Boy Beaten In Attempted Robbery of his Bike

Last week, Thursday, at 5:30 in the afternoon, two fourteen year old Bochurim were riding their bikes down Brooklyn Ave, when two Black youths approached one of the boys from behind and struck him in the head with a heavy tool knocking him off his bike. They then proceeded to take the bike and began running with it down Brooklyn towards St. Johns Pl.

Another Bochur who witnessed this incident saw the attackers fleeing with the bike, and were headed in his direction, when passing him he managed to get the perp off the bike, who then just left the bike and ran. Other bystanders attempted to chase the youths but lost them at the intersection of St. Johns Pl. During the pursuit the attackers the tool they used to assault the boy while they were fleeing.

The Face of a Hero

Roi Klein.

It is a name that until a few days ago held no meaning to me. He was a complete stranger, about whom I had never heard and whom I had never met.

Yet an image of the last seconds of his life won’t leave my mind.

Roi was a son. He was a brother. He was a husband to Sara and a father to three-year-old Gilad and one-year-old Yoav.

City lawyer defends rules to Chabad

Cooper City officials aren’t backing down from a synagogue that wants to challenge the city’s zoning rules, even if it means facing a religious discrimination lawsuit.

But they are at least willing to talk it out.

That’s what a letter from city attorneys to attorney Franklin Zemel said Thursday. Zemel is representing Rabbi Shmuel Posner, who has been trying to set up a Chabad outreach center in a Griffin Road shopping center for years.

Zemel recently won a zoning case in Hollywood, which awarded a Chabad synagogue $2 million and the right to operate a house of worship in a residential area.

Las Vegas Jewish Community Booms

Jumping from 55,000 in 1997 to 75,000 in 2000, the boom in Las Vegas’s Jewish community is well on its way to reaching, perhaps surpassing, the American Jewish Committee’s projected 2010 census of 100,000 Jews. But where exactly do all these Jews live? On the strip, among the neon?

First-ever fair to offer Israeli art, Kosher food, Klezmer

Guilford, CT – Judaism is the ancient tradition of a relatively small community of people. It was the first documented religion to hold as its central belief the idea of monotheism: the conviction that there is only one God, an omniscient source of all power who bonded with God’s “chosen people” since the days of the biblical forbearers Abraham and Sarah. It is the parent religion for Christianity and even Islam.

Now, Rabbi Yossi Yaffe, director of Chabad of the Shoreline wants to extend elements of this ancient faith and culture to believers – and non-believers with curious minds – by sponsoring the very first Shoreline Jewish Festival on the Green Aug. 13.

Coast Guard now allows religious headgear

The skullcap can stay on the Coast Guard auxiliarist’s head after all. Jack Rosenberg, a 35-year-old Hasidic Jew from Rockland County, N.Y., signed up for the Coast Guard Auxiliary last year and passed his training, only to be informed that regulations forbade him to wear his skullcap during some duties.

Much as he loves his country, Rosenberg was not about to doff his skullcap, which a Hasid normally sheds only to shower or to swim, so his uniform stayed in the closet.

Now he does not have to. The Coast Guard is issuing new regulations allowing members to wear religious headgear, a spokesman for the guard, Chief Petty Officer Daniel Tremper, said Tuesday. This brings the guard, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, into line with the armed forces under the Defense Department, which have permitted religious garb since 1987.

Woman creates Jewish library at ‘Holy Name’ Hospital

Teaneck, NJ – A life-sized statue of Yoshke stands in the lobby of Holy Name Hospital here, a Catholic hospital that boasts a chapel, crosses decorating the walls — and now, a Jewish library.

“We’re a Catholic hospital, but we’re [smack] in the middle of a huge Jewish community,” said Jonathan Hirsch, director of guest services at Holy Name. Thus many patients are Jewish.

“The nurses are sensitized to Shabbos observers,” said Debbie Ross, the hospital’s director of clinical information systems. An extensive kosher menu is available, as well as Friday night candle-lighting.

Rivka Lewin, a township resident and a bikkur cholim (visiting the sick) volunteer, had noticed Jewish patients spending their days watching television. She thought that if the patients had something worthwhile to read, they might better occupy their time. Also, Lewin said in a recent interview, “patients need spiritual support.” She brought her idea of a library of Jewish books to the hospital’s public relations department.

NYPD Perform Anti Terror Drills In Crown Heights

Much speculation has gone into why was there hundreds of police vehicles lined up on Kingston Ave. and Eastern Pkwy. on Friday last week and the past two days, some reported it being “an added police presents due to a rise in crime” or “Police always perform these drills across the city”. This drill was infact titled a ‘general exercise’ which was a city wide anti terror and readiness drill in which cars from precincts around the city participated in.

Both 770 and the Jewish Children’s Museum are considered terror targets, and may be one of the reasons the drill was performed here.