Daily Archives: December 31, 2005

Avraham Fried unites crowd with Yiddishkeit

Some dancing, most clapping, the crowd enjoyed a two-hour cross-section of hits from Fried’s 23 albums, plus a number of surprises tailored to the Kansas City audience.

Fried’s legendary, 25-year career has taken him from Crown Heights to Australia, and from the Kremlin to Carnegie Hall. The Kansas appearance of a man whose concerts have drawn over 100,000 at a time in Jerusalem may have been facilitated by his local ties – Rabbis Ben Zion and Chonie Friedman are his brother and nephew, respectively. But then, there is hardly a place in the Jewish world where this peripatetic songbird has not flown.

Fried’s popularity was built on the quality of his voice – a high, clear, ringing tenor. But his longevity as a top performer reflects his ability to entertain multi-age audiences with dancing and stories, with prayer and shtick, and with a warm awareness of his audience as fellow Jews.

St. Augustine lights public menorah in Plaza

About 200 people came to the Plaza de la Constitucion on Thursday night to observe the fifth night of Hanukkah by watching the lighting of menorah candles.

Rabbi Nochum Kurinski, a leader of the Chabad @ the Beaches in Ponte Vedra Beach, said, “This is the newest menorah for the oldest city in America.”

The large aluminum menorah was made by Raymond Zrihen of Jacksonville.

“I commissioned it, but he wouldn’t take any money,” Kurinski said.

Kalman Rothman, of Brooklyn, N.Y., who is Rabbi Kurinski’s father-in-law, said a menorah candle is being lit every night in different Florida cities.

Ceremony shows unity against menorah vandals

A new menorah was raised and dedicated Wednesday by local religious leaders, four days after a menorah was vandalized and destroyed at the same site.

Rabbi Yacov Borenstein, who erected the original menorah in New Windsor, said it was important to replace the damaged religious symbol to make a statement.

“We want to show it doesn’t break our spirits,” said Borenstein, of Chabad Lubavitch of the Mid-Hudson Valley.

He was joined by fellow religious leaders and community activists who said they wanted to show solidarity with the local Jewish community.

New Chabad center is finally completed

The Waxman Chabad Center in Beachwood finally opened last Wednesday, Dec. 21, completing construction project four years in the making.

Workers demolished the old Chabad House fronting Green Road on Thursday, revealing the gabled façade of the new $3.4 million structure that is the final piece of the Green Road Jewish campus.

The front entry of the concrete block building is meant to resemble 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, worldwide headquarters of Chabad-Lubavitch. Inside, the 18,000- square-foot center has a sanctuary for worship as well as programming and office space.

Juveniles charged with hate crimes

Three juveniles were arrested last week by Swampscott police, ending a two-month search for the perpetrators behind two anti-Semitic incidents at the Lubavitch synagogue of the North Shore. The youths were arraigned at the Lynn Juvenile Court on Dec. 19 and 20 for allegedly committing a series of hate crimes against the synagogue.

The first incident occurred a few days before Rosh Hashanah, when vandals entered the building through an unlocked door and scrawled nti-Semitic graffiti on the walls of the synagogue. Two weeks later, a van belonging to synagogue was torched in its parking lot.he 14-year-olds were charged with hate crimes and will be tried for the destruction of property in excess of $5,000. The youths were not part of ny official anti-Semitic or neo-Nazi group, according to the Office for the District Attorney for the Essex County District.

More fighting to do

Even as Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and the NYPD take a well-deserved bow for driving crime in New York City to record lows this year, upward spikes of shootings and violent crime in some inner-city neighborhoods show there’s more work to be done.

In Brooklyn’s 71st Precinct, which covers Crown Heights, murders jumped to 21, up from nine last year, the largest increase in the city. Murders also went up in Bedford-Stuyvesant and in Fordham/University Heights, the Bronx.

A Hanukkah hope: Defeat the darkness Aboard the USS Ford

The USS Ford, a guided-missile frigate, may be a high-tech “total warfare system,” but for the past few days, it has been host to a symbol more than 2,000 years old: a menorah.

The 9-foot electric menorah stands on the deck of the ship at Naval Station Everett, being lit each night during the Hanukkah holiday, from Dec. 25 through Jan. 1.

Large, public menorah lightings are nothing new to Chabad Lubavitch of the Pacific Northwest. The Jewish outreach organization sponsors humanitarian, educational and social activities and is part of Chabad centers worldwide.