Daily Archives: April 20, 2006

Murder in Crown Heights: Man Accused Of Fatally Shooting Uncle For Stealing Mail

A Brooklyn man is accused of fatally shooting his uncle six times because he was convinced his uncle was stealing his mail, police said.

David Husband, 69, worked as a superintendent in a Crown Heights building on President St. between Troy and Schenectady, where his 27-year-old nephew shared his apartment, police said.

Police said the nephew, Orangel S. Hill, called police at 12:41 a.m. Wednesday, saying he had just shot his uncle.

Click Here for a newscast of this event (RealMedia)

Pesach in Cuba: A tale of two synagogues

While the tale of the Jews’ exodus from Egypt symbolizes liberation for Jews all over the world, it is also symbolic for the resilient Jewish community of Cuba.

This tiny community of 1,200 Jews, of which 900 live in Havana, are but a fraction of one percent of the island’s 11 million people. Judaism is seen as an oddity of sorts, even in this peculiar country where Catholicism, Santeria, and Marxism converge.

“There is no anti-Semitism here, just ignorance,” according to Alberto Fernandez Barrocas, 59, vice president of the Adath Israel Synagogue of Old Havana. “People assume that Jews don’t believe in anything since they don’t believe in J. [Yoshke].”

162,210 Attend at FJC sponsored Seders across the FSU

MOSCOW, Russia – Hundreds of thousands of Jews across the Former Soviet Union celebrated Passover in great festive tradition thanks to a mass campaign carried out by the Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS. A total of 437 FJC member communities across fifteen former Soviet republics marked this week-long holiday both at home and at over 500 mass public Seders.

The FJC’s Passover campaign, coordinated in conjunction with the Moscow and regional offices of the Ohr Avner Foundation, has delivered about 1.2 million pounds of Matzah and 150,000 bottles of wine to Jewish communities, large and small. This figure has been topped up by donations collected through the FJC’s website campaign and contributions made by local donors.

Students gather to celebrate holiday

Tucson, Arizona – A tradition thousands of years old was continued by Jewish students yesterday to mark the beginning of Passover.

More than 200 students feasted on unleavened matzo bread, potatoes and grape juice during the Seder dinner held at the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity house.

The celebration of Passover extends back to the time of Moses, when the Jews left Egypt after being enslaved by the pharaoh.

The ceremony was presided over by Rabbi Yossi Winner, a new face to the campus Jewish community.

“We never thought we’d get 200 students, but the RSVPs have been off the hook,” Winner said.

Winner, a Hasidic rabbi, moved to Tucson last year from New York City to establish a Chabad presence on campus.

Chabad-Lubavitch is one of the largest branches of Hasidic Judaism.

Winner’s home has become the center of operations for food preparation for Seder dinner.

“It’s to provide Jewish students on campus a home away from home,” Winner said.

A Hasidic Migration Renews Crown Heights Tensions

Until a few years ago, the Jews of the Lubavitch Hasidic sect living in Crown Heights told their children to not to venture south of Empire Boulevard into the African-American and Afro-Caribbean neighborhood of Flatbush. But crime has gone down ever since Rudy Giuliani’s anti-crime mayoral administration of the 1990s. Now the scene is different. A new Jewish-owned residential building is being erected on Lefferts Avenue in Flatbush. Nearby, developers are trying to put up luxury housing. A young Hasidic couple opened a stylish clothing store on the same street a few months ago.

“There is a big demand for Jews, more than ever before,” said Yossi Popack, a residential property owner in the area.

Property values are soaring in the heart of Hasidic Crown Heights. One could find a two bedroom apartment in the area of $1500, but most Hasidic families here have between eight and 12 children. A two family building has gone for over $700,000, something that might have sold for less than a quarter of a million dollars about a decade ago, according to one news report. And unless a Lubavitch family gets a job in another city, they stay in New York and want to remain within walking distance of their main synagogue on Eastern Parkway. Thus, Hasidic families are moving farther south and settling near and in Flatbush for cheaper living spaces in proximity to the synagogue. This is putting a strain on the African-American and Afro-Caribbean community and is adding to renewed tensions between these communities after more than a decade of calm since the infamous riots of 1991 that resulted in the murder of one foreign, Hasidic visitor.