Synagogue Ushers in New Era of Services for Russia’s Inmates

For High Holiday services this year, Jewish inmates in northern Russia’s Ertsevo prison made history when they prayed in the sprawling country’s first on-site synagogue, a worship space they helped build. And as they turn their eyes to the fast-approaching holiday of Sukkot, plans in the works call for similar inmate-built synagogues to pop up at correctional institutions in the near future.

Picturesque Mikvah Being Renovated in Tzfat

TZFAT, Israel [CHI] — In his last visit to Tzfat Rabbi Joseph Gutnick visited the Mikvah in Kiriyat Chabad which he sponsored over 25 years ago, and he commissioned the renovation and refurbishment of the aging Mikvah.

Submariner At Sea Calls On Chabad For High Holy Day Prayer Texts

What’s a submariner at sea to do on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur without a prayer book? Shortly before the Jewish New Year set in, Chabad representative to Norfolk, VA, Rabbi Levi Brashevitsky, received the following email from U.S. submariner Brian Lantz, stationed on the USS Norfolk (SSN 714) submarine, homeported in Norfolk, Virginia. The Chabad rabbi directed the letter to KEHOT, the Chabad-Lubavitch publishing house.

Chabad Wins Approval on Landmark Project

A unanimous decision reached Tuesday by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, granted Chabad of the West Side a Certificate of Appropriateness allowing for construction on two neighboring buildings on West 86th Street between Columbus and Central Park West.

An Improvised Holiday

Bad enough that my heartbeat went berserk and I had to be hospitalized. But on Rosh Hashanah? And me, an observant Jew?! Not only would I miss the synagogue service I so loved, and not have visitors because they were forbidden to drive, but how could I possibly adhere to the High Holy Day commandments? Sure, God would forgive me — my life was at stake — but I couldn’t bear the thought of ushering in the New Year without its glorious ritual.

The hospital has its own rituals, I soon discovered, beginning with admissions.

“My husband is Jewish, too,” said the clerk at the Alta Bates hospital in Berkeley, Calif., as I checked in, while glancing at the religious affiliation on the form I had just filled out.

“Is he a good husband?” I asked, at a loss for the right thing to say.