Their religious identities flexible, Slovakian Jews show up for Games

BANKSA BYSTRICA, Slovakia, — A young Chabad volunteer from New York has spent five months in Slovakia teaching the basics of Judaism in Bratislava.

Informed that there’s also a Jewish community of some 60 people in Banksa Bystrica, a picturesque hamlet three hours west of the capital, she’s puzzled.

“I didn’t know anything about other Jewish communities. Are they real Jews?” she asks.

Her question epitomizes the divide between some religious Jews in the West and their neighbors in eastern Europe, who often are less observant.

Man Kidnapped From Synagogue Escapes From Trunk

A really bizarre botched robbery incident!

Click Here for a Newscast of this incident.

A 75-year-old man was robbed and kidnapped Thursday while opening a Long Island synagogue for morning prayers, Nassau County police said.

The man was stuffed into the trunk of his car for about an hour until he was able to escape, police said.

The incident began at 5:50 a.m., when the man was preparing the Young Israel Synagogue in North Woodmere for the morning service, police said.

Police said the two masked robbers with guns demanded money from the man, who was not identified. The man told them he had no money, so they took his car and ATM card and put him in the trunk of the car.

The man said the robbers drove around for about an hour, making a couple of stops.

When the car stopped and the man didn’t hear voices in the car anymore, he was able to pry open the trunk, escape and call police.

Architect for New York’s Javits Center under fire

American Jewish leaders welcomed the decision by British architect Richard Rogers to resign his membership in a professional organization that has called for the boycott of Israel’s construction industry. However New York politicians had questions for Lord Richard Rogers, in light of the state contract awarded him on September 29 to design a $1.7 billion project that would almost double the size of Manhattan’s Jacob Javits Convention Center.

Rogers, whose previous commissions have included the headquarters of Lloyd’s of London, the European Court of Human Rights, the Pompidou Center and the Millennium Dome, hosted the inaugural meeting of Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine (APJP) at his London offices on February 2.

The newly formed association of architects, planners and engineers denounced professional colleagues who worked on Israeli government projects in Judea and Samaria as “complicit in social, political and economic oppression,” and violating “their professional code of ethics.”

Bochur Arrested For Drunk & Disorderly Conduct in Public

At around 2:00am [Sunday Morning] an Israeli Bochur was on his way from 770 to the dormitory at 1414 President when a patrolling police officer noticed the Boucher on Kingston and Union not walking straight (all over the place) and approached him, the Boucher immediately turned violent and attempted to fight off the police officer.

A total of 8 police officers arrived on scene immediately and managed to subdue him, while placing him in the police car the Bochur all of a sudden went violent again causing the officers to need to subdue him once more. Arriving at the Precinct the Bochur could no longer stand on his own (being so severely intoxicated).

They say be careful what you wish for, the added patrols add more vigilance to the police force, so be sensible and most importantly be safe.

Torture and Death of Jew Deepen Fears in France

Two strips of red-and-white police tape bar the entrance to the low-ceilinged pump room where a young Jewish man, Ilan Halimi, spent the last weeks of his life, tormented and tortured by his captors and eventually splashed with acid in an attempt to erase any traces of their DNA.

The floor of the concrete room, in the cellar of 4, rue Serge-Prokofiev, is bare except for a few packets of rat poison, a slowly drying wet mark and a dozen small circles drawn and numbered in white chalk, presumably marking the spots where the police retrieved evidence of Mr. Halimi’s ordeal.

TONIGHT! Avraham Fried in Soul II Soul

At 8:15 Tonight at the Brooklyn School of Music & Theater located on Classon Ave. between Union St. & President St. will be the 4th annual Soul II Soul Concert Organized by the Chasdei Zahavi Foundation, an organization the benefits the needs and education of children with special needs of Crown Heights.

The rout to the concert along Eastern Parkway will have an added Police presence and Shomrim Units patrolling for the safety of residents that will be attending.

