New Yorkers and tourists heading out for lunch this Thursday, April 14, could be greeted by an unexpected surprise. A parade, consisting of Sixty One motor homes, known as “Mitzvah Mobiles”, will roll through the streets of Manhattan, to raise awareness of the upcoming Passover holiday.
The children filed out of yellow school buses and descended the stairs to the basement of a Jewish community center in Queens, where they put on plastic aprons and paper chef hats in preparation for a lesson on how to make matzo.
The Bochurim of London Yeshiva packed and delivered over 2000 Matzos to the local residents of North West London. The Bochurim where driven around by the Baalei Baatim of Beis Hamidrash Kingsley Way.
Zachary Shporer, 18, from Charlotte, NC, was diagnosed with leukemia on March 1. Two weeks later, all one hundred and fifty students and faculty of the American Hebrew Academy in Greensboro, where Zachary is a student, did a mitzvah in his honor.
On Purim morning 8:30am a caravan of vehicles loaded with Bochurim, food kyad hamelech and Yossi Cohen’s musical orchestra headed off to one the largest jails in New York, Rikers Island correction facility which holds 14,000 inmates.
The Rebbe’s call of “Ufaratzta” – reaching out to every Jew wherever they may be, was heard yet again in Crown Heights. This past Motzei Shabbos 30 of the Rebbe’s “Tankistin” gathered together for a special Melavah Malkah.
Jewish students enrolled in the New York City public school system are participating in a winter camp run by the popular Chabad-Lubavitch run Released Time Program.
It’s 6:00 on a Tuesday evening in a small town in Texas. Nine year old Shmuly waits eagerly by the phone, as he has every week for the past year. Thousands of miles away, Yossi finds a quiet spot in his yeshiva and dials. The phone rings. Shmuly opens a sicha.
A group of Oholei Menachem 8th grade students directed by their classmate Mendel Winner, a thirteen year old Shliach in Brighton Beach, graciously gave 3 hours a week of their precious after school hours to teach adults basic Hebrew reading.
While resting in the NYU hospital recovery room Rabbi Moshe Klein, a Crown Heights Sofer and Moihel, was restless. Resting in the bed next to his was an elderly Russian man who was also recuperating, Reb Moshe struck up a conversation with him and turns out the man was Jewish.
Chanukah is coming and Yeshivah Ohr Elchonon Chabad is getting ready to distribute 4,000 Menorahs around town, along with other Chanukah materials.
In an effort to thank and recognize its over 250 volunteers, the Released Time program under the auspices of NCFJE, hosted a luncheon this past Tuesday in Getzels Shul.
Rabbi David Masinter director of Chabad activities at Chabad House in Johannesburg South Africa putting on Tefillin with Jordan Belfort. Belfort is known as the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ after his two bestselling novels which he authored after being released from a 22 month stint in prison.
This Sukkos, Chabad of Park Heights, in Baltimore, Maryland had four Sukkah Mobile’s. There were hundreds upon hundreds of people raving about the Sukkah Mobile’s. As they were at the Baltimore Raven’s Game, Shuls, School’s, Assisted Living Centers and house parties.
On the 4th day of Chol HaMoed Sukkos the Rebbe’s Diamond Daveners – Kol Yakov Yehuda of Los Angeles – boarded “a genuine London double Decker convertible bus” to go Sukka hopping in the metropolitan Los Angeles area.
Young Adult Chabad took its Sukkahmobile to a number of locations around Sydney last week; enabling many people to do the Mitzvot of Sukkot, which include shaking the Lulav and Etrog and making a blessing in the Sukkah.
In my last post I wrote about the legions of people who exploit Sukkot for profit. There’s another group of people I should mention who exploit the holiday for a totally different purpose.
At Pennsylvania’s Hershey Park on Monday, filled almost entirely with Jewish guests celebrating Chol Hamoed courtesy of NCSY, Naftali, Nissim and Mushka Pewzner spent the day with lulav and etrog in hand, offering the thrill-seekers an opportunity to make the blessing in between roller coaster rides. They were undeterred by the pouring rain that lasted most of the day, and at nightfall Mushka said that by their combined tally the siblings, children of the Chabad Lubavitch emissary in Harrisburg, Rabbi Shmuel Pewzner, they had assisted in 825 brachot. They had kept count the way others would track sales profits.
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