Mourners flood Jerusalem for funeral of Jewish mystical rabbi

Almost a quarter of a million mourners from Israel and around the world have taken part in the funeral in Jerusalem of Kabbalist rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri who died at the age of 106, police said.

The crowd, ferried in by hundreds of buses, gathered near the rabbi’s home in the ultra-Orthodox Bukhara area before being escorted by 1,000 police to his final resting place in the Grand Cemetery at the western entrance to the Holy City.

More pictures in the Extended Article.

Rabbis go ‘RARA’: Jewish re-connect heritage

Two young rabbis, Yosef Muchnik from New York and Eli Gescheit from Sydney, will be in Goulburn this week to make contact with Jewish men women and children living in the district.

The two rabbis volunteered for the five-week tour of inland and coastal NSW to make contact and share their faith during a break in their studies.

The outreach program has come from a tour more than 30 years ago when three young rabbis drove around Australia in a ‘Mitzvah Tank’- caravan, finding Jewish people and reconnecting them with their heritage.

This trip laid the foundation and in July 2000, Chabad of RARA – (Rural and Regional Australia), was established as a non-profit organisation to care for the spiritual and general needs of Jewish men, women, and children outside the main cities.

Bnos Chabad of Agora Hills Adopt Terror Stricken Families

Chabad girls associated with the Chabad House of Agora Hills, California, headed by Rabbi Moshe Bryski, just completed a moving, charitable project for the benefit of terror stricken families in Israel.

The girls ‘adopted’ terror stricken families in Israel. Every girl got a portfolio with details of an assigned family including pictures of the family members. The girls studied Mishnayos and Tanya by heart for ‘Aliyas Hanishomo’ of the killed and for the recovery of the injured.

On Thursdays the girls went on ‘Mivtsa Neshek’ offering women that light Shabbos candles to pray for the names shown on the card attached to the Shabbos candles kit. The girls happily surprised the families in Israel with well wishing cards in honor of Chanukah, where they mentioned that they have them in mind and study Torah for their benefit.

Chabad Of Arizona Celebrates A Sium Safer Torah

Close to 250 people attended the Torah dedication this past Sunday, to Chabad of the West Valley, at the lakes recreational center in Glendale, Arizona.

The Torah Scroll dedicated by Mr. Sholom & Esther Laine of Brooklyn NY, was billed as historic event and was the first Torah Scroll to have been begun and completed in the growing communities which comprise the West Valley of the Greater Phoenix area.

Rabbi Zalman Levertov director of Chabad of Arizona, led the attendees in the recital of Psalms for peace and security for all of Israel followed by a few brief remarks.

Chabad Event To Aid Katrina Victims

With a few spare minutes today and a couple of simple knots, UCSB students can help provide those who were hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina with some much-needed warmth.

Students can make no-sew blankets for Hurricane Katrina victims and their children, as well as the victims themselves, today from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Arbor and from 4 to 6 p.m. in Santa Cruz and Francisco Torres Residence Halls. Volunteers can also make blankets from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Chabad House, located at 6655 #B on Abrego Road.

“It’s a way we can help out on a smaller scale, although it’s a huge mitzvah, which is the Hebrew word for a good deed,” Chabad Program Director Rochel Loschak said. “Every blanket counts, and every little good deed we can do makes a better world.”

Mystery of Time

Fairfax Chabad offers a class in Jewish mysticism.

A few years ago, Doris Snyder got the feeling that she had something more to learn about her Jewish faith. She needed answers to questions about things like the Jewish concept of life after death, she said. She had attended programs at Chabad Lubavitch of Northern Virginia, a Jewish outreach organization with a campus in Fairfax, and chanced to see adult education classes offered through the organization.

“I almost tripped over Chabad,” said Snyder. Before long, she and daughter Beth Axelrod were attending every one. Through Chabad, Snyder said, she has studied subjects such as the spiritual issues of right and wrong surrounding the Holocaust, and the stories of Biblical characters in everyday life.

“You come away with knowledge about things on a level you never knew existed before,” said Snyder, comparing the classes to studying philosophy. “It’s that feeling of never getting there, but the pursuit is extremely exciting.”

Chabad of Cobb ready to build new home

The congregation of Chabad of Cobb started with only a few families in the early 1990s. They met regularly to worship in a rented classroom and later in a storefront of a converted bakery in an east Cobb shopping center.

In 1995, they bought a 40-year-old house on Lower Roswell Road. On Sunday, the congregation will have a groundbreaking for a $1.6 million,19,000-square-foot sanctuary and community gathering place.

