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Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it didn’t take long for international Jewish groups to rush into Russia and begin rebuilding institutions of Jewish life that had been destroyed under generations of communist repression.
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Twenty-nine-year-old Chabad Rabbi Bentzion Butman often stands in front of the two-story, balcony-laden Jewish Center located at No. 32, Street 28, in Phnom Penh, the capital of the ancient country of Cambodia, thousands of miles away from his hometown of Lod, Israel. At the front gate is a sign that says, “The Jewish Center” followed by the words, “No Jew will be left behind.”
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The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s Northwest Division celebrated its grand opening on Sunday, Oct. 7. Rabbi Ephraim Zimmerman of Chabad of Oro Valley affixed the Mezuza on the center’s front entrance and spoke a few words of inspiration to those who were gathered.
A Jewish doctor was murdered on Saturday in his house in Lviv, Ukraine. Dr. Leon Freifeld, 60, was a senior orthopedic surgeon, a university professor and a prominent member of the Lviv community.
Hartford police are trying to find the vandals who overturned nearly 40 gravestones at a Jewish Cemetery. Police say the headstones at the Congregation Ados Beth Israel Cemetery off Tower Avenue and Waverly Street were damaged sometime between Oct. 12 and Oct. 19. The vandalism was discovered by a congregation member who regularly visits his son’s grave.
The iconic River Café on the Brooklyn waterfront in DUMBO — famous for its floating-barge dining room that offers sweeping views of lower Manhattan — discriminates against Jews dressed in religious garb by requiring them to pay a minimum of $25 per person to sit at the bar, according to one current and one former employee.
In today’s day and age, Jews should never have to fear expressing their culture and heritage publicly. But yet, at Carleton University in Ottawa, I believe many still do. Just last week, Carleton released a report stating the findings of its Commission on Inter-Cultural, Inter-Religious and Inter-Racial Relations. The commission, formed two years ago, indicated in its report that Jewish students and faculty members in particular were unsatisfied with the treatment received on campus.
Police have arrested two young men in relation to the desecration of Jewish graves with anti-Semitic messages at a central Auckland, New Zealand cemetery.
Last Sunday, 28 Tishrei, a Hachnosas Sefer Torah was held at the new Chabad center in Newton, MA. The Chabad Center, under the leadership of Rabbi Chaim Prus, Head Shliach of Eastern Massachusetts, opened its new 17,000 square foot facility last year, and it has already received its second new sefer Torah, which was donated by the Saada family.
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