Video – 7-Year-Old Calls 911, Saves Family

MSNBC — There is no mistaking the terror in the boy’s voice. On the 911 recording, you can feel it like a physical object.

“They come. They come. They open and ringthe door. They have guns. Can you come, really fast? And bring soldiers, too,” the unidentified 7-year-old says in 911 tapes played on TODAY Wednesday. He gasps for breath after each burst of words, his voice filled with urgency.

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TX Program Provides Jewish Outlet to Institutionalized Residents

by Reuvena Leah Grodnitzky – Chabad.org

Texas volunteer Ileene Robinson prepares a pre-holiday celebration at a state-supported residential facility for people with special needs.

For hundreds of Texas residents whose special needs preclude the possibility of independent living, state-supported residential facilities provide the care and support unavailable at home. And while they’re a distinct minority, Jewish residents – whose spiritual needs were, just a generation ago, frequently neglected by government agencies – can take part in a variety of programs offered by a decade-long partnership between caregivers and a Houston non-profit.

No Pox on Lox, Insists Monsey Group

LoHud

MONSEY — A Rockland group that caused a worldwide uproar when it purportedly put the pox on lox by claiming that the popular Jewish nosh isn’t kosher said yesterday that the warning was nothing but a fish tale.

Mazal Tov! – Wednesday Night L’Chaims!

Yitzchok Kolodny (Crown Heights) and Chaya Stroll (Los Angeles, CA)
IYH at Lubavitcher Yeshiva, 570 Crown St [hall entrance on Albany Ave]

Shaya Lowenstein (Morristown, NJ) to Mushka Raigorodsky (Los Angeles,CA)
IYH at Lubavitcher Yeshiva, 570 Crown St [hall entrance on Albany Ave]

Have a Mazal Tov you want to share? Email us at MazalTov@CrownHeights.info!

Decennial Friendship Circle Dinner Lauds Teen Volunteers

by Chanie Kaminker – Chabad.org

An estimated 900 people, including politicians, prominent business leaders and one professional football player, descended on the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in downtown Newark to celebrate the decennial anniversary of the state’s branch of the Friendship Circle, a Chabad-Lubavitch program that pairs teenage volunteers with children with special needs.

Today: Yohrtzeit of Ari Halberstam HYD

Ari Halberstam HYD

On March 1, 1994, a gunman in a car opened fire on a van carrying more than a dozen Hasidic students as it began to cross the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan, critically wounding two young men and injuring two others.

The lone gunman, driving a blue Chevrolet Caprice equipped with a submachine gun, two 9mm guns, and a “street sweeper” shotgun, pursued the van full of terrified students across the bridge.

He fired in three separate bursts, spraying both sides of the van. He then disappeared into traffic as the van came to a stop at the Brooklyn end of the bridge.

The injured Yeshiva students were among dozens who were returning from a Manhattan hospital where the spiritual leader of the Lubavitch movement, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, had undergone minor surgery.

Picture of the Day – Rabbi Wenger Learning with Students

In preparation of the Chidon Sefer Hamitzvos, which Rabbi Eliezer Wenger, who passed away yesterday, prepared the material on which the contestants were tested, is pictured here helping out Levi Yitzchok Gerber, a young Shliach who competed in the 2005 Chidon.

Photos: Rabbi Benjamin’s Class has Siddur Party!

Rabbi Benjamin’s Pre-1a class in Oholei Torah celebrated their Siddur party this Sunday. The party began with the children reciting the 12 Pesukim. Following that Mr. Shloy Rubinstein addressed the class on behalf of the parents with a story to the children then thanking the teachers and principals in their partnership of educating the children.

Another NYPD Cop Steps Forward, Claims Ticket Pressure

NY Daily News

Officer Anthony Minoia

A Bronx cop with an Ivy League degree is preparing to sue the city, claiming his failure to write tickets for 18 months led to a violent confrontation with his boss.

Officer Anthony Minoia says he was assigned to a one-block beat known in the 42nd Precinct as the “punishment post” after a bad evaluation.

The Columbia grad says the fact that he didn’t write any tickets after that was not a protest against his boss, Deputy Inspector Timothy Bugge.

“I’m not going to pull out my summons book and write a summons because my boss is telling me he’s going to make it difficult for me if I don’t,” said Minoia, 46, an Air Force vet. “I don’t use my powers to make a deputy inspector get promoted.”

Our Cleaning Lady who Stole from Us

by Bentzion Elisha

Random items appeared to be missing from our apartment.

Could it be our sweet hardworking cleaning lady who came highly recommended by neighbors who had her for the last 7 years?

After discussing the matter with our parents , my wife and I concluded it just couldn’t be her….

Bagel Lovers Tell Rabbis: Don’t pick on our Lox

By Reuven Fenton for the New York Post

A group of ultra-Orthodox rabbis is waging a schmear campaign against a staple of the Jewish diet: lox.

Smoked salmon should no longer be considered kosher, they say, because the fish often contain parasitic worms.

A Jewish Ritual Collides With Mother Nature

By Samuel G. Freedman for the New York Times
Rabbi Adam Mintz, a historian of eruvim in the United States, displayed maps of the boundaries of eruvim in New York City.

Last Saturday morning, as a blizzard sputtered out its last squalls over Passaic, N.J., Chaya Leah Smolen sent her husband and several children off to synagogue. She issued the children a message that might seem to contradict the essence of winter motherhood: do not carry any tissues.