Welcome or not, cell phones set for subway

One of life’s ironic oases of solitude — the peace people find amid the roar of a New York City subway — could soon be gone.

As New York plans to make cell phones work in subway stations, experts say Americans eventually could be connected everywhere, underground or in the air.

“It’s technically feasible, both for airplanes and subways,” said James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. “It’s the social aspect that’s really the most intractable.”

People fall into two camps, one that defends the right to make calls no matter the inconvenience to others and the other that likes an undisturbed atmosphere, he said. Business people tend to belong to first camp, and leisure travelers to the second, he added.

Trio to be tried as juveniles for temple destruction

Swampscott, MA – Three 14-year-old boys charged with destroying Temple Chabad’s property last October to intimidate temple members will be prosecuted as juveniles.

The Essex District Attorney’s office branded the fire a hate crime after the boys were arrested in December. But prosecutors this week declined to charge them as adults because the charges did not meet required standards.

To charge juveniles as adults, the DA’s office is required to show charges include the threat or infliction of serious bodily harm.

Is Ritual Circumcision Religious Expression?

Americans pride themselves on their commitment to freedom of religion, but how much religious freedom is too much religious freedom? At the moment, the thorniest dispute over the issue concerns a male-circumcision ritual practiced by some Hasidic Jews in New York. The ritual is called oral suction, or metzitzah b’peh. After removing the foreskin, the mohel, who conducts the circumcision, cleans the wound by sucking blood from it. According to city health officials, the ritual may have caused three infants circumcised by the same mohel in 2003 and 2004 to contract neonatal herpes (one of the infants subsequently died). New York’s city health commissioner recently issued a warning about the dangers of oral suction, leading some Orthodox Jewish leaders to complain that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had reneged on promises to let religious authorities handle the issue. Meanwhile, secularists like the writer Christopher Hitchens have attacked the mayor for banning smoking in restaurants while failing to protect helpless children from diseases transmitted by “religious fanatics.”

Gun Shot Into Bais Rivkah

This morning when workers at Campus Chomesh – Bais Rivkah on Lefferts Ave. were opening the building for the school day one of them found a shattered window in a hallway on the forth floor, near the window they immediately noticed a shell laying on the floor and called the police. The window is comprised of a reinforced safety glass and the bullet punched a hole about a quarter inch in the window.

The police came and collected the spent slug which has been identified as a 9mm bullet, and took a police report, CrownHeights.info has learned that the police don’t believe this incident is related to the incident that took place the same night with police officers getting shot at.

Police Officers Get Shot At in Crown Heights

Last night at around 3:00am police officers were shot at while attempting to pull over a van that appeared to be stolen and had invalid plates and was speeding. The drama began unfolding on Sterling Street where the van was speeding and made a sharp turn onto Brooklyn Ave. then making another sharp turn onto Lefferts Ave. then 2 black men stopped the van on Balfour Pl. and began running. This is when the single shot rang out and the officers in pursuit called in for backup.

Instantly there were over 20 police cars on scene, followed by ESU, Crime Scene Units, Highway Patrol and K9 Units. The suspects were both armed with handguns, and are currently still at large, though police believe they will have them in custody very soon. Stay tuned as we will bring you all the latest updates on this event

Animals Dressed Up As Humans!

Video: Excessive Israeli Police Brutality Caught on Tape

Video Clip 1 (Very Violent, viewer discretion is advised)
Video Clip 2

Police crossed the boundaries of reasonable force, and entered into full-scale, unprovoked violence as they began beating resistors sitting non-violently with arms-crossed inside an Amona home.

The protestors are seen sitting peacefully on the floor of one of the nine Amona buildings slated for destruction, with their arms locked together. According to the eye-witness testimony of the photographer Avi Fishman from Kedumim, no one in the room did anything but, as depicted in the footage, sit in.

The police are seen storming the room, and mercilessly beating those sitting in the home with the handles of their night sticks.

More on the subject in the Extended Article.

Local rabbi also serves as sheriff’s chaplain

When Poway sheriff’s deputies reach for a snack these days, they’re often presented with a choice: Donuts or potato latkes?

More than just a nod to the modern, multicultural workplace, it’s a calling card of sorts for Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who became the Sheriff Department’s Jewish chaplain in October.

As chaplain, he looks after the spiritual needs of Jewish deputies, and works to educate non-Jews on the force about his faith.

February is Kabbalah Month

For Rabbi Yosef Wolvovsky, Kabbalah is not about selling red strings and Kabbalah water or celebrity sightings.

It is about finding deeper meaning in Judaism.

“Jewish mysticism has so much to say about the purpose of life and meaningful living,” explained Rabbi Wolvovsky, executive director of Chabad: East of the River, located in Glastonbury.

To shed more light on the mystical Jewish practice of Kabbalah, February has been branded “Kabbalah Month” all around Connecticut.

Israel’s Identity Crisis: Liberal or Jewish?

A person needs a sense of mission like the air he breathes. A clear sense of mission and purpose keeps the soul healthy; without it we decompose like a body without a backbone that collapses into a meaningless heap of bones. Nations are like people, with a healthy sense of mission they thrive; without it, they flounder and fade away.

Israel is floundering. Israel’s greatest threat today is not from without rather it is from within. Its greatest risk comes, neither from Hamas nor from the bloody Intifada, rather it comes from its lost sense of mission. The Jewish people have survived for 3800 years only because it had a strong sense of mission. At Mt. Sinai the Jewish people were charged with the mission of being a light onto the nations, volunteering to become a nation of prophets and priests who will teach the world right from wrong.

Kosher Bread – Target of Prejudice in Mogilev

The most recent target of anti-Semitism in Russia occurred in Mogilev in the Belarus region. Two local newspapers called residents to confiscate the ‘Blominskei’ bread. The articles added letters written by locals blaming the bakery for ‘turning the entire region into a Jewish community’. To combat this, the newspapers demanded that production of kosher bread be forbidden and boycotted.

One of the letters publicized declared that the koshering process is done with the use of blood of animals brought for an offering. Other reporters based their support of outlawing kosher bread on other sources.

Straphangers Sack On Track

It’s hard to find a subway car without a lawbreaker on board.

A day after The Post told the tale of a Brooklyn woman who was slapped with a $50 summons for putting her groceries on the seat next to her, plenty of other commuters were ripe for bagging.

Virtually every subway car The Post visited had at least one passenger defying the Metropolitan Transportation Authority rule that makes it illegal to plop packages on an empty seat.

Behind the scenes of the 770 stamp in Israel

At first the Postal Authority had offered Chabad to issue a stamp with a picture of the Rebbe but Chabad rejected the offer because the Rebbe himself had once rejected such an offer.

The Hebrew news site NFC has disclosed the negotitations behind the scene that led up to the issuing of the special 770 stamps in Israel. At first, NFC writes, the Postal Authority had offered Chabad to issue a stamp with a picture of the Rebbe but Chabad rejected the offer because the Rebbe himself had once rejected such an offer.

The Rebbe’s refusal to such a stamp goes back to the time when an offer was made to issue a stamp with the Previous Rebbe’s picture but the Rebbe refused, apparently because when you paste the stamp you sometimes smack it, NFC writes.