It was a hot August morning in Mequon, Wisconsin, when Rabbi Dovid Rapoport completed the Shacharit services in the Peltz Center for Jewish Life’s Chamoy Family Sanctuary and gently closed his siddur. “I don’t mind leading services,” the senior Chabad emissary joked, shielding his eyes against the sunlight streaming across the synagogue, “but some stained glass windows would sure be nice.”
In 2014, the Connecticut Jewish Ledger listed Rabbi Levi and Chanie Schectman on their annual “Movers and Shakers” list. For those who knew them, this didn’t come as a surprise; since the couple had opened Chabad at Wesleyan in 2011, they had had an increasing impact on Jewish students at Wesleyan University, hosting a variety of programs for the university’s 600 Jewish students from their modest home.
Jacob Chartoff was born and raised in Boston. As a young man, he attended Harvard University enrolled in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, graduating with a degree in English literature. He chuckled when recalling that annual tuition back then was a whopping $500.
Over 300 parents and guests filled the new Aventura South ballroom for the Chabad Chayil Annual Gala Dinner. Participants were mesmerized as children ages 5-12 opened up the evening in song and dance, setting the mood for an evening to remember.
For the first time in decades, a new mikvah is being constructed on Massachusetts’ North Shore. Last week, workers poured the foundation for a Mikvah that will be built behind Chabad Lubavitch of the North Shore, led by Rabbi Yossi Lipsker.
Since its founding in 1831, Forsyth County, located north of Atlanta, Georgia, did not have a dedicated synagogue for its Jewish residents to pray and gather in. This all changed last week, when Chabad of Forsyth, directed by Rabbi Levi Mentz, opened the doors of its brand new center in the town of Cumming.
Passersby may not have noticed the mobile home parked in Nowra, Australia, last Thursday, but they certainly would have detected the Brooklyn accents of Rabbi Zalmy Goldberg and his wife Chaya.
On the last day of the school year for Solon Chabad’s Hebrew school in the greater Cleveland area, students started setting up exhibit tables to show off the work the students put into creating eight replicas of synagogues from around the world.
When Rabbi Yossie Shemtov turned 60, community members didn’t give him a tie or a gift certificate. Instead, nearly 60 men surprised him on his Hebrew birthday, each one wearing tefillin.
This week marks the 50th anniversary since The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, launched the global tefillin campaign in the days before the Six-Day War, when he publicly called for every Jew to fulfill the mitzvah of donning phylacteries. In the half century that’s passed since then, tefillin has become synonymous with Chabad on a global scale–and they aim to keep it that way.
The Southeast Asian country of Laos has officially become the 92nd country to have a permanent Chabad presence. Rabbi Sholom and Tamar Glitzenstein hit the ground running, and already have an operational kosher restaurant, weekly prayer services, Torah classes, Shabbat celebrations for tourists and a roster of other activities in Luang Prabang, 300 kilometers north of the country’s capital, Vientiane.
Last Thursday marked the 10th Anniversary celebration of the Jewish Community Center in Tallinn, which was the first Jewish establishment built in Estonia since the Holocaust, under the leadership of Chabad Emissary and Chief Rabbi Shmuel Kot.
97-year-old Marthe Cohn told the remarkable story last week of how a slight Jewish girl from France crossed into enemy lines and became a spy who helped end World War II to a rapt audience at the Chabad Jewish Community Center of Folsom, CA.
This week in Berlin, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel hosted an international conference for religious leaders on the topic of “Responsibility of Religions for Peace.” At the end of the Conference, Gabriel met personally with Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, Rabbi of the Jewish community of Berlin and the local Chabad Shaliach, and asked him to give over an important message to the Jewish community.
With the warm rays of summer already peeking through the atmosphere, and children everywhere counting down the days until vacation, the CKids camp network, a division of Merkos suite 302, is launching an all new “Camp Curriculum.”
There were more than enough reasons to encourage a fair share of Calgary’s Jews to come out and celebrate one cloudy day in May: Lag B’Omer, Mother’s Day, and the dedication ceremony for Chabad of Calgary’s new Centre for Jewish Life.
Rabbi Shneur Cohen of Chabad Manchester City Centre and his colleagues gave out hot drinks and food to police officers standing guard outside the arena following the worst terror attack in British history last night.
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