Bagel Lovers Tell Rabbis: Don’t pick on our Lox

By Reuven Fenton for the New York Post

A group of ultra-Orthodox rabbis is waging a schmear campaign against a staple of the Jewish diet: lox.

Smoked salmon should no longer be considered kosher, they say, because the fish often contain parasitic worms.

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A Jewish Ritual Collides With Mother Nature

By Samuel G. Freedman for the New York Times
Rabbi Adam Mintz, a historian of eruvim in the United States, displayed maps of the boundaries of eruvim in New York City.

Last Saturday morning, as a blizzard sputtered out its last squalls over Passaic, N.J., Chaya Leah Smolen sent her husband and several children off to synagogue. She issued the children a message that might seem to contradict the essence of winter motherhood: do not carry any tissues.

Boruch Dayan Hoemes – Rabbi Eliezer Wenger OBM

With great sadness we inform you of the untimely passing of Rabbi Eliezer Wenger.

Rabbi Wenger, a longtime Montreal resident, has been teaching Halacha and other subjects for over ten years at Beth Rivkah High School in Montreal, Canada. He was the Rabbi at Congregation Oneg Shabbos in Montreal and the author of over a dozen seforim on Halacha.

He is survived by his wife Raitzel, and children Mordechai (Montreal, Canada), Yossi (Montreal, Canada), Shmuli (Montreal, Canada), Rashi Bortunk (Miami, Florida), Tova Nelkin (Montreal, Canada), Chanie Tzfasman (Crown Heights), Simmy (Montreal, Canada), Rikky, Mendy, and Hudy.

Bloomberg Says a Soda Tax ‘Makes Sense’

The New York Times

As the battle over the state budget and the looming multibillion-dollar gap becomes more intense, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has stepped up his call for the Legislature to pass a penny-per-ounce tax on soda to stave off major service cuts to education and health care.

Turkish Police Accost Sabbath Worshipers in Synagogue

The main sanctuary of the Hemdat Israel synagogue.

ISTANBUL, Turkey [INN] — A Turkish newspaper reports that police burst into an Istanbul synagogue during recent Sabbath services and demanded worshipers’ ID’s.