Special-Needs Campers Return as Counselors

There’s a lot that needs to get done every day at Junior Gan Israel Day Camp in Skokie, Ill. A staff member needs to stand at the entrance of a camp building, and open the door for campers and parents as they arrive each morning. There are towels that need folding—a big job because the camp, rather than wasting paper towels, uses lots of hand towels in an effort to be green, according to director Zeesy Posner. And there are paintbrushes that need washing.

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As California Wildfires Rage, Close Calls for Many

“You see it. You smell it. Anywhere you drive around the city, you see the fire in the mountains,” said Rabbi Choni Marozov, co-director of Chabad of S. Clarita Valley in Southern California with his wife, Frumi. “This was definitely the worst we have seen. There have been other fires similar distances away, but they usually last a day, a day-and-a-half; this one has lasted much longer. Plus, the winds keep changing direction, so it would move away a bit and then come back.”

Rabbi and 90-Year-Old Patient Share a Milestone

Yankees fans were ecstatic. Lefty Gomez and Joe DiMaggio had just helped their team sweep the Cincinnati Reds to win the 1939 World Series. In Newark, N.J., 12 year-old Bill Shank was happily anticipating his forthcoming bar mitzvah. Studying with the cantor at B’nei Abraham Synagogue, he was almost ready for his big day.

Jewish Life Grows at McGill University

After being displaced from their campus Chabad House digs for some three years, hundreds of Jewish students who find a haven at Chabad of McGill University are finally settling back into their newly remodeled Chabad House. A former row house, the 100 year-old building underwent an intensive $2.2 million renovation and expansion and was finally rededicated in early April 2016.

Chabad Shows Appreciation for Local Law Enforcement

Despite the intense heat, citizens from across the Conejo Valley in California gathered outside the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station in Calabasas Tuesday afternoon to show their support for local law enforcement. The event was organized by Rabbi Moshe Bryski, executive director of the Chabad of the Conejo, who was touched by a Facebook post he read by one of the officers slain in the recent shooting incident in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Chabad in Russia Welcomes ‘Pokemon Go’ Players

As the ‘Pokemon Go’ phenomenon grows, some institutions connected to European Jewry’s darkest hour – such as concentration camps and Holocaust museums – have taken precautions against it, citing the need to respect the memory of the dead. But in Russia, one Jewish institution with a troubled past is taking the opposite approach.