are exhausted, providing for their support is on you. "You can't just keep paying until you're broke." Ask Attorney Ken Gross about... viewpoints » S e n d l e t t e r s t o : l e t t e r s @ t h e j e w i s h n e w s . c o m continued on page 8 July 7 • 2016 5 for openers I Can't Let Go I can no longer suffer in silence. I have what I call D.I.H. — Digital Information Hoarding. In self-diag- nosing myself, I was presumptuous enough to think I had discovered a new psychological phenomenon. That was quickly put to rest after a Google search netted 608,000 results already confirming its existence. The great and all-knowing Wikipedia refers to the condi- tion simply as "digital hoarding or e-hoarding … (an) excessive acquisition and reluctance to delete elec- tronic material no longer valuable to the user. The behavior includes the mass stor- age of digital artifacts and the retainment of unnecessary or irrelevant electronic data." Yep, that's me! One need only refer to the 22,118 mes- sages in my email's in-box to confirm this diagnosis; 3,022 of which I have yet to open because they're usually just coupons — 90 percent of which have already expired. That leaves 19,096 emails I've read but haven't deleted. Why? Because … I … can't! Come on, I might need that information one day, right? Oh, if thousands of saved emails were my only problem. Let's move on to the "mass storage of digital artifacts." Everything I download is saved to my computer's desktop. Do I delete the files when I'm done using them? No. Do I create folders to put them in? Yes, but only after all the files on my desktop cover up the screen saver photo of my kids. These folders are always labeled "stuff " with a date, like "November 2015 Stuff." What's in these folders? I don't know. I don't look at their contents. But make no mistake, it's really important stuff. Oh, if folders labeled "stuff " were my only prob- lem. Let's move on to the saved files on my iPhone's notes app. My phone is where I digitally write "to- do" lists, reminders and creative thoughts. Currently I have 82 notes saved on my phone. Do I read them? No. Do I print them? Sometimes. Then do I read them? Almost never. As a matter of fact, the notes linger in limbo for so long that I eventually handwrite a note to myself that says "read the notes on your phone." It gets worse. I have actually emailed myself reminders to read my notes. (Note to self: I have a seri- ous problem.) When I finally put aside time to actually read my notes, the nightmare really begins. Why? Because I don't understand my own notes. Thanks to the wonder that is spell- check, my computer or iPhone autocorrects my poorly typed messages creating differ- ent, often bizarre words. For example, I have a note on my phone that reads: "ramzi dalloo." I Googled those words and they actually exist! It would take someone proficient in deciphering codes to resurrect the true content of my messages. Finally, there's the impact my digital hoarding habit has on my ability to DVR television shows. Inevitably I end up con- fronting the dreaded pop-up message: "You only have 1 percent of your total recording space left. You may want to delete some recordings." Excuuuuuuuse me?! I'm about to record America's Got Talent and you want me to (insert chilling sound effect from the shower scene from the movie Psycho) delete something! I can't do that to the 27 episodes of Colombo, The Twilight Zone and the latest Tigers game … OK, maybe I could delete the Tigers game. Are you a fellow digital hoarder? If so, I feel your pain. Email me and share your story. But not today; I already have 1,217 old emails to catch up on. * Alan Muskovitz is a writer, voice-over/acting tal- ent, speaker, emcee and a regular guest host on the Mitch Albom Show on WJR AM 760. Visit his website at laughwithbigal.com and "Like" Al on Facebook. guest column Poland's Jewish Community Lauren Levinson | Special to the JN I came to Israel, I felt a connection, I wanted more, I knew I belonged here and I fell in love with the country. So I found a way to come back — for longer, as an English teacher in Netanya. For the past 10 months, I have served as a Masa Israel Teaching Fellow and, along the way, I have gotten to know the country, learned some Hebrew and become a part of the community. I have benefited from seminars, speakers, professional network- ing opportunities, excursions to religious and historical sites, new friends from all over the world and, perhaps most impor- tantly, perspective. Being in Israel, I hear, I witness and I have lived like an Israeli. Through partici- pating in the Masa-GLI Global Leadership Summit, I have been challenged to think harder about everything an Israeli lives through. That experience led me to a once- in-a-lifetime trip exploring Jewish Poland alongside fellow young Jews participating in the Masa-GLI Wilf Family Holocaust Education Program. Going from Israel to Poland and then back to Israel made for a significant jux- taposition for me. After walking through concentration camps as well as living in Israel, I understand in a much more per- sonal way that it is more than a blessing that Jewish people today have a homeland in Israel. In Poland, I had the chance to piece together a story that most Polish Jews can relate to, but that I had never been privy to before. I learned firsthand from the young Poles I met that they had seen prejudice against Jews. And I talked to people who did not learn they were Jewish until they were teenagers and then had to grapple with reconfiguring their own perceptions of their families' pasts. My understanding was deepened through stories from the chief rabbi of Poland and as I prayed during services in Polish synagogues. In a country with 1,000 years of Jewish history, I celebrated in Jewish community centers in Krakow and Warsaw that are less than a decade old — because post-Holocaust and post- communism, only now are Polish Jews fully revitalizing their culture and living their faith again. After the Holocaust, many Polish Jews who survived kept their Jewish identity hidden because they didn't feel safe. They raised their children without the religion, whether that meant practicing Christianity instead or adhering to no religion at all. Those children then raised their children Alan Muskovitz Masa-GLI Wilf Family Holocaust Education Program 2016 participants Sarah Horvitz, Lauren Levinson and Rachel Schy in Poland earlier this spring