International Championship Chidon Safer HaMitzvot!

Motzoai Shabbos at the Brooklyn School of Music and Theater, where just one week ago Avraham Fried rocked the night, came the International Championship of the girls division’s Chidon Safer HaMitzvot.

There were 2 levels of difficulty one for the younger finalists and the other for the older finalists. The Chidon was done in a Jeopardy style format and was called ‘Jewperdy’! Where the contestants are split up into 6 teams and combine their efforts to solve the questions put before them. The questions ranged in difficulty, one was even pretend in the form of a story told by Yitzy Erps where the contestants needed to identify all the Halochos that were mentioned in the story.

During the first intermission the audience were treated to a performance by the singer Kineret, followed by a final performance by Chanale’h who had the crowd with the counselors and contestants on their seats dancing and singing with the music.

More Pictures and the list of winners in the Extended Article!

R. Schwei’s Letter Regarding The Purim Banquet

This years signs for the Banquet, which is being done under the CHJCC and Vaad Hakohol, state that there will be “Family Seating”. Many people have turned to R. Schwei questioning this. Here is the letter he released in response.

The full letter can be seen in the Extended Article as well as the Hebrew version.

New Rabbi for Russian Far East Center

The Jewish community of Khabarovsk, a member of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, is soon to add a new rabbi to its staff. The young rabbi, Israel Noach Kaminetsky, is currently at home in New York preparing to move to this Far East city. He and his family will soon be arriving to this major Russian center, now that he has been appointed as a Chabad Lubavitch emissary.

In Khabarovsk, Rabbi Kaminetsky will aid the region’s Chief Rabbi Yakov Snetkov and provide essential assistance to the local community in organizing and carrying out the work of the Synagogue and Jewish Community Center that were built not long ago. He will be assisted by his wife.

Chabad of the Valley NY Trip for Girls

For 5 action-packed days 19 girls from Chabad of the Valley’s Bat Mitzvah Club and Teen Center experienced a non stop adventure in New York! “Under the careful guidance of Head Counselor Etti Perman and counselors Kessem Nir and Chaya Mushka Greene, the girls toured up and down the state from Mid Town Manhattan, to Hunter Mountain-the Catskill’s famed ski resort”, said Rabbi Mayer Greene the event’s director.

Sight seeing at the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and Times square, a shopping spree all along 34th street, the virtual arcade at ESPN ZONE, lunch at Circa, dinner at Jerusalem II and a Limo ride over the Brooklyn Bridge gave everyone a real taste of life in the “city that never sleeps”.

The spectacular views of the breathtaking snow-covered mountains in Tannersville were a real treat for the California girls, many of whom were seeing snow for the first time in their lives. Snow tubing down Hunter Mountain was quite thrilling to say the least!

A Pictorial Walkthrough “Exodus”

The ‘Exodus’ is an audience participation reenactment of the story of the Jews exodus from Egypt to freedom in Israel . The show starts off with the audience in a time machine that brings us back through the ages to ‘Mitzrayim’. We witness the slave labor the Jews had been forced to do, and the scene of HaShem talking to Moshe through the ‘Sneh’ (The Burning Bush). We then move on into Pharaohs Palace where Pharoh after insisting on keeping the Jews as his slaves is struck by the ten plagues forcing him to change his mind. We then experience the feeling of ‘Yetzias Mitzrayim’ as we walk out through the Egyptian village, to then be blocked in between the Reed Sea, and the Egyptians. This is followed by Moshe splitting the sea, and leading the Jews throughthe desert on to ‘Matan Torah’ where in an amazing show of lights and sound we receive the Luchos (Tablets containing the ten commandements).

After all this the kids then enter a Model Matzoh Bakery where they bake matzos of their own!

Swastikas painted on dumpster

Is racial crime openly on the rise? Friday morning a Crown Heights resident doing construction on a home on President St arrived to find a red Swastika painted on a dumpster in front of the house. The dumpster had just been delivered Thursday night, clean with not marks or markings on it. The police hate crimes unit was assigned to investigate, which didn’t allow the graffiti taskforce to remove the scrawl till much later Friday.

Camera Crews from every local TV news and radio station had shown up throughout the course of the day to report this anti semitic crime and the general rise in crime in our neighborhood.

Oholei Torah Inaugurates its Young Leadership Committee

As Oholei Torah pledged during their Shnas HaChamishim campaign, many new and special programs are being currently implemented. One of the major initiatives, the forming of an official “Young Leadership Committee” was inaugurated this past Wednesday evening.

Guests were greeted by the Menahel of Oholei Torah, Rabbi Joseph Rosenfeld and Rabbi Nosson Blumes, Program Director. Rabbi Yankel Pinson, long standing member of the Executive Board, gave the young couples an in-depth look into the direction and current goals of the mossad, emphasizing the important role Yungeleit have in the future of the yeshiva. Many of the participants had a chance to meet with Rabbi Shmuel Brook of the Advisory Board, which consists of a group of capable and committed community members, overseeing many integral aspects of the yeshiva.

OT Alumnus Yerachmeal Jacobson was the evening’s guest speaker. He reminisced about his warm memories in Oholei Torah, and of the importance of giving back to the yeshiva which did so much for us.

T&LC Driver Wrecks Havoc On Lefferts & New York

Around 10:45am at the intersection of Lefferts Ave. & New York Ave. a sound of a loud impact echoed throughout the intersection followed by screeches and screams for help. The scene of the accident looked quite bizarre, a 15 passenger van sitting on the sidewalk nearly in a construction site and 100 feet down the street a crumpled up car sat alone. The driver of the van fled the scene on foot, leaving the other car with its passengers injured.

This incident starts a week ago where Police Officers from a special division of the Police Department called the Safety and Traffic Enforcement Division (STED)
Which drive around in unmarked police cars and pick out the most dangerous drivers. Last week the driver of this van was picked out by officers of this division for driving recklessly and endangering other drivers and had his license suspended.

Yesterday an officer from the STED spotted this van which he remembered suspending its driver of his license, so they began to follow him to see if it was really this same driver, when the van noticed it was being followed he immediately began trying to evade police by trying to speed off, that attempted ended soon after. The van attempted to take a red light and collided head on with a smaller car and from the force of the impact the small car was sent back in the direction it came from, spinning wildly across the entire street.

More pictures in the Extended Article.

Today 66 Years Ago:

In honor of Tes Adar we are proud to present to you a piece printed in a local Shuls newsletter about the Previous Rebbe coming to the United States of America.

Click on the image for a full size view