“Where Have I Gone Wrong?” – The Reverberating Effects Of Human Behavior

By Rabbi Yoseph Kahanov, Jax, Florida

A man was once accused of a serious crime. The evidence was so incriminating that a guilty verdict was all but inevitable. “Your only hope,” advised his lawyer “is to enter a plea of insanity; but you must remember to act crazy in court.”

The man followed his lawyer’s counsel and put on a great act. He made the strangest sounds as he twitched his head and thrashed his hands. So well had he performed, that the case was soon dismissed.

To his utter dismay, when the lawyer came to collect his fee, the man resumed his ridiculous gig; strange motions and all. He soon realized that he had become the butt of his own ploy – his expert advice had come back to bite him.

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After a long day of disasters and mishaps, due to inattentiveness and neglect, the exhausted victim could take it no more. “Why,” he cried in exasperation, “Do things that happen to morons keep happening to me?!”

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Too Cool for Shul

By Andrew Thompson – Philadelphia Citypaper

Rabbi/band leader Menachem Schmidt has seen Philly’s Lubavitch community grow to new heights. But is its progressive orthodoxy too good to be true?

Rabbi Menachem Schmidt. Photo: Neal Santos.

An Orthodox synagogue sits across the street from an abandoned lot on Poplar and North American streets, and on a cool May night, the members of that synagogue use it to throw what is undoubtedly the biggest party in Northern Liberties. The occasion is Lag B’Omer, one of the more obscure Jewish holidays, and the Philadelphia leaders of the Chabad-Lubavitch sect of Judaism had decided to celebrate by lighting an enormous bonfire, serving Miller High Life and cooking kosher barbecue. Next to the bonfire, a bongo line forms, the drums beat by casually dressed youth while Hasidic Jews, dressed in traditional black suits and fedoras with long scraggly beards, drink and chat around them while children throw detritus into the fire.

Shul House Rocked — Again!

By Shannon Geis for The Brooklyn Paper

The Brooklyn Paper / Allyse Pulliam
Rabbi Aaron Raskin of Congregation B’nai Avraham shows
off the damage caused the last time a serial burglar tried
to break into the Remsen Street synagogue.

BROOKLYN, NY — A Brooklyn Heights synagogue that has been repeatedly robbed and attacked was hit again last week — and rabbis believe it is the same man responsible for earlier break-ins.

“He’s broken in before,” said Rabbi Simcha Weinstein of Congregation B’nai Avraham on Remsen Street, which has been the site of repeated burglaries and attempted burglaries ever since the suspect, a serial burglar, was invited in for a meal five years ago.

In the Aug. 20 incident, cops said that the burglar broke in through the front door of the house of worship, which is between Henry and Clinton streets, at around 3:30 am.

This time, however, he was confronted by a member of the cleaning staff, who asked what he was doing there.

Rather than answer, he quickly ran out of the synagogue empty handed.

Picture of the Day! – Graduating Bedford and Dean 1961!

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We are proud to present to you this photo of the 1961 Graduating Jewish 8th grade in Lubavitcher Yeshiva on Bedford and Dean. The following is a list of the names we managed to obtain, feel free to add to the list by using the comment system.

Top Row: (L-R) ?, ?, Aron Cywiak, Manny Greitzer, Joe Bander, Nat Slavin, Rudy Weinberger, Singer, David Shabbat, Ben Tandowski, Meyer Fremder, Zimmet, Rochman, Moshe Winner OBM, Leima Levitin OBM.

Mazal Tov! – 10 Sholom Zochors this Week!

Sholom Ber and Libby (nee Slavin) Klein.
IYH at 785 Montgomery St [between Albany and Troy Ave].

Aharon and Sarah (nee Morrison) Calvo.
IYH at IYH at 1650 President St, Apt 3A [between Schenectady and Utica Ave].

Moshe and Mimi (nee Notik) Hecht.
IYH at 551 Brooklyn Ave, 5th Floor [between Maple and Midwood St].

Schnuer and Sara’le (nee Barber) Seewald.
IYH at 661 Crown St [between Troy and Schenectady Ave].

Immanuel and Rochie (nee Blau) Storfer.
IYH at 852 Eastern Pkwy [between Kingston and Albany Ave].

Menachem Mendel and Miriam Rachel (nee Greenberg) Greenstein.
IYH at 518 Montgomery St, 2nd floor [between New York and Brooklyn Ave].

