Oblivious to the Obvious

by Getzy Markowitz – Jewish Thought in Simple Words

Aircraft maintenance has Yehuda and me delayed for a few hours at Jakarta’s Soekarno Hatta International Airport, as we await departure for Bali. Grounded passengers look gloomy as they lounge on oversized surfboards and grumble. They have been forced to replace adrenaline-rushed calls for “surf’s up” with anxious anticipation for “gear’s up.”

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Friendship Circle Campaign Enlists Support of Detroit Radio Host

By Chana Kroll for Chabad.org

A highlight of the Friendship Circle’s annual publicity and fundraising drive is the painting of supporters’ cars.

Preparations for an annual walkathon benefiting the founding chapter of the Friendship Circle – a Chabad-Lubavitch network of programs that pair teenage volunteers with children with special needs – is generating a buzz among Detroit-area residents thanks to the endorsement of a local radio personality and a cadre of dedicated volunteers.

‘Visa problems’: Moshe Aunt, Uncle Call off Mumbai Trip

IndianExpress.com

Complaining that the Indian government was not giving them long-term visas, Rabbi Yaakov-David Leiter and his wife Sara, who were hoping to carry forward the legacy of Sara’s sister Rivka Holtzberg and her husband Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg at Chabad House in Mumbai, have apparently changed their mind and decided not to take up the assignment.

New NYPD Brew: Fewer Cops, more Gripes

NY Post

Despite a shrinking NYPD, the number of mistreatment claims against city cops jumped 7 percent in the first six months of 2009 — a pace that would shatter the annual record filed with the Civilian Complaint Review Board, The Post has learned.

CCRB stats show 4,028 complaints filed between Jan. 1 and June 30, compared with 3,764 in the first half of ’08. At that rate, there’d be 8,056 this year, eclipsing the 2006 record of 7,663.

With more complaints usually filed in the second half of the calendar year, a CCRB official acknowledged in May that as many as 8,200, or an 11 percent rise over last year, would likely be tallied in ’09, sources said.

Conservative Rabbi Challenges Kosher Law

By Bill Rankin and Christopher Quinn for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

ATLANTA, GA — A Cobb rabbi is seeking to declare Georgia’s Kosher Food Labeling Act unconstitutional, saying it de-legitimizes interpretations of “kosher” by different Jewish communities.

Shalom Lewis, rabbi of Congregation Etz Chaim, filed suit Thursday in Fulton County Superior Court. He is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Georgia and Atlanta law firm King & Spalding.

The Kosher Food Labeling Act, enacted in 1980, mandates that any food sold as kosher must meet “orthodox Hebrew religious rules and requirements.”

Slow-Going Search for Missing Hiker

by Chana Kroll – Chabad.org

Rabbis Yehuda Kirsch, left, and Levi Pekar, prepare to take another group of volunteers from Manali, India, to search for missing American-Israeli backpacker Amichai Shtainmetz.

After a grueling search of all possible routes between the mountainous villages of Khira Ghanga and Bunbuny in northern India, rescuers have shifted focus in their mission to find Amichai Shtainmetz, the 24-year-old American-Israeli backpacker who disappeared more than two weeks ago.