Daily Archives: January 26, 2006

Chabad of Cobb ready to build new home

The congregation of Chabad of Cobb started with only a few families in the early 1990s. They met regularly to worship in a rented classroom and later in a storefront of a converted bakery in an east Cobb shopping center.

In 1995, they bought a 40-year-old house on Lower Roswell Road. On Sunday, the congregation will have a groundbreaking for a $1.6 million,19,000-square-foot sanctuary and community gathering place.

Rabbi Ephraim Silverman, who has been the director of the Chabad of Cobb since 2000, said the present building will be torn down after the end of the children’s Hebrew classes in May. Construction will take eight to 12 months.

All 4 Shomrim Divisions Embark On A Massive Search, Missing B”H Found

On Wednesday at around 3:00pm Boro Park Shomrim Central dispatch called over a missing person incident into all divisions of Shomrim. The Missing an 83 year old man suffering from Alzheimer’s and has been missing since 9:30 that morning. His wife who was at the doctors that morning, upon returning home she saw he wasn’t home and she got very anxious and called Shomrim, who then alerted the Police and all other Shomrim Divisions and initiated a Level One Mobilization.

A team of Crown Heights Shomrim units were seen racing down Empire Blvd. towards the command post posted the junction of 10th Ave. and 44th St. and were given straight away grid blocks of the area to search. The search continued throughout the day and most of the night with Shomrim members from Crown Heights, Boro Park, Flatbush and Williamsburg.

The man was found B”H at 4:00am on Neptune and west 7th in the Coney Island area and brought back home to his anxious wife after being check out by medical personal. Apparently he had gotten lost and flustered and was walking the entire day trying to find his way. On behalf of the Boro Park Shomrim “we would like to thank all units from all the joining neighborhoods for the help in finding the man, keep up the good work”.

Win a Bike by Listening to Jewish Kids Radio!

Jewish Kids Radio, the sensational new hit radio show for kids, announces an exciting new contest for all children under Bar or Bas Mitzvah!

Jewish Kids Radio invites children to submit a Mitzvah note, describing a mitzvah that they have done recently. The letter may be written by the child, a parent, or other adult, and must be signed by an adult. Be sure to include the child’s name, age, address, and phone number. Entries must be submitted by mail or online and received by the 5 th of Shvat, February 3rd. The show host, Chaim, will call a child live during the show. A special password will be announced during the show and the child must yell out the correct password when they answer the phone in order to win. The first child to know the password will win a bicycle.

The Unity of Opposites

Why has the Chabad-Lubavitch sect become so successful? On the surface, the group would seem like a strange candidate for world prominence: One of the more intellectual strands of Hasidism, Chabad was once regarded as a sect of philosophers as compared with some of the other, more populist, Hasidic factions. Today, its arcane customs, strict observance of Jewish law and, of course, the notorious messianism of the last generation, all should deter newcomers. And yet, today Chabad is among the most successful Jewish outreach organizations in the world. What is going on?

If you ask a skeptic, Chabad’s success has everything to do with luck and marketing. Luck in that, unlike many other sects, Chabad survived the Holocaust more or less intact. They suffered grievous losses, of course, but other sects were completely wiped out; Chabad was not. And marketing: as chronicled in two recent books, Sue Fishkoff’s “The Rebbe’s Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch” (Schocken, 2003) and M. Avrum Ehrlich’s “The Messiah of Brooklyn: Understanding the Lubavitch Past and Present” (Ktav Publishing House, 2005), Chabad is unique in its organized, hierarchical and sometimes ruthlessly efficient structure. The late Lubavitcher Rebbe, whatever we may make of those who would deify him, was an expert marketer and a genius at organization. Take these two factors together, add in some messianic zeal, and you have the burgeoning Chabad-Lubavitch phenomenon, mitzvah tanks and all.

Car and House Break-ins taken to a whole new level!

CrownHeights.info has received reports of thieves breaking into cars that are parked in garages in alleyways. This is a very disturbing development since it shows how brazen these thieves are becoming.

In one incident a woman who was getting into her car in the morning noticed that things weren’t as she had left them when parking the car. She noticed that the ashtray which is usually full of coins was emptied. The car was parked behind a gated off driveway!

And here is one more incident of how brazen a thief was, during a yoga class in a basement in Crown Heights, the people attending the class heard the door open but paid no attention to it thinking maybe it was just another person who was joining the class, however when the class ended they noticed some clothing and a wallet were missing.

Even though the police have increased patrols we strongly encourage you to be more vigilant, lock the doors of your house’s and cars, and if you hear or see anything suspicious, do not hesitate to call 911 and Shomrim at (718) 774-3333.