Daily Archives: November 24, 2005

Oholei Torah Alumni Reunion

Last night Oholei Torah Alumni gathered for a reunion and a Chassideshe Farbrengen. The event also was an opening ceremony for Oholei Torah’s Shnas HaChamishim.

A New Project was launched at the event, a website www.oholeitorah.com which will serve as a base to keep alumni in touch with each other and connected with Oholei Torah.

The reunion was opened with the Rebbe’s kapitol by Naftali Junik, a 5th grade student, followed by a Dvar Torah by R. Yossi Paltiel. The event was sponsored by R’ Dovid Junik in memory of his father R’Berl. Representing the family was Shlomo Junik, who told the crowd about his experiences he personally had with the Rebbe and Rebbetzin.

More pictures in the Extended Article.

New Center to Rise in New Jersey

Two hundred people celebrated the best kind of growing pains when Chabad Center of Northwest New Jersey broke ground for its new 12,000 square foot home.

Just ten years ago, Chabad moved into its home on One Torah Way, but the popularity of its preschool, classes, Hebrew school and new Hebrew high have filled its cozy synagogue and ground floor classrooms to capacity and then some. In the current space, much time is spent moving the tiny tables and knee-high chairs to the side for Hebrew school and evening Torah classes and then back again so the kids have room for blocks and play dough the next morning. “The new building will allow for the quality and quantity of our classes to be enhanced,” said Chabad representative Rabbi Asher Herson.

International Representation of World Jewry Convenes at Annual Conference

Conference organizers at Lubavitch Headquarters are expecting a record-breaking 3000 participants at this year’s International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Shluchim. That’s a marked increase from last year’s conference which topped off at around 2300, a result, says Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, Vice Chairman of Merkos L’inyonei Chinuch, “of the fact that so many young Lubavitch couples have joined ranks with the Shluchim since last year.”

The five-day conference begins November 24. It’s the one chance a year that Shluchim get to unwind and regenerate among fellow travelers in their life-long calling known as Shlichus. On this annual return to the hearth and home of Lubavitch, the Shluchim are treated to a content-rich program of workshops, seminars and presentations covering a wide variety of topics related to their work.

Hollywood critized for tactics against orthodox Jewish group

The city’s former code enforcement chief told federal lawyers she thought the city’s scrutiny of an orthodox Jewish group using a private home to conduct services was “excessive.”

In a Nov. 10 deposition, Jackie Gonzalez, the city’s former director of development administration and economic development, said the city’s methods left a “bad taste” in her mouth.

“We visited the Chabad on a regular basis … and it was continuous, continuous, continuous, and I felt maybe a little too continuous or excessive,” she said.

Chabad fights for religious symbols on public property

Shrewsbury and Wellesley [in Boston, MA] are two towns questioning the display of menorahs

Local Chabad rabbis are meeting resistance from town officials over displaying menorahs and holding candlelighting ceremonies on public property this Chanukah season.

Shrewsbury town selectmen originally refused a request from Rabbi Michoel Green to place a menorah in the town common. However, after a Nov. 21 meeting, the town decided to retract their refusal, although they have not given Chabad permission to display the menorah.

In Wellesley, Rabbi Moshe Bleich successfully negotiated with town officials to allow a menorah to be displayed on the town lawn for the entire holiday season under the agreement that he would rescind his request to hold a public ceremony.