For most Jewish tween girls, the concept of the bat mitzvah has come to mean one thing: a lavish party with multiple outfit changes, Oscars-style celebrity goodie bags and a hiprocker singing new hits.
In this 30th installment of the series, Rebbetzin Chana describes how a leading member of the secular Zionist movement was so impressed with Reb Levik after he had addressed his questions, that he quit the movement due to their opposition to Reb Levik’s candidacy for Rav of Yekatrinoslav.
In this 29th installment of the series, Rebbetzin Chana reminisces about an episode in the early years of her marriage, when her husband Reb Levik – out of dire financial straits – applied to a university in Kiev where he could obtain a diploma for a better Rabbinic position, but turned down the opportunity when he discovered that he would have to study Christian texts.
Crownheights.info and Lubavitch Archives present a series of pictures from the Harlig Collection of the Lag Ba’omer Parade of 1976. That year the Rebbe announced the ‘Year of Education.’ It was also the only time there was a large parade with the Rebbe’s participation even though Lag Ba’omer did not occur on a Sunday.
Rabbi Moshe Nemanow, a scholar and expert on Hebrew manuscripts who worked in the archival division at Chabad’s Central Library in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, passed away Tuesday, May 1. He was 74.
Childhood experiences and teenage encounters often form a chain, leading a person to his destiny. Such has been the case with Moscow’s chief rabbi.
Rabbi Leibel Kaplan was born in Paris in 1948 * He headed the Chabad mosdos in the holy city of Tzfas for 25 years * He passed away on a Russian highway on the 16th of Iyar, 1998, only a few miles away from the town of Lubavitch.
In this 28th installment of the series, Rebbetzin Chana describes how her husband Reb Levik was very meticulous in the Mitzvos he performed.
There are times when I wonder aloud what has happened to our moral compass and way of thinking.
After hearing the news that former Syracuse University assistant basketball coach, Bernie Fine, was hired Thursday as a consultant to management with the Maccabi “Bazan” Haifa basketball team, it’s, again, one of those times.
Friends and relatives of Reb Avrohom Yeshaya Schtroks, OMB, have set up a website – zichronshayaschtroks.com – where people can share their personal memories, as well as contribute to a fund set up to help the family financially through this difficult time. One of Reb Yeshaya’s students in the Morristown cheder, Schneur Zalman Wilansky from Elizabeth, NJ, relates the following:
In this 27th installment of the series, Rebbetzin Chana describes how her husband Reb Levik‘s self sacrifice to preserve Judaism in the Soviet Union was contageous. A brave young man under Reb Levik’s guidence was caught spreading yidishkeit on a communist collective farm where he enjoyed a comfortable position.
In this 26th installment of the series, Rebbetzin Chana describes how one year, while still in Yekatrinoslav, they were visited for the high holidays by two Chazzanim from Moscow who inspired all with their melodies and stories.
Last fall, a small group of American Jewish tourists stood facing the statue of Yiddish writer Sholom Aleichem in Russia. Not unusual; there’s a statue of Sholom Aleichem in Kiev, Ukraine. However, this took place in Siberia, in an area once called “the Soviet Zion,” or “the first Jewish socialist (communist) city in the world,” or “Stalin’s answer to Zionism.”
This Sunday, the world will mark 100 years since the sinking of the infamous cruise liner, the Titanic. What do we know of the Jews who were aboard that fateful ship? How did they observe the Jewish dietary laws during the voyage? A few experts dove into the research, both figuratively and literally.
“Israel is waste, bare of seed,” reads an inscription attributed by archeologists to the Ancient Egyptian King Merneptah on a granite stele erected by King Amenhotep III.
I will never forget the scene. My grandfather, Rabbi Chaim Meir Bukiet, a Talmudic scholar, was speaking in Lexington, Mass., where my uncle Rabbi Alter Bukiet is rabbi. The invitation for the event told of an entertainer and the guest speaker, my grandfather, a Polish immigrant who’s English was on the rocky side. However, it was clear that many came just to hear him speak. He was beloved in the community, to many serving as fatherly figure. They loved his honesty, his sincerity and his words of wisdom.
We present to our readers two chapters from the about-to-be-published 550 page biography on the life of the Tzemach Tzedek by Rabbi Sholom DovBer Avtzon.
4