Rabbi Ephraim Silverman, who has been the director of the Chabad of Cobb since 2000, said the present building will be torn down after the end of the children’s Hebrew classes in May. Construction will take eight to 12 months.

All 4 Shomrim Divisions Embark On A Massive Search, Missing B”H Found

On Wednesday at around 3:00pm Boro Park Shomrim Central dispatch called over a missing person incident into all divisions of Shomrim. The Missing an 83 year old man suffering from Alzheimer’s and has been missing since 9:30 that morning. His wife who was at the doctors that morning, upon returning home she saw he wasn’t home and she got very anxious and called Shomrim, who then alerted the Police and all other Shomrim Divisions and initiated a Level One Mobilization.

A team of Crown Heights Shomrim units were seen racing down Empire Blvd. towards the command post posted the junction of 10th Ave. and 44th St. and were given straight away grid blocks of the area to search. The search continued throughout the day and most of the night with Shomrim members from Crown Heights, Boro Park, Flatbush and Williamsburg.

The man was found B”H at 4:00am on Neptune and west 7th in the Coney Island area and brought back home to his anxious wife after being check out by medical personal. Apparently he had gotten lost and flustered and was walking the entire day trying to find his way. On behalf of the Boro Park Shomrim “we would like to thank all units from all the joining neighborhoods for the help in finding the man, keep up the good work”.

Win a Bike by Listening to Jewish Kids Radio!

Jewish Kids Radio, the sensational new hit radio show for kids, announces an exciting new contest for all children under Bar or Bas Mitzvah!

Jewish Kids Radio invites children to submit a Mitzvah note, describing a mitzvah that they have done recently. The letter may be written by the child, a parent, or other adult, and must be signed by an adult. Be sure to include the child’s name, age, address, and phone number. Entries must be submitted by mail or online and received by the 5 th of Shvat, February 3rd. The show host, Chaim, will call a child live during the show. A special password will be announced during the show and the child must yell out the correct password when they answer the phone in order to win. The first child to know the password will win a bicycle.

The Unity of Opposites

Why has the Chabad-Lubavitch sect become so successful? On the surface, the group would seem like a strange candidate for world prominence: One of the more intellectual strands of Hasidism, Chabad was once regarded as a sect of philosophers as compared with some of the other, more populist, Hasidic factions. Today, its arcane customs, strict observance of Jewish law and, of course, the notorious messianism of the last generation, all should deter newcomers. And yet, today Chabad is among the most successful Jewish outreach organizations in the world. What is going on?

If you ask a skeptic, Chabad’s success has everything to do with luck and marketing. Luck in that, unlike many other sects, Chabad survived the Holocaust more or less intact. They suffered grievous losses, of course, but other sects were completely wiped out; Chabad was not. And marketing: as chronicled in two recent books, Sue Fishkoff’s “The Rebbe’s Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch” (Schocken, 2003) and M. Avrum Ehrlich’s “The Messiah of Brooklyn: Understanding the Lubavitch Past and Present” (Ktav Publishing House, 2005), Chabad is unique in its organized, hierarchical and sometimes ruthlessly efficient structure. The late Lubavitcher Rebbe, whatever we may make of those who would deify him, was an expert marketer and a genius at organization. Take these two factors together, add in some messianic zeal, and you have the burgeoning Chabad-Lubavitch phenomenon, mitzvah tanks and all.

Car and House Break-ins taken to a whole new level!

CrownHeights.info has received reports of thieves breaking into cars that are parked in garages in alleyways. This is a very disturbing development since it shows how brazen these thieves are becoming.

In one incident a woman who was getting into her car in the morning noticed that things weren’t as she had left them when parking the car. She noticed that the ashtray which is usually full of coins was emptied. The car was parked behind a gated off driveway!

And here is one more incident of how brazen a thief was, during a yoga class in a basement in Crown Heights, the people attending the class heard the door open but paid no attention to it thinking maybe it was just another person who was joining the class, however when the class ended they noticed some clothing and a wallet were missing.

Even though the police have increased patrols we strongly encourage you to be more vigilant, lock the doors of your house’s and cars, and if you hear or see anything suspicious, do not hesitate to call 911 and Shomrim at (718) 774-3333.

Iran: Israel will be put in ‘eternal coma’ if it attacks nuclear sites

Were Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran would respond so strongly that it would put the Jewish state into “an eternal coma” like Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s, the Iranian defense minister said Wednesday.

Earlier this week, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has said Israel would not accept Iran’s acquiring nuclear weapons under any circumstances. He stopped short of threatening a military strike against Iran – as Israel destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 – but he said Israel was preparing for the possible failure of diplomatic negotiations with Iran.