Vigilante Justice and the Jews

by Matthew Shaer – Forward

In early May, a circuit court judge in Baltimore found Eliyahu Werdesheim, a 24-year-old member of a local Shomrim anti-crime patrol, guilty of assaulting a teenager named Corey Ausby. According to prosecutors, in 2010 Werdesheim and his brother, Avi, set upon Ausby on a residential street in Northwest Baltimore and beat him with the butt of a two-way radio. Werdesheim, for his part, claims he acted only in self-defense: Ausby was brandishing a nail-studded board, he told reporters. He now faces up to a decade behind bars.

Premium Post
Starting Today: 40% Off the Second Item at ATICA for the Kinus

Mazal Tov's View More

Four Black Girls on Quest to Understand Lubavitchers

Selena Brown, Chantell Clarke, Sabrina Smith and Tangeneka Taylor.

Four teenage girls, all new immigrants from the Caribbean, arrive at a high school in the heart of what was the epicenter of the Crown Heights riots 20 years ago. As newcomers they know nothing of the long history of tension between the Black and Lubavitch Jewish communities in the neighborhood. They set out to try to educate themselves about a culture so different from their own, in the midst of stereotypes and misinformation about Jewish people.

Mendy Pellin Gives Brooklyn’s Jews the Giggles

In a departure from his routine on-screen performances, renowned filmmaker, actor and comedian Mendy Pellin took to the stage in person at the Millenium Theater in Brighton Beach to dish up some Pesach laughs to the eager crowd. It was history in the making: the first ever orthodox Jewish stand-up comedy show.

Man Dies of Intoxication on Purim, Shluchim Clarify

A terrible calamity has befallen one Florida Chabad House when an uninvited man showed up at their Purim party, became highly intoxicated, and subsequently died. Local news outlets pounced on the story, and a huge whirlwind of myths and speculation about what happened is spiraling out of control. In an exclusive interview with Crownheights.info, the local Shluchim described in minute detail exactly what transpired that day.

Video: Jew Who Was Expelled from Israel Interviewed

Shneur Zalman Haskelevitch with a Kikar Shabbos correspondent in his home in Morocco.

Shneur Zalman Haskelevitch, 35, an orthodox Jew who grew up in Crown Heights, was banned from Israel in 2005. The rare move was taken by Israel in the wake of an intelligence investigation, after it was discovered that he had visited six Arab countries, including Iraq during the U.S. invasion. This week, Kikar Shabbos met up with him in his home in Morocco, and heard all about his unique day-to-day life.

Op-Ed: Chanukah at a Hockey Rink

by Eli Federman – Jerusalem Post

Illustration Photo

The Coyotes vs Panthers hockey game last Tuesday was no ordinary game. Chabad of Florida performed a menorah-lighting ceremony on the ice during the first period intermission. The event looked nothing short of a huge Hanukka party. But the event itself was really quite ironic. How odd, I thought, to celebrate Hanukka in a sports arena, given that the concept of sports is emblematic of Greek culture.

Op-Ed: To Beard or Not to Beard, That is the Question

by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Musings on the fall of Matisyahu’s Facial Locks

Matisyahu is a friend of mine so I was not going to comment on his choice to shave off his beard. It was his personal decision. Live and let live. But I changed my mind when my children told me that they were reading all over the internet that young, impressionable, orthodox Jewish youth were also choosing to shave off their beards following Matisyahu’s lead (I’m assuming these were young men, rather than women, who made the choice). It was then that I decided to weigh in.

Shliach’s Kidnapper Convinces Media He Is the Victim

by Naftali Cohen

Left: Rabbi Tomer Rotem. Right: Dani Dinur.

The man who kidnapped the Shliach to Ecuador, Rabbi Tomer Rotem, is now claiming that he was the victim of a Chabad conspiracy. Even more surprisingly, Israel’s Channel 10 News believes his story.

Op-Ed: Chabad 2.0

by Shmuley Boteach

Chabad Emissaries dance at the annual Kinus Hashluchim banquet.

The annual gathering of Chabad’s global emissaries, the Kinus Hashluchim, elicits a paradox. Here is an organization that is truly international, operating even more outposts than the United States government. Chabad is not only the world’s largest Jewish educational network, it is quite simply one of the world’s largest networks period. Perhaps only the Catholic Church has a more extensive grid of schools and educational outposts. Yet, for all its internationalism Chabad continues to evince a largely parochial mentality. It is global in scope but not in outlook.

Op-Ed: Lessons from the Brutal Truth of Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

In the early 90’s I fell in love with Steve Jobs’ new NeXT computer. I had used a Macintosh since I was 19 but after Jobs’ was kicked out of Apple I gravitated to his new invention which blew the Mac away. As Rabbi at Oxford, I regularly hosted world leaders to lecture to our students and I had to have Jobs. So I arranged a meeting with one of his top lieutenants and traveled to Redwood City, California.

FEATURE: Bochurim Join OWS, the Satmar Rebbe; and a Special Story About the Rebbe on Tahalucha

‘Simchas Torah’ by Zalman Kleinman

A story about the Rebbe from a Litvish ‘Hoch Ah Chainik’ who used to live in Crown Heights, Bochurim who got lost in Manhattan get invited to join the Occupied Wall Street Hakafos and a closed Chabad House in Williamsburg leads a group to join the Satmar Rebbe for Hakofos in the main Shul on Kent Avenue. Read these readers experiences on Tahalucha!