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A great person once told me that whenever she enters a room, the first thing she notices is the racial makeup of the people in the room. As an observer at last night’s question and answer session with Rabbis Manis Friedman and Yossi Paltiel, I was struck by how un-diverse the audience was. The room was brimming with an almost entirely young moderate- to very-chassidish crowd or those with the hergesh to wear white shirts on Gimmel Tammuz, if you will. Mostly older 770 bochurim and yungerleit.
What was more glaring was who were not there – the so-called single working class and the young Lubavitch college students. It is ironic that a program put on by the newly founded Besht Center did not attract an audience from their target group at one of its largest events of the year. But it is unsurprising considering how predictably unfulfilling these events tend to be. I only came down there because I felt I must do something on Gimmel Tammuz and because my friend paid my five-dollar admission fee.
Rabbi Chanoch and Leiky Gechman, an Israeli couple with connections to the Jewish community of Mumbai, India, will soon be heading to the South Asian business capital as its first permanent Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries since the terrorist attacks of November 2008.
CROWN HEIGHTS — Over 250 Bochurim got together last night for a unique ‘no holds barred’ style forum. Various topics were discussed with two prolific Mashpiim and public speakers, Rabbi Yossi Paltiel and Rabbi Manis Friedman. Among the array of topics discussed, were dating to university and business. The event was organized by the new Besht center.
Two of Crown Heights’s Shuls, Oihel Nosson and Beis Shmuel, got together at the Jewish Childrens Museum for a joint Farbrengen in honor of Gimmel Tammuz. The crowd heard Rabbi Yossi Jacobson and Shliach Rabbi Shmuel Lew.
That’s so not kosher.
A kosher-food company is suing the Mets, claiming that it has lost a half-million dollars in profits because the team has forbidden its stands to sell snacks at Citi Field on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons.
Kosher Grill does brisk business peddling hot dogs, sausages, knishes, hamburgers, beer and other food from three portable stands around the stadium.
The owner, Kosher Sports Inc., got approval from kosher-certifying authorities to sling wieners on the Sabbath and even customized its stands so it could sell its pastrami hot dogs and other wares on Friday nights and Saturdays, the vendor said.
So much for Christian charity.
Sister Mary McCauley, the former pastoral administrator at St. Bridget’s Catholic Church in Postville, Iowa, who provided support for families affected by the Agriprocessors raid, publicly condemned the complete acquittal of Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin on charges of child labor violations as a tragedy. “I was heartsick,” she declared. “I had to just sit and deal with the heartbreak I was feeling.”
Never mind that a jury deliberated only 12 hours to reach a verdict exonerating Rubashkin on all 67 counts. Never mind that Rubashkin, a father of ten with a long of history of charitable acts feeding the hungry and the poor, has been so demonized in the press that it was practically impossible for him to receive a fair trial, and still he was found innocent. The good sister is convinced that the man should have gone down. Her heart tells her so. The jury be damned.
Bochurim packed into the Simcha hall of the Agudah Shul on Crown Street to Farbreng with the Rosh Yeshiva of Ohr Elchonon Chabad in Los Angeles, Rabbi Ezra Shochet.
Hundreds of Bochurim, Anash and Shluchim resumed Monday nights Farbrengen in Beis Rivkah Campus Chomesh, sitting together and Farbrenging into the night. Rabbi Moshe Wolberg Farbrenged there as well and attracted a large crowd.
Maayanot Alumni gathered in the Maayanot Shul on Kingston and Farbrenged with their staff, including Rabbi Kasriel Shemtov.
Please take a moment and say a Kapitel Tehillim for a Refuah Shlaima.
Tinok ben Nechama Dina
A 5 month old going thru heart surgery Wednesday morning.
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