J for J plans fall blitz on Montreal

Officials from the counter-missionary group Jews for Judaism vow they’ll confront Jews for Jesus on the streets of Montreal this fall when the Christian missionary group targets the city’s Jews for the first time.

“We will definitely be there,” said Julius Ciss, director of Toronto-based Jews for Judaism.

Jews for Jesus will be in Montreal from Sept. 18 to Oct. 8 as part of its “Behold Your God” campaign, a five-year, $22 million (US) international recruitment drive. Started in 2001, it aims to convert as many Jews as possible to Christianity in 65 cites worldwide with Jewish populations of 25,000 or more.

As Hate Crimes Escalates

The 2 reported incidents in the past week, slashing of the Hatzalah ambulances tires and the assault on the 50 year old man on Carroll and Schenectady, there was a meeting about all this with the local councilmen at the CHJCC on Kingston Ave. where we heard that we will get increased patrols and more security.

Now COL reported that Chanina Sperlin got a call from Mayor Bloomberg asking to be kept informed and that the police will take all necessary measures to capture these law beakers.

Mayor of New York Promises to Punish Lawbreakers

As a result of the recent rise in crime and damage done to residents of Crown Heights, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York called Rabbi Chanina Sperlin, member of the Crown Heights Community Council yesterday, telling him that he ordered the police to take all necessary measures to locate the lawbreakers. The mayor also asked Sperlin to update date him as to ongoing developments and gave him the number of this cellular phone for this purpose.

But what’s really enraging is the fact that yesterday the NYPD “distributed” 1,500 police officers to the various precincts around New York City, and out of the 1,500 officers we only got SIX!!! Now that would scare them off, the 2 extra patrols we will get, and the police are really doing everything they can, which can’t be much.

Iraq to Jews: Do not Come Back!

A draft of the “Bill of Rights” in the forthcoming Constitution of Iraq, as of July 20, 2005, tells Jews who fled Iraq: you are not welcome to return. Jews from Iraq who fled before 1968 are not eligible to obtain Iraqi nationality and citizenship.

An earlier draft published in June 30 stated, “Any individual with another nationality (except for Israel) may obtain Iraqi nationality after a period of residency inside the borders of Iraq of not less than ten years for an Arab or twenty years for any other nationality.” The July 20 draft states that Iraqis who lost citizenship after 1968 may regain it, thus still excluding almost all Iraqi Jews, but at least not exclusively.

Jews Find Other Jews in Chiang Mai

Yaniv Koren does not consider himself religious. The 22-year-old Israeli eats non-Kosher food. He drives on the weekly holiday Shabbat. He does not wear a yamalka. Yet when he leaves his home in Haifa and travels abroad, he goes out of his way to find a little Judaism. In Chiang Mai, he visits Chabad, a place of worship and relaxation for Jews on Chang Klan Road.

“I come to Chabad because it is like home,” Yaniv said. He can eat kosher and Israeli-style food in their restaurant, pray in their synagogue, use their Internet for free, and celebrate the holidays.

Surfers Say They will End It All Over Gaza

Avid surfers from several Gush Katif communities are threatening to take their boards out to sea on evacuation day and commit mass suicide by drowning, Haaretz reported. Settlement groups, psychologists and social workers have known about the plans of the young men, aged 16-21, for several weeks.

Army Medic, Victim of Iraqi Suicide Attack,
Receives Jewish Burial

On July 25, family and friends of Benyahmin Ben Yahudah, a 24-year-old combat field medic who died in Baghdad two weeks earlier, gathered for a unique funeral in Evergreen Memorial Park in Athens, Ga.

The ceremony was presided over jointly by Jacob Goldstein, an Orthodox Jewish chaplain with the Army National Guard, and Elakhaz Hacohane, Ben Yahudah’s uncle, who is a priest with the African Hebrew Israelite community in Israel.

Ben Yahudah, a combat field medic with the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, died when a suicide bomber drove into his patrol as it tried to clear out a crowd of children from the area being searched by the army, according to a soldier who spoke at the funeral. Ben Yahudah had reportedly been handing out candy and toys to the children. He was the only American soldier killed in the attack, but close to 20 Iraqi children and teenagers died, too. He was posthumously honored with the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star, which is given for “heroic or meritorious achievement” against an armed enemy.

Israeli Jew helped bomber

Israel’s Shin Bet security service has detained an Israeli Jew on suspicions that he helped Palestinian terrorists plan a suicide bombing that killed five Israelis last month, the organization said on Tuesday, marking the first time a Jew has been suspected of terrorism in the country.

Kfir Levy, a 25-year-old Jewish resident of the town of Ramat Gan, is suspected to have driven a Palestinian suicide bomber who killed five Israelis last month past a West Bank checkpoint into Israel, Shin Bet officials said

Israeli troops deploy to thwart Gaza march

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.

$5,000. Reward Offered at Tire-Slashings
Press Conference District Attorney, Politicians, Promise Vigorous Prosecution

A $5,000. reward for the apprehension of the criminal(s) was announced yesterday as politicians of every stripe joined all five Jewish Community Council board members to condemn the spree of tire-slashings Friday night which has now been officially categorized as a hate crime.

Man punched in the face in apparent bias attack

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

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

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

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.