Jonathan Silverman attended Stony Brook from 2000-2004. The Chabad Lubavitch, with the help of Stony Brook’s Rabbi Adam, organized a trip to the Gaza Strip to protest the forced evacuation of Israelis from the territory during mid-August. Jon, with roughly a dozen other Jewish Americans, flew to Gaza to join the thousands of people who staged non-violent protests against this policy.
Speaking at the national dinner organised celebrating 350 years of Jewish life in the U.S., the American President George W. Bush hailed the contribution of Jews in the country, saying that the story of the Jewish people in America is a story of America itself.
“The story of the Jewish people in America is a story of America itself. The pilgrims considered this nation a new Israel, a refuge from persecution in Europe. Jewish Americans have made countless contributions to our land,” Bush said.
The gala dinner, held in the national building museum, concludes a year of events all over the U.S., marking 350 years since Jewish refugees fcoming from Brazil settled settled in the United States, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Rabbi Ramy Banin, a big man with a long grey beard, is sitting in his office switching easily between English, Italian, Hebrew and Yiddish as he chats with visitors who walk through its open door. Outside, the late-summer sun slants across the small square of Venice’s Jewish Ghetto, warming the red and yellow walls of the tall buildings and the 500-year-old synagogue, past the memorial to the Jews deported in the Second World War and past shops selling menorah, stars of David and other Hebraica.
A Venezuelan stops by the rabbi’s office to introduce his Polish wife – ‘a good Jewish girl, of course,’ he says. An American woman wanders in and leaves with a handful of pamphlets. Outside, a group of schoolchildren sing a few lines of a religious song.
With a cry of “Mazeltov” and a Rabbi’s congratulatory handshake, hundreds of tribal people from India’s north-east were formally converted to Judaism this week after being recognised as descendants of the 10 Lost Tribes exiled from Israel 2,700 years ago.
A rabbinical court, dispatched with the blessing of Israel’s Chief Rabbi, travelled 3,500 miles to Mizoram on India’s border with Burma to perform the conversions using a Mikvah – ritual bath – built specially for the purpose.
There were emotional scenes as the Oriental-looking hill people professed their faith, repeating the oath from Deuteronomy: “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.”
Tibor Rubin kept his promise to join the U.S. Army after American troops late in World War II freed him from the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.
A Hungarian Jew, Rubin immigrated to New York after the war, joined the Army and fought as an infantryman on the frontlines in the Korean War. In 1951, Chinese troops captured Cpl. Rubin and other U.S. soldiers and he became a prisoner of war for 2½ years.
Drawing from his experience at the Nazi concentration camp, Rubin daily risked his own life by stealing food from his captors and provided hope and crude medical care that kept more than 40 U.S. soldiers alive.
Meet the new, funky NYPD — now available on your MP3 player.
The Police Department yesterday introduced a podcast featuring traffic reports, public-service announcements and features on its work.
The podcasts can be downloaded from the NYPD’s Web site and played on any MP3 player or over the Internet for those without the latest high-tech toy.
They will be updated every Saturday, although Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the series may be updated more regularly if big events or the number of users warrant it.
NOTE: To subscribe to the PodCast please visit NYPD website by CLICKING HERE
When Israel’s most prominent Sephardic rabbi described Hurricane Katrina as America’s punishment for supporting Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza — and condemned its mainly black victims for failing to study Torah — many Jewish leaders here were appalled.
But in Israel, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s view linking the worst natural disaster in American history to U.S. support for the Gaza withdrawal is not unique among rabbis.
Rabbi Joseph Gerlitzky, the leader of the Lubavitch chasidic sect’s center in central Tel-Aviv, among others, gave a sermon from his pulpit soon after the hurricane voicing the same theme. A popular radio rabbi echoed him. And a noted Jerusalem kabbalist reportedly also made similar comments.
Many battles have been fought to bring the world to a state of redemption. Many tears have been offered in prayer. Much blood has been shed in martyrdom. Innumerable Mitzvos and acts of goodness were committed. Huge sums of charity were distributed. Much Torah has been studied. Many leading rabbis, tzaddikim, and famous kabbalists, giants of the spirit, have poured their energies into the efforts to bring redemption to an embattled world.
