Communities Study Torah in the Merit of Mumbai Victims

In addition to the tens of thousands of people who have pledged to spread goodness and kindness throughout the world, and to take on a specific deed in the merit of those who perished last month in the Mumbai terror attacks, many organizations and communities have launched Torah study campaigns as a way to honor the deceased.

Chanukah Cheers Detroit’s Chabad in Shadow of Mumbai

WEST BLOOMFIELD, MI — As the piano player jammed away, three generations of the Shemtov family danced and sang with joy inside a Jewish center in West Bloomfield last Sunday night.

It was the bar mitzvah of Levi Shemtov, the 13-year-old grandson of a Russian immigrant who moved to Detroit 50 years ago to start the Michigan branch of an Orthodox Jewish group, Chabad Lubavitch. Last month, the group garnered worldwide attention with the terrorist murders of two of its members at a Chabad house in Mumbai, India.

Zhitomir Jewish School Shines

ZHITOMIR, Ukraine [FJC] — This week, the Ohr Avner Chabad Day School of Zhitomir hosted a group of high-profile guests, all of whom are Jewish leaders active in the sphere of formal and informal Jewish education in the countries of the former Soviet Union. Among the members of the visiting delegation were Rabbi Dovid Mondshine, the Director of the Ohr Avner Foundation in Moscow, ‘Avi Chai’ Foundation Director in Russia David Rosenson, and yet one other representative of the Ohr Avner Foundation, Chaim Friedman.

The distinguished guests dropped by the day on Kislev 19, which is very symbolic since this is the New Year of Chassidism – a very joyous occasion. On this day, the visitors wished all the students a good year of studying Chassidic teachings, and the teachers good success in teaching them. In return, the pupils wished them all the best in this year and thanked them for their contribution to Jewish education in Ukraine.