Urals Synagogue Marks Centennial Anniversary

CHELYABINSK, Russia – Chelyabinsk is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its Synagogue with a series of festivities which got underway today. In addition to involving Mayor Mikhail Yurevich and other regional officials, the opening event involved Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar and other representatives of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia. The leaders also participated in a meeting with the region’s Governor Pyotr Sumin, who had helped the local community restore its Synagogue by allotting a sum of 200,000 rubles (about $7,000).

Rabbi Meir Kirsch, the Chief Rabbi of Chelyabinsk and a Chabad Lubavitch emissary, delivered an address to the audience and presented certificates of recognition to donors who supported the Synagogue’s construction. Guests enjoyed a guided tour of the two-story building. Festivities are to continue in the city’s Drama Theater, where a gala concert is to take place tonight.

The Shluchim Group Picture

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The Kinnus Hashluchim Gala Banquet, NOW LIVE!

All those of you that couldn’t get to the banquet for one reason or another you can watch it live over the internet instead.

The Tzeirei Hashluchim Group Picture

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Chabad house endures trying times

West Boca – After one worshiper shot another outside the crowded prayer hall, a media storm descended.

When the cameras pulled away, the disoriented congregation at Chabad Weltman Synagogue was left to heal as one of its members recovered from two gunshot wounds and another sat behind bars.

Then Wilma struck. Confusion flared. So did prayer in the dark while Chabad volunteers walked through mangled neighborhoods to feed the hungry.

When sharing runs afoul of the law

While shooting the Israeli film “Ushpizin,” Gidi Dar’s critically acclaimed fable about the power of faith, filmmakers adhered strictly to the rules of Orthodox Judaism, vetting the story with rabbis and declining to shoot on the Sabbath. But when two U.S. synagogues recently screened foreign DVDs of the movie, they ran afoul of Hollywood’s own orthodoxy: to charge admission requires permission.

Picturehouse, distributor of the film, threatened legal action in a letter to the Chabad Center of Passaic County, N.J. To educate the public, the company also placed ads in publications such as the Jewish Journal. Though the matter was settled amicably this week, the episode provided a glimpse into a clash of cultures over the issue of intellectual property rights.

Chabad joins Shas campaign

Members of the Chabad Hasidic movement will assist Shas in the upcoming elections campaign, the ultra-Orthodox party said Thursday.

Shas spokesman Roi Lachmanovitch said that the agreement between Shas and Chabad was reached through MK Amnon Cohen, who is close to billionaire and Chabad member Lev Leviev.

Lachmanovitch said Chabad members will help with field work at the Shas election headquarters, and will not be involved in a national campaign as it was in 1996, when it used the pro-Netanyahu slogan, “Bibi is good for the Jews.”

Shluchim Conference: A Time for Taking Stock

A Chasidic quip attributed to Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi says, “Your neighbor’s material wellbeing is the stuff of your spiritual wellbeing.”

This idea, delivered with the familiar punch of Chabad aphoristic teachings, was directed at devout disciples of the founding father of Chabad Chasidism. Men of practiced self-denial, they lived spartan lives in pursuit of holiness. But in establishing some of the foundational values of Chabad, their teacher, Rabbi Schneur Zalman, eschewed any aspirations to the ethereal that might preclude involvement in the corporeal as it pertains to others.

Oholei Torah Alumni Reunion

Last night Oholei Torah Alumni gathered for a reunion and a Chassideshe Farbrengen. The event also was an opening ceremony for Oholei Torah’s Shnas HaChamishim.

A New Project was launched at the event, a website www.oholeitorah.com which will serve as a base to keep alumni in touch with each other and connected with Oholei Torah.

The reunion was opened with the Rebbe’s kapitol by Naftali Junik, a 5th grade student, followed by a Dvar Torah by R. Yossi Paltiel. The event was sponsored by R’ Dovid Junik in memory of his father R’Berl. Representing the family was Shlomo Junik, who told the crowd about his experiences he personally had with the Rebbe and Rebbetzin.

More pictures in the Extended Article.

New Center to Rise in New Jersey

Two hundred people celebrated the best kind of growing pains when Chabad Center of Northwest New Jersey broke ground for its new 12,000 square foot home.

Just ten years ago, Chabad moved into its home on One Torah Way, but the popularity of its preschool, classes, Hebrew school and new Hebrew high have filled its cozy synagogue and ground floor classrooms to capacity and then some. In the current space, much time is spent moving the tiny tables and knee-high chairs to the side for Hebrew school and evening Torah classes and then back again so the kids have room for blocks and play dough the next morning. “The new building will allow for the quality and quantity of our classes to be enhanced,” said Chabad representative Rabbi Asher Herson.

International Representation of World Jewry Convenes at Annual Conference

Conference organizers at Lubavitch Headquarters are expecting a record-breaking 3000 participants at this year’s International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Shluchim. That’s a marked increase from last year’s conference which topped off at around 2300, a result, says Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, Vice Chairman of Merkos L’inyonei Chinuch, “of the fact that so many young Lubavitch couples have joined ranks with the Shluchim since last year.”

The five-day conference begins November 24. It’s the one chance a year that Shluchim get to unwind and regenerate among fellow travelers in their life-long calling known as Shlichus. On this annual return to the hearth and home of Lubavitch, the Shluchim are treated to a content-rich program of workshops, seminars and presentations covering a wide variety of topics related to their work.

Hollywood critized for tactics against orthodox Jewish group

The city’s former code enforcement chief told federal lawyers she thought the city’s scrutiny of an orthodox Jewish group using a private home to conduct services was “excessive.”

In a Nov. 10 deposition, Jackie Gonzalez, the city’s former director of development administration and economic development, said the city’s methods left a “bad taste” in her mouth.

“We visited the Chabad on a regular basis … and it was continuous, continuous, continuous, and I felt maybe a little too continuous or excessive,” she said.