Israeli troops deploy to thwart Gaza march

MSNBC

Thousands of troops began taking up positions in southern Israel on Tuesday, preparing to thwart an attempt by thousands of opponents of the upcoming Gaza withdrawal to march into the Gaza settlements.

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Jews demonstrate in Sderot, Israel, on Tuesday against the planned Gaza pullout
as police prepared to block any attempt by protesters to march into Jewish settlements due to be evacuated)%>
Jews demonstrate in Sderot, Israel, on Tuesday against the planned Gaza pullout
as police prepared to block any attempt by protesters to march into Jewish settlements due to be evacuated.
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Man punched in the face in apparent bias attack

NY Newsday

A Hasidic man walking home in Crown Heights from a friend’s house was punched in the face by at least two black men yelling, “Hey Jew, what are you doing here?” police sources and the victim said Tuesday.

The victim, 50, a kosher food inspector, was attacked at 10:45 p.m. as he walked along Schnectady Avenue between Crown and Carroll streets.

Hollywood synagogue not alone in legal challenges

The Miami Herald

A synagogue in Orange County has won a legal battle that parallels a case still being played out in Hollywood.

An Orange County synagogue faced challenges similar to those of the Hollywood Community Synagogue Chabad Lubavitch.

For more than two years, Rabbi Joseph Konikov battled county officials to allow him to hold worship services in his single-family home in Sand Lake Hills, a residential neighborhood.

Konikov, a Brooklyn rabbi, first rented the home, then purchased it.

When he started to hold services with a small number of worshipers, the county got wind of it. The battle began.

One year, while the rabbi and several families celebrated the Jewish holiday of Purim, an Orange County code enforcement officer knocked on the door to cite him for operating a synagogue, said his attorney, John Stemberger.

World-Wide ‘Shema’ (Tomorrow) Wednesday

Arutz 7

An appeal has been made to every Jew around to world to simultaneously read the first lines of the prayer known as Shema: “Hear O Israel, The L-rd is Our G-d, the L-rd is One” on Wednesday.

The prayer is intended to ask for Divine help to prevent violence toward the planned expulsion of Jewish residents from Gaza and northern Samaria and for Divine intervention to cancel the plan. The prayer is organized under the motto, United We Stand, Divided We Fall.

The prayer will be recited at 9 p.m. Wednesday at the Western Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem and at 2 p.m. in New York.

Children around the world also are being asked to pray together the following night, one day before the beginning of the new Hebrew month Av. Former Chief Rabbi of Israel Mordechai Eliyahu will lead the Thursday night prayer at the Western Wall.

An unidentified group of women initiated the call for the children’s prayer, which will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Israel (12:30 p.m. in New York).

Chabad (Lubavitch) leaders said they are encouraging children to attend the prayer rally at the Western Wall, where more than 20,000 children are expected.

Mayor’s Campaign Follows Jewish Voters to the Catskills

The New York Times

Hundreds of Jewish New Yorkers who thought they had escaped city life for the summer found that the city, in the form of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s re-election campaign, had followed them to their Catskill retreat yesterday.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg brought his re-election campaign to a pastry shop yesterday in Woodbourne, a village in the Catskills.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg brought his re-election campaign to a pastry shop yesterday in Woodbourne, a village in the Catskills.

Jerusalem Flyers Seeking Anti-Semitic Soldiers to Expel Jews

Israel National News

Flyers appeared around Jerusalem during the night, with the banner “Seeking anti-Semitic soldiers to expel Jews,” police reported on Sunday morning.

The public circulars added “The Disengagement Authority is establishing a special unit to carry out the expulsion, seeking highly motivated soldiers in excellent condition to expel Jews… Preference given to non-Jewish soldiers who would appreciate the anti-Semitic aspect.” The flyers concluded “Gentiles do expel Jews!”

Museum Shows Children the Faith of Their Neighbors

The New York Times

The Red Robins and the Bluebirds took a trip the other day. They took the subway to the new Jewish Children’s Museum in Brooklyn.

The Red Robins and the Bluebirds are from the Alonzo A. Daughtry Memorial Day Care Center. They are all 4 and 5. They went to the museum to learn what Jewish children do and believe. The day care center is in Park Slope, but the children who go there are from mostly poor families from throughout Brooklyn. Most are black and a few are white or brown, but none are Jewish.

“We want them to have a new experience,” said their teacher, Metika Francis. “To see something that’s outside their usual world.”

The museum, which opened in April on Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, is a tall shiny building with a 10-foot-high steel dreidel in front of it. Museum officials say it is the world’s only Jewish children’s museum.

BORUCH DAYAN HAEMES
HATOMIM CHAIM EFRAIM WEXLER OBM

With great sorrow we report the passing of the bochur Chaim Ephraim Waxler who was hit at an accident a few weeks ago on Kingston Avenue near the yeshiva’s dormitory. The bochur who was hit in his leg, was hospitalized in New York where his conditioned worsened to a state of clinical death. Ever since his injury, his friends held Tehillim shifts for his recovery and added the name Chaim to his name.

To the great sorrow of his family and friends he returned his soul above on Friday at 6:19pm, while in the hospital. Ephraim, born in Beer Sheva, Israel, came close to Chabad when he was a bochur, studied in Chabad yeshivas and had spent a year of ‘kvutse’ in 770 ever since 5760. He was one of the directors of a special fund for bochrim in 770 which assisted bochrim and chassonim.

