CTeen made history on Motzai Shabbos with a inspirational Siyum Sefer Torah that was dedicated in honor of the victims of the Parkland, Florida victims, along with a Havdalah ceremony and concert in Times Square.
Rabbi Shaya Denburg, director of CTeen in Coral Springs, Fla., will bring a group to the convention for the first time this year. While he knew it was an important trip, it’s taken on added significance after the mass school shooting on Feb. 14 in which 17 people, most of them teens, were gunned down at a high school in nearby Parkland, Fla. Some of the teen delegates joining Denburg are students who survived the attack at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, while all the rest have many friends at the school.
As the countdown to the 10th Annual CTeen Shabbaton draws to a close, hundreds of CTeen Chapters have begun making their way to Crown Heights. Delegations from France, Russia, Brazil, England, and Israel arrived last night, with thousands more expected to arrive Thursday
There is a certain silence that hangs over funerals, quieter still when those being buried are the young, the innocent. Life moves on: traffic lights change, palm trees shed their giant leaves, but it all seems unreal, or rather surreal. On a typically warm and seemingly pleasant South Florida winter’s day, this silence envelopes Parkland and neighboring Coral Springs, Fla.—the two towns from which Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School drew its students, and its martyrs.
The annual gathering of the Congress heads and rabbis was held in Jerusalem and ended in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, concluding two glorious days that were celebrated by the distinguished participants who came together. They were joined by the local Bukharian Jews, led by the rabbi of Uzbekistan and Chabad emissary Rabbi Baruch Abramtzayev.
As the CTeen International Shabbaton draws closer, chapters from around the world have begun preparing for the momentous and record breaking weekend.
Twenty-eight years ago, Cyril Ramaphosa stood outside Cape Town’s city hall, holding a microphone for Nelson Mandela, who had just been released from prison. This week, days before he assumed the South African presidency, Ramaphosa stood at the very same spot, celebrating 100 years since his mentor’s birth, and received the blessings of Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Asher Deren, chairman of the Rabbinical Association of the Western Cape.
The CTeen International Shabbaton, is less than a week away. In preparation for next week, CTeen Headquarters has been working diligently alongside NYPD and the relevant security agencies to ensure a safe and enjoyable weekend for all. The 10th annual Shabbaton is expected to be the biggest CTeen has ever seen, with over 2,500 participants in total.
Over 2,000 community members and supporters attended the Beth Lubavitch of Paris, France annual gala dinner, where they celebrated 50 years of service to the Jewish community of Paris, this past Tuesday.
As Cape Town, South Africa, faces the imminent prospect of completely running out of water, Rabbi Oshy Deren, co-director of Chabad of the West Coast, says he now views these ancient rituals as more immediately relevant than he ever would have imagined.
Melinda Nicholson rolls with a different beat these days. An art therapist in California, she spends a good deal of time on the road. But after attending a Jewish study program two months ago, her driving’s taken on some new turns.
Rabbi Avi and Mushky Feldman hope to ignite a Jewish fire under the Northern Lights, by bringing a Chabad House to the final European country without a full time Rabbi – Reykjavik, Iceland.
Rabbi Berel Slaviticki, his wife Rochy (nee Shanowitz) and baby son, Mendel, have been appointed as new shluchim to the University of New Hampshire, and will be serving an estimated 600 Jewish students.
Chabad houses near and far are currently running their own Build-a-Bear inspired workshops with a twist: cuddly challah pillows. The event, designed by CKids of Merkos 302, teaches children about the ancient origins of Challah and its deeper connection with Shabbos.
Chabad of Georgetown, Brooklyn held their annual Chof Beis Shvat Women’s Dinner last night, filling Rabbi Avrohom Holtzberg’s Shul with close to two hundred women. The evening, emceed by Sterny Holtzberg, began with the candle lighting ceremony and the recitation of the Rebbe and Rebbitzins Kapital said by the Shlucha Rebbitzin Shulamis Holtzberg.
Israeli chief rabbi, Rabbi Dovid Lau, took some time out of a meeting of Dayanim to visit the “Otzar Stam” that is run by Kiriat Chabad in Tzfat, Israel.
After many years of negotiations, yesterday the authorities in the Siberian city of Tomsk returned its historical shul to the Jewish community. This shul was built by the Cantonists who were exiled to distant Siberia by the Russian Czar.
