Chabad fights for religious symbols on public property

Shrewsbury and Wellesley [in Boston, MA] are two towns questioning the display of menorahs

Local Chabad rabbis are meeting resistance from town officials over displaying menorahs and holding candlelighting ceremonies on public property this Chanukah season.

Shrewsbury town selectmen originally refused a request from Rabbi Michoel Green to place a menorah in the town common. However, after a Nov. 21 meeting, the town decided to retract their refusal, although they have not given Chabad permission to display the menorah.

In Wellesley, Rabbi Moshe Bleich successfully negotiated with town officials to allow a menorah to be displayed on the town lawn for the entire holiday season under the agreement that he would rescind his request to hold a public ceremony.

Tonight: Fifty Years of Alumni

Oholei Torah reminds all its alumni, including the bochurim of last few years to join in the Alumni Reunion tonight. The program is full of surprises and special guest speakers including prominent Shluchim and askanim. The Alumni office will be launching a new project to benefit Oholei Torah Alumni at the reunion.

During the reunion a special tribute will be made in memory of Reb Michoel Teitelbaum, o”h, and the farbrengen will also be the opening for the Shnas Hachamishim celebrations in Oholei Torah Don’t miss this historic event!

No More Honking on Kingston Ave.

A few new signs went up on Kingston and President, Kingston and Union and Kingston and Eastern Pkwy. the signs read “Don’t Honk – $350 Penalty”.

Now as most of you know of the ticket blitzing that keeps on going on in our neighborhood [where crime is always at its lowest], well this is just another warning for something that they have the new ability to “catch you on” [a pretty expensive catch].

So for all you drivers, please make sure to wear your seat belts and use your phone with a hands free kit or just don’t use it, and now don’t use your horn either.

Oholei Torah Administration Responds to the Accidents

After the 2 accidents involving students from the school [one on a bike, the other was 2 walking home on Shabbos] the administration put up a peculiar note on the “Zal” billboard.

Gulag Survivor Relays What He Withstood in Defense of Judaism

Like so many other Chasidim living in the Soviet Union, Baruch Mordechai Lifshits was a target of the authorities from an early age. So, it came as no surprise when the 21-year-old, just newly engaged, found a swarm of KGB agents looking for evidence of his “subversive teachings.”

They came to his home – displaying a piece of paper indicating they had been watching the Moscow-based shochet and mohel – and barked, “Where are the Jewish books?”

As the now 89-year-old Brooklyn resident relayed to some 20 students and professors at the University of Pennsylvania on Nov. 10, the walls of his home were filled with volumes of the Talmud, commentaries on the Torah and books on halachah.

New Shluchim to Washington heights

Rabbi and Mrs. Yackov Kirschenbaum will be moving on Shlichus
to Washington Heights on the Upper West Side Manhattan.

They were appointed by the head Shliach of the West Side Rabbi Shlomo Kugal and Merkaz Le’einyanay Chinuch.

Hatzlacha Rabba!

Rapper Matisyahu – From Bible To Billboard

COULD a bearded, brim-hatted Lubavitcher from Crown Heights be one of next year’s breakout musical stars?

It’s not as far-fetched as it might sound. Since his live album was released last year, the buzz has been growing around Matisyahu, a 26-year-old vocalist whose music combines reggae, hip-hop and Jewish spirituality.

Bullets keep flying in my backyard

Exactly two weeks after the Daily News published my concerns about raising my son in a rough neighborhood – Crown Heights – where crime is on the rise, the front-page story was about one of my neighbors, Police Officer Wiener Philippe, getting robbed and shot on St. Johns Place by a thieving lowlife who remained at large as of yesterday afternoon. The NYPD’s command staff must now match Philippe’s bravery with concerted action.

After years of headlines touting historic declines in crime, the latest numbers in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights and Prospect Heights neighborhoods paint a much less rosy picture.

In the 77th Precinct, where I live, there were 15 murders last year – way down from 1989, when 70 people were murdered, but still an unacceptable 66% increase from 1998. In the neighboring 71st, which covers lower Crown Heights, there have been 18 murders this year, an eye-popping 157% increase from last year.

Piamenta Strung out

Almost 29 years have gone by since the rock guitarist Yossi Piamenta left Israel for New York in order to work on his joint album with the legendary sax player Stan Getz. The album never happened. Instead, Piamenta found G-D and became religiously observant, married his 16-year-old cousin, raised six children and, within a few years, from his Brooklyn base, gained a reputation as the “Hasidic Hendrix,” not to say the “gefilte Garcia.”

Now he’s back in Israel – for good, he says. “I have returned permanently. My father, who is 80, called me in New York and said, `Come back to Israel, be with me a little.’ He never talked in that tone before, and I decided to come back. All my life I have played and made music and I won’t stop. Now I will play in Israel and form a band and go abroad for gigs wherever I am invited. My base from today on is Tel Aviv.”

Celebrating 30 Years in Vancouver

Thirty years ago this month, when Rabbi Yitzchak and Henia Wineberg arrived in Vancouver, B.C. to establish a Chabad presence, there was little to be said for Jewish growth in Vancouver. Truth be told, says Rabbi Wineberg, there was little to be said for growth in the city at all. A quiet, sleepy city, Vancouver was well known for the hippie types who rambled through and, despite being Canada’s third largest city, seemed remote and unhurried. The Jewish community, a formidable presence in the first half of the century, seemed poised for near-oblivion by the mid 70’s, as the older, more observant members passed on and their children fell prey to rampant assimilation.

But the couple saw the potential in the city, and fell in love with the beautiful mountains that frame it and the Pacific Ocean that runs along the west side. They arrived with one young baby in November 1974 and set about revitalizing the Jewish infrastructure in Vancouver. From various Torah classes and Jewish events grew a synagogue, nursery, summer camp and ultimately a full Jewish center. Hundreds came through in the early years, as Chabad quickly outgrew one rental after another, finally erecting a large building in 1981. A Jewish community formed around the Chabad center, and a large, active network of outreach programs and community services took root.

remember those gangs of bikers who hang around and aggravate everyone?

A 26-year-old Brooklyn motorcyclist was killed yesterday when he lost control of his bike and was pinned under a Dumpster, police and witnesses said.
Curtis Nelson was joyriding through Crown Heights with two friends when his Kawasaki slipped out from under him on Utica Ave. north of Park Place at 7:04 p.m., cops and witnesses said.

His biking buddies watched in horror as he lay motionless beneath the Dumpster.

The List Of Winners At The Ten Yad Auction

Here is the list of the winners at the Ten Yad Auction, You can click on the prize name to get a full description.

Click the Extended Article for the rest of the list

Magnet for young Jews

Orthodox boys school in Tucson already attaining a global reach

Among the myriad construction projects going on in the Foothills is a 7,000-square-foot boarding school for Orthodox Jewish boys that already is attracting young men from around the world.

Yeshiva High School of Tucson is a project of Rabbi Joseph “Yossie” Shemtov of the Midtown Orthodox Congregation Chabad Lubavitch/Young Israel, and one of his congregation members, David S. Cutler, an accountant who is the school’s main benefactor. Two other Chabad members, Shalom and Eric Laytin, also have helped with underwriting costs.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews turn New York camera store into big-time business

Every morning except Saturday, the buses stop in front of a bustling corner of Manhattan. Within minutes, a battalion of bearded men dressed in dark suits and felt hats, some clutching prayer books and speaking Yiddish, step onto the sidewalk […]