Ambulette Bursts into flames on Montgomery and Kingston

One of the ‘Major Ambulette’ vans was dropping off a patient today at the building on the corner of Montgomery and Kingston, when the driver noticed smoke coming out of his dashboard. He immediately exited the van and poured water into the air vent in attempt to stop whatever was happening. A minute later the window fogged up and flames began coming out of the dashboard and engine bay quickly engulfing the entire van in flames, and from the heat of the fire the driver side airbag exploded.

Shomrim members had arrived immediately on scene and quickly instructed bystanders to stay back and away from the van, and seconds later from the intensity of the flames, the windows exploded in a shower of hot glass where bystanders were standing just moments earlier. Also from the heat the headlights and tail lights of the cars parked next to this van had melted! FDNY arrived 3 minutes after the call to 911 and put the fire out, the roof was a problem since its made of fiber glass it absorbs flames therefore they had to tear up the entire roof to make sure there was no fire there. Debris from the fire and fiberglass roof littered the street and parked call all around the van.

The driver who is 50 and has been working for ‘Major Ambulette’ which operates out of Staten Island, for 2 years said that there were no known issues with the van and it had operated well, until today.

More pictures in the Extended Article!

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New Women’s Summer Seminary: An Innovative Experience

The Montreal Torah Center

The Shluchos Division at The Shluchim Office has announced the launching of a women’s seminary together with The Montreal Torah Center. The seminary will offer four stimulating days of intensive learning from Sunday, July 16-Thursday, July 20, Tamuz 20-24, 5766.

Shluchos are anticipating this exciting new program. It offers them a unique opportunity to spend time with their community women through a fabulous and concentrated learning experience. “I truly look forward to sharing those few days with some very interested women from my area… This program is something quite unprecedented,” commented Baila Gansburg, of Coconut Creek, FL. Shluchos and mikuravos are also looking forward to the opportunity of doing in depth textual study in an intensive learning environment.(Interested women may also attend independently.)

Urgent – All parents with kids in Yeshiva, Read This!

Do you realize how badly we are being treated?

Did you know that the Teacher’s Union is spending millions of dollars in their attempts to kill the Education Tax Credit plan set to pass in our state’s capitol?

That means, unless we do something right away, you can forget about the $500 per child tax credit for education expenses you are supposed to get.

There are only 4 days left until the New York State Legislature votes – everyone has to call now and tell our politicians to support Tax Credits specifically for Education.

The best person to call is Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver. He can really push this thing through.

Call Shelly today at 212-312-1420 and ask him to save our $500 tax credit for education.

Pass this message on and urge all your friends to call.

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Chabad Leadership Gearing Up To Take On Messianists

Steven I. Weiss – The Jewish Chronicle
R. Shemtov & R. Krinsky. Photo: Osher Litzman.

While last week’s 770 decision passed without much comment, the leadership of the movement as embodied by its central organization — Agudas Chasidei Chabad — sees it as a watershed moment allowing it to take on the messianists in the sect with a move they’ve long been hoping for. For them, this isn’t just about the right to keep a cornerstone plaque referring to the late Rebbe as “of blessed memory.”

Rabbi Avraham Shemtov, chairman of the executive committee of Agudas, said in a phone interview yesterday that “There are many things that we have refrained from doing in order to avoid confrontation and in order to avoid unnecessary conflict,” and that now, with the legal decision in hand, they will endeavor to restrict “the access and the over-excessive access by individuals whose beliefs and whose conduct is completely foreign to the Lubavitch movement,” referring to the messianists who’ve been occupying 770.

Responding to the common assumption that the reason why the messianist element within 770 has remained is because of political considerations or a lack of desire to see it gone, Shemtov said “That is completely incorrect; the desire has always been there, but there were considerations that could not have been avoided” before the ruling. Now, he said, Agudas is “weighing the immediate steps to implement the permissions that come with it.”

Kosher BBQ in Rancho Mirage: A Torah Oasis

Rivka Chaya Berman – Lubavitch.com

If you’re in California’s desert off Highway 10 on a Tuesday, and find yourself getting hungry for some kosher food– you’re in luck. Chabad of Rancho Mirage, 25 minutes out of the resort city of Palm Springs, hosts a weekly community barbecue that is redefining gastronomic Judaism.

One-inch thick steaks sizzle on the grill. Patties are being flipped into single and double burgers resting on cushion-soft buns. The crowd’s senior, junior, more than 50 strong, easy going and dressed in short sleeves; it’s day two of spring and it’s 87 degrees at sunset. Jewish diners order up California style veggies burgers and veggie soup served alongside Chabad of Rancho Mirage representative Chaya Posner’s famous salads. Since moving down to Rancho five years ago, Joan Kramer has tucked into her share of barbecue fare. “It is wonderful. The camaraderie is the very best. Everybody mingles with everybody,” she says. “I’d recommend it for every community.”

Building bonds between Jews in the area is as part of the barbecue as hotdogs and mustard. At least one couple met at barbecue and married. Still more have dated, discussed prospective pairings, and done business along the eight-foot tables and under the twinkling lights. Kids down their burgers and whiz around the concrete plaza on scooters and bikes. Not on the agenda, however, is a formal Torah program. “When Abraham welcomed people into his tent, he fed them, he didn’t lecture them,” said Chabad of Rancho’s Rabbi Shimon Posner. “In the Torah, people met and gathered at the well. Out here, the barbecue is a Torah oasis.”