Jewish Music World Mourns Passing of Izzy Taubenfeld OBM

Tuesday morning came the sad news of the very untimely passing of Izzy (Itzchak Moshe) Taubenfeld OBM, owner and president of the Jewish music production company ‘Sameach Music’.

Recently, Izzy suffered from Yenem Machalah, which today claimed his life at the young age of 55 leaving behind a family, hundreds of friends and tens of thousands that he inspirited and made happy through the music he produced and promoted. Izzy was described as a man who stopped at nothing to help others and make sure they were happy, and a bright smile never left his face.

Old World Flavor – Visiting Crown Heights Matzah Bakery

CROWN HEIGHTS — Walk through the unmarked black doors of a nondescript brick building in Brooklyn, and you stumble onto a time machine.

Here, at one of the half-dozen or so shmura matzo factories remaining in New York, a bustling team of bakers keeps alive the art of making matzo the old-fashioned way.

Agriprocessors Auction Falls Apart

POSTVILLE IA — Attempts to sell machinery, land and other property from Postville’s debt-riddled kosher meat plant collapsed Tuesday after potential buyers failed to make an offer that satisfied the plant’s two largest creditors.

Lawmakers Fall for Debunked Anti-Obama Rumor

WASHINGTON [JTA] — Then-candidate Barack Obama and his campaign team spent months debunking smears that he was a closeted Islamic radical. Now his critics, including GOP lawmakers, have given life to an already debunked rumor that the president signed an executive order allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees “with ties to Hamas” to resettle in the United States.

Online Mikvah Calendar Eases Jewish Family Purity Observance

A new Online Mikvah Calendar created especially for the internet-savvy Jewish woman-of-today is making it easier to observe the complex Jewish laws of family purity.

The website, which was rolled out this week [and is advertised here on CrownHeights.info], is the brainchild of Rebbetzin Rivkah Bloom, who grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina. She was the only Jewish child in her grade, forced at age 14 to leave home for a Jewish school in Pennsylvania, and from there to seminary in Israel. What followed led to software that has the potential to change the lives of millions of women: her years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she earned Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.