Reb Yoel Farbrenged with Kvutzeh Bochurim

In honor of the Chag Hageulah of the Frierdiker Rebbe on Yud Bais-Yud Gimmel Tammuz Reb Yoel Kahan Farbrenged with Bochurim.

Remembering The Struggle for Russian Jewry

Seventy-eight years ago today, Rabbi Joseph I. Schneersohn (1880-1950), sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, and the leader of Russian Jewry at the time, was freed from Soviet-imposed exile.

The date was 12 Tammuz, corresponding to today’s date, which is celebrated widely by Chabad and Jewish communities as an important watershed in the history of Jewish life in Russia.

Rabbi Joseph I. Schneersohn was targeted by Soviet authorities for his activism on behalf of Jewish education and Jewish religious and communal life. He was the only Jewish leader who chose to remain in Russia following the communist revolution, and built a network of underground yeshivot and a Jewish support system that functioned clandestinely through all the years of communism.

At grave risk to himself and to his Chasidim, Rabbi Schneersohn thus kept the moribund embers of Jewish life alive. In 1927, he was arrested in his home in Leningrad, on accusations of counter-revolutionary activities. He was sentenced to three years in exile and sent to the isolated townlet of Kostroma in central Russia.

At rallies around the world, crowds call on Israel not to leave Gaza Strip

NEW YORK, July 19 (JTA) – For Mendy Lieder, a student at a Chabad-Lubavitch yeshiva in Detroit, stopping Israel’s upcoming withdrawal from the Gaza Strip is a political and religious obligation.

“Our brothers are being taken out of their homes,” said Lieder, 18. “We need to be with them, praying to God.”

“America and England aren’t withdrawing their troops from Iraq,” he added. “Why should we?”

Similar sentiments were on full display Tuesday in a rally in Manhattan’s Times Square, where Lieder joined more than 1,000 people, including many students, to voice their opposition to the Israeli government’s plan to evacuate Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank.

Today’s Rally in Pictures

A massive crowd gathered on Manhattans Broadway between 40Th and 41St Street, at 12 o’clock in the afternoon the NYPD shut down 2 lanes of this very busy street for this gathering, which in its own was a very big statement. Then later on as more and more people gathered the police ended up shutting down even more lanes.

An estimate of more then 2000 people gathered for the rally on this hot Tuesday, Camps Gan Menchem, Camp F.R.E.E. and LeMaan Achai attended on the boy’s side and Bais Rivka day camp and Bais Chaya Mushka day camp attended on the girls side. Cold water and ices were distributed to the campers throughout the rally.

The demonstration was timed to coincide with similar protests against Israel’s planned withdrawal from Gaza in Paris, Melbourne, London and Amsterdam, according to organizers.

At the rally in Midtown, the stage was shared by young kids saying the twelve Pesukim, singer Avraham Fried belting out lines like “Gush Katif – You are not alone!” and New York State Assemblyman, Dov Hikind, who reminded the crowd, “Hashem is watching us.”

The rally was organized and arranged by Tzivos Hashem.

Click the “Extended Article” link to see all the rest of the pictures. UPDATE: 86 Pictures are now online.

2,000 pack Times Sq. for Gaza rally

A couple thousand people jammed a busy midtown Manhattan street Tuesday afternoon for a prayer, song and protest rally against Israel’s planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Organized largely by the Lubavitch youth organization Tzivos Hashem, the rally brought hundreds of Orthodox children from New York-area summer camps to the demonstration, some of them leading the crowd in prayer and declarations of solidarity with the settlers of Gush Katif.

“The land belongs to every Jew who ever lived, and no one has the right to give away even one inch, especially if it puts into danger the lives of other Jews,” one young boy declared from the podium.

Rally For Israel

Today in Times Square @ 12:00PM to 2:00PM there will be a rally/concert for the situation in Israel.

Avrohom Fried and Mordechai Ben David will be singing at the gathering.

[Times Square is located on Broadway btw. 41st and 42nd St.]. For more information please call (718) 467-6630

This even is arranged by Tzivos Hashem and Camp Gan Israel.

Update: For those of you that cant make it, you can still watch the event live By Clicking Here

Speech Reflects Chabad Split

A prominent Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi delivered a speech this week in Brooklyn lambasting his movement’s leadership for not aggressively fighting Israel’s plan to dismantle settlements in Gaza and the northern West Bank.

