Daily Archives: January 8, 2006

Sharon Recovering From Brain Surgery

With Prime Minister Ariel Sharon recovering from emergency brain surgery Saturday, his doctors said it was still too early to assess how much damage the Israeli leader has suffered from a massive stroke. Independent experts said the prognosis remained grim.

An official determination on Sharon’s condition will likely take place Sunday, when doctors plan to wean him off the drugs that are keeping him in a state they described as a medically induced coma.

Chabad takeover

Few people would deny the amazing work that Chabad has done in Jewish outreach and the success of this global hassidic movement founded by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady in bring previously unaffiliated Jews into the fold and giving them a sense of community, belonging and heritage.

While Kfar Chabad, with its replica of 770 Eastern Parkway, is the focal point of Chabad activity in Israel, and contains the largest concentration of Chabad families, educational institutions and printing works for Chabad publications, Chabad is extremely visible in Jerusalem and has become even more so in recent years as its down-town facilities have multiplied.

The situation has intensified since the death of the Rebbe eleven years ago. Even in his lifetime, Chabadniks used to go around singing “We want Meshiach now.” Since his passing, the messianic arm of Chabad has become much more forceful.

College Students Devote Winter Break to New Orleans Clean-Up

Most college students are forgiven if they sleep in on January 1, nursing a headache from the past night’s excesses, but Erik Steel awoke early to catch a flight to New Orleans. Steel, a student at the State University of New York in New Paltz, buckled himself into his seat, quieted jitters about his first time ever on a plane, and headed off to join 49 other college students massing at Chabad of New Orleans.

They were the second of two groups who spent winter break at Chabad Lubavitch of Louisiana scooping muck, carting out moldy furniture, gutting waterlogged homes as part of Chabad on Campus’s ongoing Hurricane Katrina relief effort. One hundred students from Columbia, USC, University of Washington-Seattle, University of California-Santa Cruz, Harvard, Hofstra, SUNY Binghamton, Queens College, Brown University and 25 other schools participated in the two trips over winter break from December 18-24 and January 1-7.

Stemming crime spike

A Brooklyn neighborhood that saw murders double last year amid a citywide drop in homicides has added a dozen new cops to battle the rise in violence, police sources said.

The rookie cops assigned to the 71st Precinct will focus on trouble spots in southern Crown Heights, particularly on the weekends, to stave off shootings, serious assaults and murders. They’ll also concentrate on areas around schools where teen-on-teen crime fueled a 12% spike in robberies last year.

“I come home on the subway from a hard day’s work and there’s gunplay on the step,” said Cyril Miller, 57, a security guard standing on Nostrand Ave. near Sterling St. “It scares the living daylights out of me.”

New Chabad center coming to Mansfield

Mansfield’s growing Jewish population has not gone unnoticed. While everyone of the faith must now leave town to go to services, activities or Hebrew school in Easton, Attleboro, Brockton or Sharon, that may not always be the case, because a local Chabad House community center in Milford thinks Mansfield needs a center of its own.

Rabbi Yossi Kivman of New York is hoping to make Mansfield his new home.

Kivman’s brother, Mendy, said this week that Yossi intends to move to Mansfield with his family within the next six months and is now deciding what kind of services Mansfield will need.