Chabad Preschool In N.C. Gets Highest Possible Ratings

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

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

Rabbi Ashkenazi Visits The Ohel

R. Ashkenazi the Rabbi of Kfar Chabad visited the Ohel while waiting for his connection flight to Uruguay where he is going to be Mashgiach on the Shechting of cattle there.

JLI To Launch Holocaust Studies Series

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

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.

A ‘warning’ from Israel that merits the worlds attention

As Israel’s planned pullout from the Gaza Strip draws near, three Israeli scholars have sounded an alarm about the potential dangers that could follow the withdrawal. In a message entitled “A Warning from Israel,” Uri Davis, Ilan Pappe and Tamar Yaron – all three of whom have extensive knowledge of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict – say they fear the Israeli evacuation of Gaza could be a prelude to disastrous war crimes against the Palestinian inhabitants of the territory. Based on their analysis of the “past behavior, ideological leanings and current media spin initiated by” Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government, they conclude that a primary motive for the Gaza withdrawal is to remove Jewish settlers so that they will be “out of harm’s way when the Israeli government and military possibly trigger an intensified mass attack on approximately one and a half million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

NY police begin random bag searches on subways

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York authorities began randomly searching bags of subway passengers on Friday in the aftermath of a second set of London bombings and planned to extend the practice to buses, airport trains and suburban commuter lines.

Riders on the nation’s largest subway system waited patiently while officers at various stations around the city combed through their briefcases and knapsacks on the first day of what Mayor Michael Bloomberg said would be a practice that would go on indefinitely.

“Clearly we’ll do it for a little while. It’s partially designed to make people feel comfortable … and keep the potential threat away,” Bloomberg said in his weekly radio show, adding that there were no new threats to New York.

In Washington, D.C., officials said they were not instituting a similar system of random searches on subways, but were still considering it.

Breaking Down Hate Crime

When a group of white men attacked three black men on the streets of Howard Beach, Queens, last month, severely beating one with a baseball bat, it was the 125th hate crime in New York this year, according to records collected by the Police Department.

The attack echoed an assault from nearly 20 years earlier when another group of white men armed with bats chased three black men through the same neighborhood, causing the death of one victim, who ran in front of a car while trying to escape.

In one notable difference, two suspects in the latest attack have been charged with first-degree assault as a hate crime — a provision that did not exist in New York until the Hate Crimes Act of 2000. That law, for the first time, allowed harsher sentences for criminals who single out victims because of personal traits like sexual orientation, race or religion. As a result, these suspects, if convicted, would face a minimum penalty of eight years in prison — compared with a five-year minimum for regular assault.

Sealed with a bris

Former Soviet Jews affirm their faith with late-life ritual

Valeriy Kozlov did the unthinkable: He went under the knife for religious reasons.

Kozlov, a Belarus native, followed the example of his friend Leonid Marder, a Russian emigre who was circumcised at age 66. Both resettled in Reisterstown, Md., a city near Baltimore that is home to many Jews from the former Soviet Union.

“As with any operation, a person is afraid of blood — of being cut,” Kozlov said. “But when a person becomes more spiritual, he understands that physical pain is less significant.”

Paul Steinberg, Longtime Dean and Rabbi, Is Dead at 79

Rabbi Paul M. Steinberg, a dean at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York for 50 years, died on July 8 at a hospice in Riverdale, the Bronx. He was 79.

Dr. Steinberg, whose home was in Scarsdale, N.Y., had been ill for some time but remained a presence on the campus in Greenwich Village until last month, the College-Institute said. In addition to his administrative duties, he was the Sinsheimer distinguished service professor of Jewish religious education and human relations at the institution.

Israel protests pope Papal silence on terror

Trying to change the Vatican’s habit of excluding Israel when condemning terrorist attacks, the Foreign Ministry summoned the Vatican envoy Monday to protest Pope Benedict XVI’s failure to mention recent attacks in Israel during a condemnation of world terrorism.

In his noontime sermon on Sunday, the pope prayed for God to stop the “murderous hand” of terrorists, and referred to the recent “abhorrent terrorist attacks” in Egypt, Britain, Turkey and Iraq. He did not mention the July 12 suicide bombing that killed five people in Netanya.

The Silent Majority

The New York protest Tuesday against Israel’s plan to leave Gaza was surprisingly small. Yet the street voice of the reported Jewish majority has been even smaller.

The reasons are many, say dovish activists and establishment centrists who back Israel’s plan, why their camp has not staged any demonstrations here supporting Israel’s pullout while those opposed to it have now staged three; that includes a rally and concert after the Salute to Israel parade las month.

Young Jews mix pop culture and tradition to connect with their roots

At ChosenCouture.com, T-shirts that say “You had me at Shalom” are for sale, along with “He’Brew” pint beer glasses.

The Web site is among a growing number of nontraditional magazines, music and fashion developed by young Jews seeking new ways to appreciate their cultural and religious roots.

Shabbos Times For The Castkills Region And Brooklyn

The Orthodox spirit of Wall St. since 1929

The early 1960s was a time when the Wall Street Synagogue was lacking a minyan or quorum of Jewish men needed for a religious service to commence. To fulfill that solemn religious obligation I was one of a contingent of a few nice Jewish boys of bar mitzvah age to make up the minyan at the shul. On sabbath and on Jewish holidays we all walked from such streets as Grand and Clinton to make the Wall Street Synagogue a functional synagogue and to top it all off, we were paid $3 for our services. Among this group was Sheldon Silver, now the state Assembly speaker from Lower Manhattan, who tagged along with one of his friends, just to keep him company.