“When I read that the Lubavitch took a position that we’re not to get involved, it went against everything I know,” said Rabbi Avraham Hecht, 83, at an anti-disengagement event held Sunday night at the Jewish Children’s Museum, located across the street from Chabad’s worldwide headquarters in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights area. “How stupid can these people be? This is deportation, not disengagement. Even the Nazis didn’t do it this way.”

Hecht, who is no stranger to controversy, spoke on the 11th anniversary of the death of the movement’s late rebbe or grand rabbi, Menachem M. Schneerson.

Reoccurring Tragedies

Fridays tragic accident is also the day that marked another major tragedy, 2 summers ago on an extension of this very highway [rt. 17b] the Sheinfeld and Raksin families suffered a major loss, grand parents and mother were killed when a truck collided with their car.

Ches Tamuz is their Yortziet.

UPDATE: investigation into Fridays car accident

The preliminary investigation revealed that a 2003 Chevrolet Venture driven by Abraham Weisz of Williamsburg, Brooklyn was traveling westbound on the highway in the Town of Blooming Grove yesterday afternoon with a young married couple as passengers. Weisz and Zev Tietielbaum, 23, and his wife, Faigy, 20, were killed. They were all wearing seat-belts.

UPDATE: Pictures From Friday Car Accident

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More Pictures In Extended Article.

UPDATE: 3 killed in a horrible car accident

A father of 4 and a newly married couple from williamsburg were killed in a terrible car crash.

Their van collided with a tractor trailer killing them.

London Jews Seeing No Backlash

As police in London continued to hunt for those responsible for four terrorist bombings last week that claimed at least 52 lives — including four of the British-born suicide bombers themselves — Jewish leaders vowed to combat any increase in anti-Semitism but said none had arisen.

“In the immediate aftermath, there is nothing of that,” Jon Benjamin, chief executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, told The Jewish Week Monday. “It was reported in The Times that when they interviewed some young Muslim Bangladeshis in the East End of London and asked their initial thoughts, they said it was probably the Israelis behind it. But that was included in the paper because it was such an outrageous suggestion.”

The enigma of Jeff Goldblum

Jeff Goldblum stoops to shake an admirer’s hand, listening patiently as his attractive blonde publicist introduces the man – a black-hatted, tzitzit-wearing hassid. Goldblum smiles politely.

A few minutes earlier, Goldblum had taken a brief tour of the gleaming new Jewish Children’s Museum in Brooklyn – a state-of-the-art edifice across the street from 770 Eastern Parkway, home of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe and still the spiritual center of Chabad-Lubavitch.

Rabbi Says ‘Shalom’ to Cable Series

Shalom TV wants to provide its viewers with A Cable to Jewish Life.

The network said it will begin airing the half-hour weekly show, hosted by Rabbi Yosef Katzman and born out of the wisdom of Lubavitch Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson.

Among topics the show has covered: the methods of preparation that result in Kosher foods; the story behind the shape of the Menorah; ingredients for a fulfilling and meaningful Yom Kippur; funding for American Yeshivas; the history of the annual Mitzvah Tanks parade through New York before Passover; the joy of Simcha Torah; Jewish activism; and the relationship between African Americans and the Lubavitch community.

“We are privileged to count Yosef Katzman among our first programming contacts, given the breath and depth of his program and audience,” Shalom TV principal Bradford N. Hammer said in a prepared statement.

“Where else would one find an interview with an Orthodox State Supreme Court Justice, or discover the role of the public servant in Jewish life?” he added. “His series enjoyed great success on the International Channel, and we look forward to rekindling this interest and excitement on our emerging digital-cable-television network.”

Holocaust education still lacking

Program helps teachers instruct youths on topic that many schools ignore

Associated Press

NEW YORK – Six decades later, the Holocaust remains a painful and emotionally draining topic — and a special challenge for middle school and high school teachers who have to instruct students about one of the most horrific episodes in human history.

Despite its importance, Holocaust scholarship is still just beginning to work its way into history lessons in much of the country, and teachers volunteering to tackle the subject often find themselves developing courses from scratch, without much formal training.

“My own education about the Holocaust was not close to what I am providing today in my classroom,” said Kimberly Watkin, a history teacher in South Burlington, Vt., who offered her high school’s first full-term course on the Holocaust this school year.

To become better versed on the Holocaust, Watkin joined 30 educators from 11 states, plus Croatia, Lithuania and Poland, at a five-day program at Columbia University last week.