Hundreds participated in the annual ‘Light up AmsterDAM’ Menorah lighting last week, and that was thanks to a letter sent in to the Ohel by the event organizer Rabbi Menachem Evers. Just before the event began the strong rain and winds ceased and calmed down.
The air was crisp, a wintery breeze caressed the air as the crowds slowly gathered around the strangely-shaped aluminum structure – strangely-shaped only to someone who has never seen a menorah before. To this crowd though, it was a familiar and heartwarming sight.
A ribbon cutting ceremony for the Devon Avenue Streetscape project in Chicago’s West Rogers Park neighborhood was held in front of the F.R.E.E. Synagogue on Thursday evening.
To bring in the holiday of Chanukah appropriately and joyously, ULY of Ocean Parkway celebrated with a carnival for all the children of the yeshiva. There were booths for all ages and arts and crafts for the talented and hungry – these art projects not only looked like beautiful menorahs, but tasted great too.
Rabbi Mendy Hecht and other members of the Brooklyn Jewish community joined developer Bruce Ratner, Mayer Bill De Blasio and numerous dignitaries at a special groundbreaking ceremony in Pacific Park.
Chanoch and Tzivie (nee Rapoport) Hecht (Rhinebeck, NY)
This week’s edition of MyLife: Chassidus Applied with Rabbi Simon Jacobson, Episode 48, will air tonight, Sunday, here on CrownHeights.info beginning at 8:00pm. This week Rabbi Jacobson will address the topics: Balancing Modesty and Activism; Fear of Night and Being Alone; Baal Teshuvah Disappointment: After the Honeymoon is Over; Moshiach’s Identity and Signs in 770.
Four Crown Heights Shomrim Volunteers were among the most recent graduates of the NYPD’s Citizens Police Academy, a special 14-week course in which participants are trained to acquire a wide range of skills in community policing, such as identifying gang members and hostage rescue procedures.
On Monday, Dec. 16th, 1929 (exactly 85 years ago to the day), a Philadelphia Yiddish Newspaper reported that a day before – on Sun, December 15th, 1929 at 12:45pm – there were cries of “baruch haba” from a crowd of 3,000 strong who were gathered at 30th Street train station to greet Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneershon, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe.
Following a Menorah lighting in South Florida, a woman approached Shliach Rabbi Shuey Biston and told an amazing story about a Brocha she received from the Rebbe for her husband who was to undergo a difficult surgery. Video of that encounter shows the amazing connection from the past to the present.
Hundreds of Menorah-topped-cars and dozens Mitzvah ‘Tanks’ participated in a massive parade this Motzai Shabbos, leaving from Crown Heights and traveling through the streets of Manhattan and spreading the light of Chanukah.
Yitzchak Shuchat, a Jewish man who was accused of assaulting an African-American man in Crown Heights back in 2008, has plead guilty to assault. As part of a plea deal, all racial bias charges against him have been dropped.
Levi Yitzchak Welton (Berkeley, CA) and Chavi Kaufman (Los Angeles, CA)
A gunman shot two uniformed NYPD officers ‘execution style’ while they were sitting in a marked patrol car on the corner of Myrtle and Tompkins Avenues in the Bed-Stuy section of Brooklyn at around 3:00pm. Both officers have died from their wounds.
This Shabbos at the Besht, Rabbi Baruch Jacobson, director of Chabad at Hunter College, will lead a discussion on the topic – What story do the Chanukah candles tell us?
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