Yet inexplicably the redemption has failed to materialize. As of today the exile remains stubbornly intractable and unresolved.
THURSDAY NIGHT 10:15PM – Derek Nelson, probably one of the dumbest criminals to hit the streets of Crown Heights tried to strike again after being released from police custody a mere three days ago.
It all began when a senior member of Shomrim spied Nelson sneaking around on Union St. near Kingston Ave. The member called for back up in case Nelson was up to his usual antics which sadly for him he was.
While being watched by over twenty units Nelson made his way into a Jewish owned car, parked on Albany Ave. between President St. and Union St. Just as Nelson was putting things into his pockets which the owner of the vehicle had left in his car, the Shomrim units quickly made their move and detained him inside the car until the police were able to arrive.
NOTE: There are 23 more pictures in the extended article. Just click the line below.
In the aftermath of Katrina Hurricane, the Chabad-Lubavitch organization has taken a lead role in helping Jewish victims, keeping emissaries in New Orleans until the levees broke, a day after the storm; searching for missing residents, many of them elderly; and bringing food and water to the shelters where some are now staying.
Several recreational vehicles with members of Chabad from Houston appeared in Baton Rouge last week with boxes of food and clothing, and a contingent of yeshiva students from Brooklyn had driven to Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, where they, too, were distributing necessities.
Over 200 people filled the hall @ the Jewish Children’s Museum on Monday night to enjoy the Aliya (Alternative Learning Institute for Young Adults) organization’s third annual banquet dedicated to the memory of Reb Leima Levitin Z”L. Chairman of the evening was Reb Leima’s brother in law Mr. Mottel Feiglin who is also the father of director R. Moishe Feiglin.
Dedication speeches were given by Dr. Harvey Lang, close friend of Reb Leima, Dr. Rosen, father of staff member and involved board member, Gary Levine representative of Chabad of Brooklyn Heights (Aliya Yeshivah), Moishe Altman, father of 2 Aliya students and Moishe Feiglin, Director.
After raising almost $10 million in response to Hurricane Katrina, Jewish organizations are facing the tricky question of how to divide the money among explicitly Jewish causes and general relief efforts.
The Reform movement has led the way among Jewish religious groups, raising more than $1.5 million by the middle of this week. In its first round of allocations, it gave $45,000 to Jewish communities in the affected areas, but much larger grants, totaling $500,000, to nonsectarian relief efforts. In contrast, the Orthodox Union, which set up a fund in conjunction with Yeshiva University and the Rabbinical Council of America, says it is concentrating on providing relief to displaced Orthodox Jews. So far, the Orthodox fund has sent $20,000 to an Orthodox congregation in Memphis that has enrolled evacuated Jewish children at its day school.
After “an intense meeting” yesterday with authorities responsible for the recovery and burial of the dead, Rabbi Edgar Gluck, the Chaplain of the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office told lubavitch.com that he was satisfied that Jewish bodies would be treated with absolute regard for Jewish law.
As you may have noticed in the past 2 years we have seen quite a few stores go and update that sign/awning’s, the latest one is Apple Drugs.
Roving pothole repair crews are a common site in Manhattan and on the major thoroughfares like the FDR and the likes where the roads are in real shambles.
Today one crew was spotted in front of 770 and the Jewish Children’s Museum where the whole road needs a complete redo desperately.
Israel’s leading known Kabbalistic Elder, Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri called upon worldwide Jewry Tuesday night to return to Israel due to natural disasters which threaten to strike the world.
In a class between the Mincha (afternoon) and Maariv (evening) prayers at his Jerusalem yeshiva seminary, Rabbi Kaduri issued the following call:
”This declaration I find fitting to issue for all of the Jews of the world to hear. It is incumbent upon them to return to the Land of Israel due to terrible natural disasters which threaten the world.
In the future, the Holy One, Blessed be He, will bring about great disasters in the countries of the world to sweeten the judgements of the Land of Israel.