Mendy and Rochel Horowitz.
IYH at 765 S. Johns Pl, Apt 1A [between Nostrand and Rogers Ave].

Zev and Ditza Young.
IYH at 660 NE 173rd Terrace, Miami, FL 33162.

Rubie and Rivkie Minkowitz.
IYH at 12823 Chandler Blvd, Valley Village, CA 91607.

Avremi and Rochie Popack.
IYH at 10201 Christopher St, Cypress, CA 90630.

Please stay tuned as we update this list when information becomes available. However, in an unfortunate event that we do not get all the Sholom Zochors this week, we are sorry. But you can help! If you know of any Sholom Zochors or Mazal Tovs you can email it to us at MazalTov@CrownHeights.info. Thank You!!

Rabbi Yisroel Meir Altein OBM, an Educator & Spiritual Mentor

by Eric Lidji – The Jewish Chronicle

Rabbi Yisroel Meir Altein, an educator, administrator and spiritual mentor in the local Lubavitch community for more than 60 years, passed away on Saturday, Aug. 22.

He was 86.

Altein came to Pittsburgh in the mid-1940s. As one of the oldest and longest serving emissaries, or shluchim, of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Altein watched the Lubavitch movement grow from a small outpost in the East End of Pittsburgh to a large school with a vast, regional presence in the community.

Around 1 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, more than 200 people gathered outside of the Lubavitch Center on Wightman Street in Squirrel Hill to read psalms as the hearse stopped in front of the synagogue Altein helped build. Then, a 30-car procession drove up Murray Avenue and on to the Homewood Cemetery, where Altein was buried.

NY Daily News on the Beating of Jewish Girl

Will major media attention help?

Mom says daughter taunted, attacked on Crown Heights playground

An 11-year-old Jewish girl was attacked at a Crown Heights playground by a band of black youths who slammed her into a metal slide, kicked her repeatedly – and pelted her with anti-Semitic invective, the girl’s mom said Wednesday.

The Weekly Sicha of the Rebbe – Parshas Ki Seitzei

The Rebbe says:

1. At the end of this week’s Torah portion the Torah tells us of the commandment to remember what the nation of Amalek did to us. The Torah reads, “Remember what Amalek did to you on the road, on your way out of Egypt. That he met you on the way and cut off those lagging to your rear, when you were tired and exhausted; he did not fear G-d. Therefore… you must obliterate the memory of Amalek from under the heavens. Do not forget”.

When we analyze these words of the Torah we will see that there are three elements here. Firstly there is the commandment to remember what Amalek did to us. Secondly there is the commandment not to forget what Amalek did to us. And thirdly, there is the commandment to wipe out Amalek.

2. The Rebbe shows how important this is:

Chabad at the Shore – Jewish Summer Fest

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ [CHI] — Chabad at the Shore recently held its 5th annual Jewish Summer Festival. The Jersey Shore is a popular vacation destination and it attracts many Jewish vacationers each summer. Each year as summer comes to an end and families get ready to go back to school, Chabad offers visitor its mega summer event – The Jewish Summer Fest.

Lubavitch Laptops – Tech Savvy Roving Rabbis

By Sharon Udasin for the Jewish Week

They may be in Thessaloniki or in the foothills of the Himalayas, but emissaries-to-be in the Rebbe’s Army — as befits the high tech-savvy Chabad movement — are online all the while.

This summer in Chabad’s long-running “Roving Rabbis” program, in which rabbis-in-training are dispatched to far-flung locales to help out local emissaries, they are also assigned to blog about their experiences of the movement’s flagship site, chabad.org. The posts tell riveting stories of survival during the Holocaust and simple ones of Jews living life far off the beaten path.

Racially Motivated Gang Assault by 10-year-olds, Police Brush it off

Gang Attack. Illustration Photo.

CROWN HEIGHTS, Brooklyn [CHI] — A 12-year-old Jewish girl was the victim of a vicious racially motivated physical and verbal gang assault by a large group of 10-year-old Black boys in a local playground.

The incident took place Tuesday evening at around 7:00pm in the new playground on Montgomery Street between Troy and Schenectady Avenues, according to an account by the girls mother she said that the group first tried provoking her into fighting with them by verbally taunting her, following it up with throwing a ball at her.