The annual Colel Chabad International Awards Dinner, celebrating 227 years of providing food, clothing and shelter to Israel’s needy, took place Tuesday evening, December 15, at the New York Hilton Grand Ballroom.
Sholom Ber Pewzner (Crown Heights) and Muka Groner (Melbourne, Australia)
A friendly reminder to our dear readers: Tonight is “Nittel Nacht,” and the Chabad custom is not to learn Torah, so as not to “add Chayus” to impurity.
Chabad of Hanoi, Vietnam, made history as they welcomed their very own brand new Torah Scroll. The Torah is one of seven newly written Sifrei Torah generously donated by Chilean businessman and philanthropist Leonardo Farkas, honoring Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky and his family.
Shimi and Tova Wilmowsky (Crown Heights)
Rabbi Chaim Shlomo Diskin, currently the chief rabbi of Kiryat Ata, has served as Chabad emissary in Israel since 1983. He was interviewed by JEM’s My Encounter with the Rebbe project in June of 2014.
Akiva Sheinberger (Brooklyn, NY) and Dvori Hershkop (Kiryat Malachi, Israel)
It’s hot in the rice fields of Sakon Nakhon. At 104 degrees, planting season is in full swing. Up since 4:30, the farmer carefully sows seeds across 34 acres of wetland. Though combines and tractors have replaced water buffalo, the going is still slow and largely manual. The goal? Fifteen tons of bagged Jasmine rice that will fill his barn come harvest-time.
Over the past year and a half, men have been gathering in the evenings for weekly learning sessions specially designed for their busy schedules. Now, a new Kolel dedicated to learning Halacha is being inaugurated.
The winning photos of MyShliach’s annual Mivtzah Chanukah Photo Contest have just been released, following three grand raffle drawings of the more than 350 photos that were submitted.
Yosef Levi (ben Yitzchok) Wilhelm (Crown Heights) and Chany (bas Yerachmiel) Belinow (Nachalas Har Chabad, Israel)
Rabbi Benny Hershcovich, Shliach in Cabo S. Lucas, Mexico, delivers his brief and hilarious thought on this week’s Parasha, Vayechi. If this week the Torah tells us about Jacob’s passing, then why on earth would they name it “vayechi,” meaning ‘and he lived’!?? Isn’t that a total misleading headline?
Asher Werner (Monsey, NY) and Chayale Sputz (Montreal, Canada)
Yehuda Pinson is not your typical 9-year-old. Living in Brussels, Belgium, he is one of the few Jewish males (and among the only children) in the city to openly identify as a Jew, proudly sporting a kippah on his head at all times. As the child of Chabad emissaries, he knows that he is different than his neighbors.
Rabbi Mendel Goldstein of Crown Heights met a 70-year-old Jewish stock trader who hadn’t put on Tefilin since his Bar Mitzvah, which took place in 1958. The man readily agreed to put on Tefilin, and – with deep emotion – recited “Shema Yisroel” on his own.
A weather pattern partly linked with the ‘El Nino’ phenomenon has turned winter upside-down across the U.S., bringing spring-like warmth to the Northeast, a risk of tornadoes in the South and so much snow across the West that even skiing slopes have been overwhelmed.
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