Daily Archives: September 1, 2005

New Orleans Rabbi Evacuates To Gainesville

In the days since Hurricane Katrina pounded the Gulf Coast, a New Orleans rabbi has been taking refuge at a Jewish center in Gainesville, communicating with friends and family through the Internet and cell phone text messages.

The rabbi, Yochanan Rivkin of Chabad at Tulane University, left New Orleans with his wife early Sunday afternoon, before the deadly storm hit. The drive eastward to Tallahassee was more than double the six hours it normally takes; the rabbi arrived at Gainesville’s Lubavitch Jewish Center on Monday morning.

Weiner Enters Fray Over PA Frozen Assets

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn), a candidate for mayor of New York City, has entered the battle over Palestinian Authority assets frozen as the result of a lawsuit by the family of terror victims. Last week Weiner filed a “friend of the court” brief with US District Court in White Plains on behalf of the family of Yaron Ungar, an American citizen killed along with his wife Efrat by Hamas terrorists in 1996.

Weiner’s brief supports a request by the Unger family for seizure and sale of the PLO’s UN mission in Manhattan, and for the funds from the sale to be used to pay part of a $116 million judgment against the PA and the PLO in the case. The Palestinian groups are refusing to pay; an appellate judge has found them both in default. The New York case is just one front in a broader legal battle over the frozen assets.

Center serves as local haven for hurricane victims

As the effects of Hurricane Katrina become more serious with each day that passes, the Lubavitch-Chabad Jewish Center in Gainesville is working to keep the hope and faith alive.

Tulane University’s Chabad Director Rabbi Yochanan Rivkin, who left New Orleans last week with his wife and four children, created a temporary command post at the center, through which hurricane survivors can communicate with relatives and find nearby relief centers.

Rivkin and Rabbi Berl Goldman, director of the center, led a small prayer service Wednesday evening for those still in New Orleans. It began, “Deliver me, O God, for the waters have reached unto my soul.”

Slow motion disaster, one agonizing day at a time

This much the rabbi knows. As of Wednesday morning, his sister, brother-in-law and their seven children were alive after spending two days on the second floor of their flooded home in suburban New Orleans.

Everything else is uncertain.

“They’re safe for now, thank God,” said Rabbi Yisroel Spalter of the Chabad Lubavitch synagogue in Weston. “But I’m very concerned.”

After two days of agonizing worry, Spalter feared the worst.

“The phones were dead, the cell phones were dead,” Spalter said.

Lubavitch Establishes Hurricane Relief Fund

Lubavitch World Headquarters announced that it has established a disaster relief fund to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The Chabad Disaster Relief Fund will accept contributions “earmarked for relief aid for victims of Katrina and to the rebuilding of the Jewish community facilities destroyed by the hurricane,” said Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, chairman of the agencies in charge of the Chabad-Lubavitch representatives worldwide.

As Chabad representatives of all the affected states coordinate with Chabad Houses in cities where evacuees are temporarily being housed, helping them find food and lodging, they anticipate a severe crisis in the aftermath of the hurricane.

Ultra-Orthodox Jew is first Hassid
to be named dean of U.S. law school

Aaron Twerski was appointed dean of the Hofstra University School of Law on Tuesday, making him the first Hassidic Jew to be dean of an American law school, the New York Daily News reported this week.

Twerski earned his law degree in 1965, and has taught at Hofstra University School of Law and other law schools, including Harvard, Cornell and the University of Michigan.

“When I tried to get into the teaching profession, I faced pretty substantial discrimination,” he told the Daily News. “I was told quite directly that it was because of the way that I was dressed.”

Twerski’s said that his goals for the law school include expanding programs in business litigation, family law and international law.