So CBS Says Bloomberg Attended A “Hassidic Dinner”

First you need to watch this Newscast.

Now doesn’t the report give you that empty feeling, like a whole other big thing has just been ignored?

Now I can understand the reporter was there just for the mayor and the whole transit strike threat that’s going on, but to just dismiss the event as a “Hassidic Dinner” c’mon that’s just not right. I mean the Israeli ambassador to the UN and the Chief Rabbi of Israel among many other dignitaries were present.

And even further, this was NOT a “Hassidic Dinner” this was a gathering of various influential Jewish business men that support their fellow Jews around the world, why not give such a beautiful organization a little recognition?

Please post your comments and thoughts regarding this piece of reporting. If you feel the need to go ahead and email the reporter Click Here and then select “Kramer, Marcia” and speak your mind. (note: whatever you email her post it in the comments as well.)

Salita’s perfect record on line in NYC fight

The top two Jewish fighters in the world hope to give fans an early Hannukah present this weekend.

As Jews worldwide begin their preparations for the holiday, a modern day Maccabee will put his perfect record on the line. When Dmitriy “The Star of David” Salita enters the ring at the Manhattan Center in New York City on Thursday, it could mean a festival of lights out for his opponent “Red Hot” Robert Frankel.

Frankel, a native of Denver, Colorado, is 12-4 with 1 KO. Salita, an Orthodox Russian Jew from Brooklyn, NY, is undefeated with a record of 23-0 with 14 KOs.

Caution: Icy Roads and Side Walks

The forecast for tonight was rain and below freezing temperatures and it was very accurate. Roads and highways froze over and caused well over 40 accidents all across the tri-state area.

Friday day the temperature is supposed to hit a good high which should melt most of the ice away, but we urge you to take extra caution when going out regardless. This doesn’t only apply to driving, it applies to walking too, be extra cautious on the sidewalks due to the fact that there can be black ice that can cause you to slip and C”V get hurt.

We would like to take this opportunity to ask residents to please make sure to clean the ice (scrape and salt) being that if someone slips in front of your house its your fault, not to mention the possible fines you can get, and it is just a “Menshlich” thing to do.

Chabad Plans to Light 11,000 Public Menorahs

The Chabad Lubavitch organization plans to light more than 11,000 public menorahs throughout the world during the festival of Chanukah, which starts Sunday night, December 25.

Chabad leaders said funding for its activities have come from all sectors of the Jewish community over the past decade as they have begun to accept Chabad as important to Jewry, the New York Jewish Week reported.

Non-orthodox Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz recently said at a Chabad dinner that he once was skeptical of its abilities. “My idea was: Chabad at Harvard? Impossible. How could that ever happen? Kids come to Harvard to rebel against their parents, to rebel against religion, to look for other ways, to look for more liberal attitudes.” He said that Chabad has been extremely successful in becoming a meeting center for Jews at Harvard.

1928: Marriage

In December of 1928, the Rebbe’s marriage to Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, daughter of the then Lubavitcher Rebbe Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, was held in Warsaw, Poland.

By then, word of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak’s heroic struggle on behalf of Soviet Jewry was world renowned, and the high regard in which he was held was evidenced by the numerous rabbis, Rebbes and lay leaders of European Jewry, and the thousands of people from all walks of life, who honored him with their presence at his daughter’s wedding.

At the beginning of the wedding, the Rebbetzin’s father announced:

The Rebbes Wedding Invitation

In honor of Yud Daled Kislev, the anniversary of the Rebbe’s wedding, CrownHeights.info is proud to present to all our readers a unique and rare find, an invitation to the Rebbe’s wedding. This particular one is inviting the Bochurim of Yeshivas Toras Emes, Yerushalayim.

Maplewood expected to approve proposal for Shabbat boundary

The Maplewood Township Committee will vote on a proposal Dec. 20 on whether to allow a group representing two Orthodox synagogues to erect an eruv in the community.

There has been no opposition to the proposal to erect the eruv, a largely symbolic Shabbat boundary, and all involved expect the proposal to pass.

