Daily Archives: December 12, 2005

Chanukah To Light Up Universal Studios

Video of the event: Choose quality High Definition, High, Medium or Low Quality

Will the ten thousand people who flood Universal City Walk’s cinema square to witness Chabad of the Valley’s menorah lighting and watch the giant Astrovision screen beam scenes from Chanukah around the world on Tuesday, December 27, from 5-9 p.m., know where to look first?

City Walk’s streetscape that features a sky-scraping electric guitar, a giant ape hanging from a storefront, and enough neon to rival Vegas, is the perfect backdrop for Chabad’s upcoming Chanukah Menorah lighting that will feature a kaleidoscope of important people, Jewish rock, and patriotic tributes. In the past Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Red Sox right fielder Gabe Kapler were hoisted up by cherry picker to light Chabad’s 18-foot tall steel menorah that weighs in at well over 1,000 lbs.

Haddonfield to light Hanukkah menorah

Haddonfield is having its first-ever public Hanukkah celebration, sparking a debate on whether religious ceremonies should be held on public ground.

Haddonfield Talks, an online discussion forum on the Yahoo Web site, has been buzzing with activity since the borough granted a request by a group of residents to allow a menorah-lighting ceremony to take place on x-mas Day. The first night of Hanukkah falls on Dec. 25 this year.

“There’s a lot of activity out there, a lot of discussion,” said Ilise Feitshans, who spearheaded the effort. “It can only be good to have that kind of back and forth.”

Ask The Clergy

An Arkansas Newspaper has a column called “ask the clergy” in which they “ask three clergymen three different questions specific to their faith groups.” Well only one is relevant to us, the question posed to the Shliach of Little Rock Arkansas R. Pinchus Ciment.

A READER ASKS: What is the reason for the Jewish custom of altering the spelling of a name when referring to The Deity, as in G-d and A-lmighty?

Rabbi Pinchus Ciment is the spiritual leader of Chabad Lubavitch Jewish Center in Little Rock.

When mentioning The Deity in any form, it is to be treated with sacredness. When using any of the different names by which G-d is referred to in the Bible, even in a language other than Hebrew, one is to take care to treat the word respectfully.

Being that one does not know with certainty how you will treat the paper after reading it, and out of concern that it might end up in an inappropriate place with other items deemed to be insignificant, we are careful to not write the name of The Deity in its entirety. Rather, we make a slight change to the word that allows the reader to know what we are referring to without actually writing it, and thus we remove the concern of possibly treating a name of The Deity with disrespect.

Real Estate Observes a Law Even Higher

An intresting article that appeard in the NY Times about real estate, Torah and Mitzvot.

To be a real estate agent in Riverdale, the leafy enclave in the northwest Bronx, is to be mindful of not only the rules of property ownership but also the rules of the Torah. The neighborhood is home to an ever-growing number of Conservative and Orthodox Jews, and when hunting for houses or apartments, they tend to follow a stricter course than the typical New York talismans of hardwood floors and sweeping views.

“Let me start with kitchens,” Bradford Trebach, a broker at Trebach Realty, said the other day. A kosher-friendly kitchen, he explained, has two separate stainless-steel sinks to keep meat and dairy apart and a two-tray, stainless-steel dishwasher for the same reason. “The ideal is to have duplicate areas for preparation, cooking and cleanup,” said Mr. Trebach, who is Jewish, though not Orthodox, and has the air of someone who has spent years pointing out patios that are ideal for building sukkahs.

Crown Heights JCC members in Washington

Members of the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council of Crown Heights, Rabbi Chanina Sperlin and Dr. Tzvi Lang met this week with US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt and with the director of the Office of White House Political Affairs Miss Sara Taylor.

Overcoming hatred of a culture

Walid Shoebat learned early to hate Jewish people.

His family, his teachers, his church and his society taught him that Jews were animals, killers, evil.

He learned the lesson so well that as a boy he picked up rocks to throw at rabbis in prayer at the Wailing Wall.

Then he picked up Molotov cocktails. Then bombs.

Shoebat talked about the lessons the Palestinians taught him, and how he later taught himself a different lesson, Sunday night at the Simon Family Jewish Community Center.