Those of you that got your tickets already, well lucky you. Very few tickets are still available and can be purchased at the gate (at $50 a seat only).

Parking is available at the museum parking lot for $6 or you can try find parking on the street. And you can take the 3 train towards Manhattan and get off the Eastern Parkway – Brooklyn Museum stop and walk to the school.

Synagogue sues city over closed meeting

Hollywood city commissioners plotted a vote behind closed doors in 2004 to avoid public input and debate over the controversial issue of ousting a synagogue from a residential neighborhood, according to a lawsuit filed Friday by the synagogue’s lawyer.

The commission then took a formal vote to sue the Chabad Lubavitch at the end of a city commission meeting with almost no debate and zero public input.

“The City Commission `pre-agreed’ to file suit against [the Hollywood Community Synagogue] notwithstanding the requirement that a decision of that kind must be made in public following open debate and discussion,” the synagogue’s lawyer, Franklin Zemel, wrote in the civil suit.

New Paltz leaders decry anti-Semitism

The Town Board has condemned incidents of vandalism and behavior targeting the local Jewish community.

The resolution was adopted at the behest of town resident Ira Margolis, who last month requested the board denounce what he says has been an increasing number of instances of “Judeo-phobic behavior” and “acts of prejudice against people of Jewish heritage.”

Town Supervisor Toni Hokanson subsequently had Margolis’ proposed resolution reworded by the town attorney, and it was adopted unanimously by the board last week.

Police Post Reward Posters All Over Crown Heights

Tefillin now permitted in PA Dept. Of Corrections

The Pennsylvania department of corrections, Jeffery A. Beard, Ph.D. Secretary, yesterday (3/3/2006) signed into policy, permitting Jewish inmates to have in their personal property a pair of Tefillin (phylacteries).
Tefillin are square leather boxes with straps, Jewish men over the age of thirteen don them daily (besides Sabbath and Jewish holydays), during prayer in the morning.

Until now Tefillin were permitted for use in the chapel only, as there was the fear of it being used for its unintended purpose. These arrangements, due to the work load of the chaplains in their respective facilities, were not adhered to, according to Rabbi Moishe Mayir Vogel, Executive Director of the Aleph Institute in Pittsburgh. Unfortunately inmates who wished to put on Tefillin were not able to do so.

At a meeting in September between Mr. John S. Shaffer Ph. D. Executive Deputy Secretary of the PA Department of Corrections and Rabbi Vogel, the former agreed to review the state policy once again, to see what he could do to modify the policy. Mr. Shaffer really made this his mission and lobbied hard for what is right and just.

New Clue in Crown Heights Shooting

Police have a new clue in the shooting death of an Lubavitch man in Crown Heights, Brooklyn this week.

47-year old Efraim Klein of Union Street was hit by a bullet as he moved his van for alternate side parking in the early morning hours Tuesday. The vehicle went out of control and slammed into several parked cars before bursting into flames.

The motive is still unclear, but some investigators believe it could’ve been a stray bullet or some kind of road rage scenario.

Now the NYPD is circulating a photo of a white Chevy box van that was apparently captured on a surveillance video moments after the shooting about a block away. The van was traveling southbound on Schenectady Avenue. Police consider the van driver a possible witness and are urging the public to identify him or her.

Anyone with information is asked to call 1-800-577-TIPS.

Anti-Orthodox Center?

First, one of its constituent members, the American Jewish Historical Society, sold off what some scholars believe to be communal treasures — portraits of a leading Colonial Jewish family.

Then it was learned that the Center for Jewish History, on West 16th Street, was losing more than $1 million a year, which led to sharp budget cuts and some layoffs.

And in another blow to the institution often touted as the Jewish people’s Smithsonian, a U.S. District Court judge recently let stand one part of a lawsuit against the center and its chairman, Bruce Slovin, alleging religious discrimination. The suit was filed in 2002 by two Orthodox employees who were fired.