Steve Bauml, president of Congregation Beth Ephraim-Maplewood Jewish Center, spearheaded a six-person committee that presented the issue at a township committee meeting on Dec. 6. The committee included members of Beth Ephraim and of Maplewood’s other Orthodox synagogue, Congregation Ahavath Zion. The rabbis of both synagogues are associated with Chabad-Lubavitch, the hasidic outreach movement.

The Festival of Slights?

Happy holidays?

Apparently not for the Town of Huntington where, barring an 11th-hour resolution, a U.S. District Court judge in Central Islip will be asked tonight to decide the fate of a holiday display on the Village Green on Park Avenue and Route 25A.

This after a local lawyer who sued the town agreed to a court-brokered compromise Friday hours before the annual Xmas tree lighting ceremonies apparently had a change of heart over the weekend, making new demands yesterday.

Tuning Out Terror

Florida professor’s trial and acquittal generated little national coverage despite its consequences.

Perhaps no one since Adolph Eichmann has been charged with complicity in more Jewish murders than Sami Al-Arian, the Florida professor affiliated with Islamic Jihad.

The difference between Eichmann and Al-Arian is that in 1962, the year the Nazi was hanged for his crimes against humanity, the American public and the Jewish public cared. In 2005, with the lack of media coverage, maybe they weren’t given an opportunity to care.

City Urges Halt To Ritual Practice

Unprecedented open letter says controversial circumcision technique is dangerous; haredim say they won’t heed warning.

In the face of a beis din’s failure to conclude its investigation of a mohel who health officials say transmitted herpes to three babies, New York City’s health commissioner issued an unprecedented public warning Tuesday that a controversial circumcision procedure is endangering the lives of Jewish infants.

“There exists no reasonable doubt that metzitzah b’peh can and has caused neonatal herpes infection,” Dr. Thomas Frieden wrote in “An Open Letter to the Jewish Community” about a procedure routinely practiced by mohels in some sectors of the Orthodox community. “The Health Department recommends that infants being circumcised not undergo metzitzah b’peh.”

Menorah Lights Triumph Yet Again

In Shrewsbury, MA, a Chanukah miracle took place when the town Board of Selectmen voted to reverse their original vote to deny the Chabad Jewish Center permission to light the menorah on the town common. Chabad representative Rabbi Michoel Green will kindle the menorah there on December 25th at 5:30 p.m. and the menorah will be lit every night of the eight-day Chanukah holiday.

Public menorah displays testament to the growing acceptance of Chabad

Ten years ago, the American Jewish Congress sued the city of Beverly Hills, Calif., to block the local Chabad house from erecting a 27-foot menorah in a public park near City Hall.

Displaying the menorah — a Jewish religious symbol — on public property, the AJCongress argued, was unconstitutional.

The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the city, allowing Chabad to put up the large candelabra. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals later reversed the decision.

Virtual Chanukah Launched!

Chabad.org has launched their Virtual Chanukah website which contains a lot of information about Chanukah from stories to insights, games and greeting cards and loads more.

Chanukah Live; the program that Chabad.org runs every year, which gives us a live broadcast of menorah lightings from around the world, will be accessible through the Virtual Chanukah website as well.

Click Here to check it out!

Class, Brass and 23 Doors

A very interesting article about a house in Crown Heights on how it was back in the day, which appeared in the NY Times.

Beulah Smith lived for 44 years in a brownstone at Park Place and Brooklyn Avenue in Crown Heights. She never took in boarders, and after the death of her husband, Ivan, she lived alone among the oak paneling, stained glass and flowery wooden fretwork of her turn-of-the-century house.

When Ms. Smith died in 1996, at age 94, much of the interior of the house had remained unchanged since 1900. The shower, for example, was a brass affair with a huge dome-shaped spout, suspended above a large, wide-rimmed tub.

Last Thursday, in a self-storage warehouse at Third Avenue and First Street, near the Gowanus Canal, David Goldstein examined that tub with delight. “It’s got these great three-inch rims, which are fantastic,” he said. “I’m not crazy about claw feet, and it hasn’t got claw feet.”