| Parashas Voeschana – Aug. 19 | Lighting Time | Shabbos Ends | Sof Zman Krias Shema |
| Castkills – Monticello | 7:34 | 8:35 | 9:37 |
| Crown Heights | 7:30 | 8:31 | 9:35 |
Today is a very sad day in the history of the Jewish People, and what makes it even sadder for me is that so few Jews outside of Israel truly grasp the gravity and implication of the events taking place here in Israel.
I have heard time and again from my peers living in the United States (and not only in connection with Israel’s “disengagement” from Gush Katif and the northern Shomron) the following sentiment:
“I have to admit to not following as closely as I should what is going on in Israel.”
The King County Labor Council voted this week to oppose the re-election of Cindi Laws to the Seattle Monorail Project board, citing remarks she made about Jewish monorail opponents during an endorsement interview this month.
During her Aug. 9 interview, Laws was asked to assess her election challengers, including Beth Goldberg, a county budget analyst and monorail opponent. Goldberg is Jewish.
In response, Laws talked about how former monorail director Joel Horn used to joke that he and a few other people at the agency were the only Jews in favor of the monorail, according to union officials and their notes taken at the interview.
Pope Benedict XVI warned Friday of rising anti-Semitism and hostility to foreigners during a visit to a synagogue that was rebuilt after being destroyed during the Nazis’ infamous Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938.
Benedict became only the second pope to visit a synagogue, praying and remembering Holocaust victims with Cologne’s Jewish community _ Germany’s oldest.
New York judges, Mrs. Margarita Lopez and Mr. Larry Knipel met with Crown Heights’ council members, Rabbi Chanina Sperlin, Rabbi Tzvi Lang, Rabbi Leibish Nash, and some additional Crown Heights residents: Rabbi Eliyahu Slavin, Rabbi Nachum Gross, Rabbi Reuven Lipkind and Rabbi Yosef Pruss, to reqeust Crown Heights’ support in the oncoming elections for judges in the high court dealing with legacies and guardianships.
The Chassidic philanthropist, Rabbi Avrohom New, is seen donating blood in the recent blood drive in Crown Heights arranged by the ‘Ahavas Chessed’ organization. The chairman Reb Avrohom Lieder is seen near him.
This one is just beyond me. How can this pass?
New York (dpa) – American Jewish philanthropists contributed 14 million dollars to buy former Gaza settlers’ greenhouses for Palestinians, a news report said Thursday.
Without the funds, the Jewish settlers would have destroyed the greenhouses to keep them out of Arab hands as they were forced out of Gaza Strip, The New York Times said.
The greenhouses provide jobs for 3,500 Palestinians and had been a lucrative market for fresh produces for Jewish settlers.
The Times said Mortimer B. Zuckerman, publisher of the New York Daily News and a real estate tycoon, last week got a request from former World Bank head James D. Wolfensohn to raise money in order to save the greenhouses. Zuckerman sent out word to Jewish organizations in the United States for help.
Within 48 hours, he received 14 million dollars. Wolfensohn, who contributed 500,000 dollars of his own, is the international envoy to Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza.
He represents the sponsors of the so-called road map for Mideast peace – the United States, the European Union, Russia and the U.N. The Gaza pullout is part of the quartet’s peace plan.
The private fundraising efforts to buy the greenhouses spread quickly and got U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s support. She called donors and thanked them for helping the peace process in the Middle East, The Times said.
NORTH PORT — When Rabbi Sholom Schmerling and his wife, Rivka, arrived in North Port four months ago, they expected to help fill a void in the Jewish community through their outreach program.
So far, they’ve found a variety of ways to accomplish that goal.
“We hope to grow in any areas needed by Jews,” Rivka Schmerling said. “We came to Florida. We know couples who have been sent to out all over the world. We’ve come to a place where there is a need for a Jewish outreach.”
The couple’s first goal was to meet people. They held an ice cream party during the Shavout holiday that attracted about 20 people from Venice and North Port.
