Hundreds attend Shloshim of R’ Mendel Shemtov

Click Here to listen to a recording of the Shloshim. [2:01, WMA, 17.9MB]

Thurdsday evening a crowd of over 500 family members, friends and acquaintances, including many mashpi’im and shluchim gathered in the second tent outside the Rebbe’s Ohel, in Queens New York. The shloshim of R. Mendel Shemtov started off with R. Levi Azimov, a shlich in South Brunswick NJ, asking the people gathered to “have a seat, and in English to make themselves comfortable”. He then went on to explain that although it’s not 30 days since the passing, the geziaras shloshim ends today.

“In general these types of events don’t follow a specific program”, he continued “so first-of-all we have to realize where and in front of whom we are standing. In Lubavitch we generally don’t make eulogies and the sort, we gathered here though and the reason why the family wanted to host this event here specifically is; as everyone knows, R. Mendel connected himself very strongly with this place. He bought a house, and even before he owned the house he would; come for shabbos and yom tov, make his car available for bochurim to come for shabbos, and his wife would make food for the bochurim coming for shabbos, understanding that this is now the Rebbe’s daled amos.”

More pictures in the Extended Article.

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The Ballots Closed – The Results Are – 3 New Rabonim

Thursday night the Polls closed with a total of 926 Votes (out of which 19 were blank) that had been casted over this past week. All of the candidates had accumulated more then the 50% required to be elected in.

The total of the votes Candidates achieved was:

Rabbi Yitzchok Zirkind – 811 votes
Rabbi Shlomo Segal – 707 votes
Rabbi Yitzchok Raitport – 644 votes

Biker dies in plunge off bridge

NY Daily News – Pics by Newsday

Follow up to the article “Motorcycle Accident on Eastern Parkway” and the one from last year where a biker died .

A 38-year-old motorcyclist died last night when he rammed the back of a livery cab and plunged off the Williamsburg Bridge into the East River, police said.

NYPD Aviation and Harbor units found Leonard Beckett’s body after searching the swirling, murky water toward the Manhattan side of the bridge for about 45 minutes.

Witnesses told cops that Beckett, a father of seven from St. Albans, Queens, was coming from Brooklyn with about a half-dozen members of his motorcycle club, the Southside Renegades, about 10:20 p.m. when the accident occurred.

More pictures in the Extended Article

Chabad Rabbi Represents Jewish Faith in the White House

Lubavitch.com

“America is a nation of prayer. It’s impossible to tell the story of our nation without telling the story of people who pray,” said President George Bush today.

The occasion was the White House celebration of the National Day of Prayer. “At decisive moments in our history and in quiet times around family tables, we are a people humbled and strengthened and blessed by prayer.”

Among the religious leaders selected by the White House for to represent their respective faiths, was Chabad’s Rabbi Sholom Ciment of Greater Boynton in Palm Beach County, Florida, offering prayers on behalf of world Jewry.

The National Day of Prayer, which was held in the East Room of the White House and carried live by all national Media outlets, dates back to the first declaration of a day of prayer and fasting by George Washington to President Lincoln’s call for prayer and fasting during the Civil War. President Ronald Reagan signed the current law in 1988, marking the date as the first Thursday in May of each year.