The Mayor of Tzfas, Mr. Ilon Shochat, visited Crown Heights on Monday and was given a guided tour of Chabad World HQ. Accompanying the Mayor was Rabbi Motti Dayan, a Lubavitcher member of the Tzfas city council, and Rabbi Mendi Kotlarsky, director of Merkos Suite 302.
In honor of Purim, we present a letter from the Rebbe in which he responds to a law professor who asked “How can a humane, civilized person today accept the Biblical commandment to wipe out the entire nation of Amalek?” A second letter is presented as well, in which the Rebbe derives a lesson from Queen Esther. The letters are from the archives of Rabbi Nissan Mindel, OBM, personal secretary to the Previous Rebbe and the Rebbe, and were made available by his son-in-law, Rabbi Sholom Ber Schapiro.
When I read the news this morning that two teenage girls of the Lev Tahor sect are undergoing a hunger strike after being separated from their parents by Canadian authorities, I came to the conclusion that I could no longer remain silent in the face of such a grave injustice. After all, if we don’t speak out for them, who will speak out when they come for our children?
While in New York City at the beginning of the year, Rabbi Levy Wineberg made a purposeful stop to pick up a very important item: a brand-new Sefer Torah.
New Jersey Senate President Steven Sweeney took a long sweeping glance at the large crowd of worshipers at the Western Wall Plaza on Friday evening and remarked “The history of this place is so amazing, and the story of the Jewish people is so inspirational I always knew I had to come and visit!”
What did the Rebbe have to say to a grieving son whose father had just tragically passed away? How did the Rebbe answer the question “why do bad things happen to good people”? The letters are from the archives of Rabbi Nissan Mindel and are being published here thanks to Rabbi Sholom Ber Shapiro.
Most of the millions of people who cross the Brooklyn Bridge every year have seen the Ari Halberstam Memorial Ramp signs, but many may not know who Ari Halberstam was, or why Mayor Rudolph Guiliani installed those signs in 1995.
In the boys’ classroom at Lamplighters Yeshivah in the Hasidic Jewish stronghold of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Montessori number-counting boards and decimal beads share space with Hebrew-learning materials. A colorful timeline on the wall shows two strands of world history in parallel: secular on the left, Jewish on the right. A photo of the grand rabbi of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement hangs above a list of tasks that children perform individually: make a fractions poster, practice cursive, learn about the moon’s phases.
With the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, the Jews of Soviet Russia found themselves in a dire situation. Religious life had been stifled for decades, and with rampant food and supply shortages, both their spiritual and material selves were in danger. It was then that a small group of Chabad activists stranded behind the Iron Curtain in Samarkand—today, Uzbekistan—decided that they had to do something to assist their fellow Jews. A few men banded together, and the Chamah organization was born.
Graco is recalling nearly 3.8 million car safety seats because children can get trapped by buckles that may not unlatch.
The editor-in-chief of the Ami Magazine, Rechy Frankfurter, published the following editorial in this week’s edition of the publication describing her experience attending the Kinus Hashluchos in New York last month.
The shopping list shared by four Bostonian Chabad shluchos last week included 1,000 pounds of flour, 281 cups of sugar, 4.2 gallons of oil, 120 ounces of yeast. But purchasing mountains of baking ingredients from grocery stores across the tri-state area was just the first step of the ultimate challah extravaganza.
For the small but devout congregation of Chabad of The Woodlands near Houston, TX, Sunday was a day for song and dance as the group ceremoniously inducted a new Torah scroll for use at their synagogue for the first time in its history.
As a recent wave of gentrification is causing rent in Crown Heights to skyrocket, a problem compounded by members of our own community who buy houses merely to flip them for much higher prices, many newlywed Lubavitch couples discover to their dismay that living in the community of their youth is just not within their means.
What started out as a series of Bible studies in people’s homes has evolved into a wide-ranging program of lectures, workshops and study courses hosted by Chabad of the Conejo Valley in California.
Last Thursday, I had the zechus of appearing at a hearing before two esteemed non-Lubavitch Rabbonim, Rabbi Dovid Cohen and Rabbi Avraham Twerski, to present testimony about the dangers of the group Call of the Shofar. I would like to share some of the events leading up to that appearance, a description of the hearing, as well as excerpts from my testimony.
A large crowd of Anash from all over London, together with neighbors, family and friends, joined Yossi and Ester Potash in commemorating the Shloshim of their son, Nochum Tzvi, OBM, who passed away tragically and suddenly on the 22nd of Teves.
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