West Africa will open the doors to its very first state-of-the-art mikveh in late spring 2016. Launched at the initiative of Rabbi Israel and Haya Uzan, Chabad representatives to Abuja, capital of Nigeria, construction began in late January. The ritual bath will also serve residents and visitors in the country’s most populated city, Lagos, 339 miles from Abuja.
Lubavitcher Chosid and pro-Israel activist Dovid Efune, Editor-in-Chief of the Algemeiner Journal, sits down for an exclusive interview with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.
Young activists and entrepreneurs from the Jewish community met for the first time with Assemblywoman Diana Richardson, who represents Crown Heights in the New York State Assembly. Among the topics discussed were affordable housing, traffic and the recent stabbing of a young Jewish man.
Leibi Brikman, the newly married young man who was stabbed last week in broad daylight in the heart of Crown Heights, was getting ready to be released from Kings County Hospital, when things turned sour and his lung collapsed again. He was transferred by Hatzalah to NYU Hospital and underwent yet another procedure.
Close to 2,000 people gathered in Paris last night for an evening of salute and support for the Beis Lubavitch Educational Institute, under the leadership of Rabbi Mendel Azimov.
Though Mrs. Rivky M. always looked forward to attending the Kinus Hashluchos and usually returned home uplifted, she often felt “a bit of a disconnect.” Living with her family on shlichus in a small South American town, “many of the ideas that are shared do not apply to me,” she says. “Our challenges are unique and not usually addressed and, having no sisters or relatives who come in for the Kinus, I often feel like the odd one out.”
Two Palestinians armed with knives entered a supermarket near Jerusalem in the West Bank and stabbed two Israeli civilians, killing one and wounding the other, before they were shot and wounded by an Israeli bystander.
Shua and Elkie Piekarski (Crown Heights)
Moshe Banda (Boro Park, NY) and Tsivia Berkes (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
With the deadline for essay submissions only one week away, the excitement surrounding the MyLife: Chassidus Applied Essay Contest is growing. Writers have until next Wednesday (February 24th), 11:59 PM EST, to submit their essays in order to qualify to win prizes (First Prize: $10,000, Second Prize $3,600, and Third Prize $1,000).
Rabbi Avrohom Tanzer is the Rosh Yeshiva of the Yeshiva College of South Africa, and the founding rabbi and spiritual leader of the Glenhazel Area Hebrew Congregation in Johannesburg. He was interviewed by JEM’s My Encounter with the Rebbe project in Johannesberg in August of 2014.
The Brooklyn Museum announced last week that its museum cafeteria, BKM Café, now will be serving a rotating menu of kosher salads, sandwiches and sweets, further gilding it as the first encyclopedic institution in the tri-state area to serve kosher meals.
Tragedy struck the New York City subway system on Monday evening, when a man got caught in the doors of a train he was exiting and was dragged to his death. Authorities are investigating how it happened.
Two Crown Heights Bochurim visited a Jewish home in Brooklyn in order to help them fulfill the Mitzvah of Mezuzah, one of the ten campaigns the Rebbe initiated. They removed the family’s old Mezuzah case to check if the parchment inside was still kosher, but were mystified by its strange contents – a handwritten ‘Tefilas Haderech’ (prayer of the traveler), written by pen on regular paper.
Machlokes. A terrible word that reviles all who hear it. Machlokes is something we are taught from the youngest age to avoid. Yet, we are surrounded by machlokes and many people are sucked into its vortex. Everybody knows machlokes is a fire that consumes, nonetheless we are surrounded by it and must keep our heads above water avoiding it.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who passed away on Feb. 13 at the age of 79, is being remembered as a champion of freedom of religious expression with a deep appreciation for Jewish law, who was a thoughtful and enthusiastic participant in legal symposia on Jewish and American jurisprudence during his tenure on the court.
At the Sheva Brochos of the daughter of Russia’s Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar Sunday night, it was announced that four new Chabad Synagogues and community centers would be opened in Moscow, bringing the number of Chabad Centers in Russia’s capital city to an unprecedented and historic thirty.
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