The Levaya will take place at 10:00am at Shomrei Hadas Chapel and will pass 770 at approx: 11:30am.

Boruch Dayan Hoemes.

Two Hours In Times Square

The Jewish Press

Within sight of the glass-walled MTV studios where teenage girls usually jump and down waiting for the members of their favorite boy bands, Avraham Fried was performing. The sun shone brightly off the skyscrapers, metal and glass reflecting the light and heat like mirrors as Fried effortlessly danced back and forth. The youngsters who had come from their camps, the boys in orange and the girls in pink, repeated the song after him. Gush Katif, you are not alone. A black bicycle messenger rode by and flashed two fingers in a V — for victory and/or peace.

Orange was everywhere. Orange bracelets, orange t-shirts, orange buttons, even orange pants. One woman had dyed her dark hair bright orange. Girls tore strips from orange cloth and handed them out to people. Soon they were flapping as armbands, bandanas, headbands and neckties and wrapped around pony tails. The strips of orange cloth were passed hand to hand. Above them waved the green and yellow banners brought by Chabad. Poster boards were taken out and hand-lettered signs made. The crowds drifted in, filling up the area as the police continued to set up new barriers to accommodate the overflow.

Israel To Build Triple Barrier Around Gaza Ahead of Pullout

VOA

Israel is sealing off the Gaza Strip with a triple barrier ahead of its planned pullout from the territory next month. The Palestinians describe the new barrier as an obstacle to peace.

Israel hopes that following the planned pullout from Gaza, its high-tech, three-layered security system will be the most impenetrable barrier in the world. The aim is to keep Palestinian suicide bombers and other attackers out of the country. Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner.

West Bank Barrier
Passers-by walk next to the 8-meter-tall cement wall, part of the barrier Israel is building to separate the outskirts of Jerusalem, left, from the West Bank village of Abu Dis

Chabad Preschool In N.C. Gets Highest Possible Ratings

Lubavitch.com
Children at the Jewish Preschool on Sardis (photo: Lubavitch.com)

The North Carolina Division of Child Development recently awarded The Jewish Preschool on Sardis a rating of five stars – the highest score a preschool or child care center can receive. The rating is based on three different areas: program standards, staff education and compliance with state child care regulations.

“We are very proud of this achievement,” said JPS Director Fern Sanderson. “This has been a process to which everyone on our staff contributed. The five-star rating recognizes us for the hard work we do and the quality of education that we provide. But what’s most important is knowing that the beneficiaries of our efforts are the children at our school and their parents, who can be confident in the decision they’ve made for their children’s preschool education.”

6 People Killed in Head On Collision with Dump Trunk

State Police and Sullivan Sheriffs investigate the scene on Rt.17B in Monticello. Six people in a car were killed after losing control and hitting a Sullivan County D.P.W. dump truck. The driver of the dump truck was taken with minor injuries to Catskill Regional Medical Centter in Harris. Witness reports stated the car had just been called in as an agressive driver.

Mongaup Valley – Six young people, apparently from a local camp, were killed just before noon today, when their gray Toyota veered into the wrong lane on Route 17B and hit a green Sullivan County Department of Public Works truck, according to offcials at the scene.

The young people were pronounced dead at the scene by coroner Elton Harris. The DPW driver was taken to Catksill Regional Medical Center where he was being treated. His condition was not immediately available.

The collision, which occured on a hill in front of the Marcy South power line between the Far Site and Be’er Hatorah bungalow colonies, was the third fatal accident in less than two weeks in Sullivan County, where the population triples in the summer. The total number of lives claimed is eight. The victims did not appear to be Hasidic.

More pictures of the tragedy in the extended article

JLI To Launch Holocaust Studies Series

lubavitch.com

The Jewish Learning Institute (JLI) will reach its widest audience yet when it launches its new course, “Beyond Never Again: The Holocaust Speaks to Our Generation,” this fall. Program coordinators anticipate that some 10,000 students will take the six-lesson course in their 160 affiliate sites around the world. The Jewish Learning Institute is a division of Merkos L’inyonei Chinuch, the educational division of Chabad-Lubavitch.

The 60th anniversary of the liberation from Auschwitz and other concentration camps, has generated a renewed emphasis on Holocaust education. The JLI course does not focus on the history of the Holocaust but its other aspects, so that there’s little overlap with Holocaust courses traditionally offered at universities and Jewish community centers. “Beyond Never Again” addresses how the Holocaust matters to Jewish people personally, theologically, psychologically, and how it challenges today’s generation to rethink its ethical values.

Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Museum, and other prominent Holocaust memorial organizations have endorsed the Jewish Learning Institute’s new course.

Color War in Israel

TMP Cafe

There’s a war raging in the streets of Jerusalem. It’s a color war.

About a month and a half ago, orange ribbons started showing up on car antennas. The symbol was appropriated from the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the popular, peaceful movement that led to the annulment of a presidential election marred by fraud. Orange is also the municipal color of Gush Katif, the main settlement bloc in Gaza. The orange ribbon in Israel symbolizes support for Gush Katif and opposition to disengagement from Gaza.