200 Crown Heights high school girls gathered for Friendship Circle Brooklyn’s Annual Volunteer Kickoff. These Girls from four local high schools, Bais Rivkah, Bnos Menachem, Bnos Chomesh and Beis Chaya Mushka, joined together to volunteer for an important organization in the community – The Friendship Circle.
The Jewish community of Veliky Novgorod, Russia, welcomed a new children’s center earlier this month, which became home to the city’s first Jewish kindergarten. The center, called “Aleph”, will also provide a spacious, clean and secure environment for other youth activities and become, what the organizers hope, a “second home” for the city’s youngsters.
With Sukkos quickly approaching, dozens of Bochurim and Shluchim have already confirmed their Sukkah Mobiles for this coming Chol Hamo’ed. After tremendous efforts, by Bochurim and Yungerleit, the Sukkahs are ready to be assembled, rental contracts are already confirmed and much more has already been done in advance of what promises to be the biggest Sukkah Mobile season yet.
As Hurricane Irma bore down on South Florida last weekend, Rabbi Pinny Backman was making arrangements. Backman, who directs Chabad at the University of South Florida with his wife Chava, had more than just his family to worry about; as a community leader, he wanted to ensure the safety of community members as well.
Mendel (ben R’ Binyomin) Wolf (Crown Heights) and Toby Wilansky (Montreal, Canada)
“A child, a youngster, should know why certain things are good and why certain things are evil,” Rabbi Mendel Dubov of Chabad of Sussex County said at a rally after antisemitic graffiti was found on a local diner, then noted that the current political climate has put pressure “on our being, our identity.”
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, met with the Chief Rabbi of Russia Berl Lazar on the eve of Rosh Hashana. In what has already become a yearly tradition, he sent special greetings to the Jews of the country.
As expected, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was reelected on Sunday to a fourth term in office in her country’s federal election, but many Jewish observers received the results with concern, due to the strong showing of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
A very large crowd of Bochurim, who are in Crown Heights as guests for the month of Tishrei, were welcomed in a special Bruchim Haboim ceremony on Sunday evening.
The newly-inaugurated mikvah in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic looks like any other Jewish ritual bath. Bricks of Jerusalem stone line the walls, the water is blue and clear, and the decor features light pastels. But as you can learn from the plaques on the wall, this mikvah, a first for the island, has been seventy-seven years in the making.
Guests spending time in Crown Heights for the month of Tishrei have not been taking a break from learning, with a detailed daily schedule arranged by the Vaad Talmidei Hatmimim, Bochurim have been sitting and learning in 770 and in study halls around the neighborhood.
Avi (ben Levi) Baumgarten (Crown Heights) and Raizel (bas Moshe) Katzman (Crown Heights)
This week’s edition of MyLife: Chassidus Applied with Rabbi Simon Jacobson, Episode 181, will air tonight, Sunday, here on CrownHeights.info, beginning at 8:00pm. This week Rabbi Jacobson will address the topics: Do I Have to Forgive Someone Who Shows No Remorse? What is Healthy Fear of G-d? Is There Such a Thing as Modern Chabad? Why Don’t We Daven the Way Chassidus Expects of Us?
In two letters to his friends and supporters, the Shliach to the island of Puerto Rico, Rabbi Mendel Zarchi, reveals the challenges he, his family and his community faced spending Rosh Hashana as a catagory 5 hurricane Maria bore down on them, as well as the humanitarian effots they spearheaded once it had passed, leaving devastation in its wake.
The Chabad Centre for Jewish Life and Learning on Vancouver Island, co-directed by Rabbi Meir and Chani Kaplan, celebrated the second season of holidays in a state-of-the-art new building, complete with a brand-new mikvah.
Prior to Rosh Hashana, the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FJC), headed by Rabbi Berel Lazar, hosted an interfaith congress of religious leaders in Moscow’s Jewish community center, the Marina Roscha Chabad Synagogue.
Choni and Rivka (nee Kastel) Botnick (Sydney, Australia)
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