They noticed Jewish families weren’t being offered social centers to help continue their culture and religious education, mainly because Jews have become so well integrated in the culture, politics and academics of society.
SHANGHAI, China — The boom of China has lured countless Americans: manufacturing CEOS, high-tech entrepreneurs, bankers, lawyers and investment moguls.
And one rabbi from Brooklyn.
Asked seven years ago to move from Crown Heights to a country where many people still don’t have flush toilets, “I asked, `Do they have electricity? Do they have hot water?’ ” Shalom Greenberg said.
But there was an even bigger challenge for the rabbi from the orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch organization: leading Jews in a country that does not officially recognize Judaism.
“I didn’t know the concept existed of Jews living in China,” Greenberg said.
Opponents of the disengagement plan within Israel held out until the end. Not so Jews around the world, most of whom either welcomed the government’s decision to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, coolly accepted it as inevitable, or abstained from the debate altogether.
Hundreds of thousands of Jews in the Diaspora have followed the disengagement issue with great concern, but their leaders conceded the fight months ago.
While Chabad in Israel has been prominently involved in the anti-disengagement campaign, the Chabad-dominated Federation of Jewish Communities in the Commonwealth of Independent States has paid very little or no attention to the debate. Instead, it has remained focused on stabilizing the hundreds of Jewish communities spread across the vast expanse of the former Soviet Union.
Jewish people in Britain are the most likely to be self-employed, according to research by the Office for National Statistics.
The study found that one in three (33%) Jewish people ran their own business, compared with 20% of Muslims and just one in 10 Christians.
High-profile members of the Jewish business community include Sir Alan Sugar, the founder of Amstrad, star of the television show The Apprentice and arguably Britain’s most famous entrepreneur.
California Jewish groups are upset by the timing of an election to replace Chris Cox, who left Congress to head the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced this week the election will be held Dec. 6 with a primary on Oct. 4. The October date is also the first day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and one of the holiest days in the Jewish calendar.
Last night at around 8:00PM Shomrim received a call for a missing child, immediately the entire force sprang to life and within seconds there were 20 vehicles canvassing the entire CH area.
During the search Hatzalah was called in along with members of the Boro Park Shomrim and the local Police Precinct was called in as well, after about 45 minutes into the search the Police called in the helicopter to aid the search, and that wasn’t enough either, the Shomrim K9 Unit was called in as well.
Around an hour and a half into the search a yellow cab pulled up to the families house, where Shomrim had set up a mobile command post, and out of the cab the cleaning lady got out with the missing child and just walked up to the house like nothing happened, the woman immediately was bombarded with questions and suddenly forgot the little English she knew, the police the called in an officer that understands Spanish, and questioned her as to what had happened. She was supposed to go to the mailbox down the block and back, a task of no more then 10 minutes even with walking a 3 year old child, but for some reason decided to go to the main post office, then the child got tired so they got into a cab. A sketchy story at best.
15 Lubavitchers barricaded themselves in the bunker of a shul and threatened to set themselves on fire in protest of the disengagement, but after negotiating for about 5 hours with the IDF, the 300 soldiers surrounding the bunker went in, and removed them.
The United Nations is embroiled in a dispute with American Jewish organizations over the funding of Palestinian banners in Gaza, and U.S. Ambassador John Bolton on Wednesday protested the “unacceptable” payments.
The dispute centers on the UN Development Program’s payment for materials produced by the Palestinian Authority for Israel’s disengagement from Gaza which include banners saying: “Gaza Today. The West Bank and Jerusalem Tomorrow.”
Under cloudy skies and drizzling rain, they gathered in front of the United Nations this morning. About 60 American Jews came out to pray for friends in the Gaza Strip forced to leave their homes after almost four decades of occupation.
On day three of the eviction of Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, emotions still ran high.
Video of protest:
Click here if you have a slow internet connection
Click here if you have a fast internet connection
1
