Wedding is 'a first for Manor Road'
Island bride is wed outdoors according to the customs of Chabad Lubavitch
By LESLIE PALMA-SIMONCEK
ADVANCE STAFF WRITER
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- An outdoor wedding in March is unusual on Staten Island but the chuppah under which Shmuli Bendet and Aidy Katzman were married Sunday was outdoors according to the customs of the Chabad Lubavitch movement.
The wedding took place at the Joan and Alan Bernikow Jewish Community Center in Sea View, and although David Sorkin, executive director, said weddings have been held previously there, it was the first Hasidic wedding.
"It's a first for Manor Road," said guest Anita Diamond as she and her daughter, Ruth Fabes, headed out to the chuppah and the outdoor ceremony that was steeped in tradition.
The new Mrs. Bendet, 22, didn't see her own wedding.
According to custom, her face was covered with an opaque veil placed on her by her 26-year-old groom before the ceremony.
The veil is symbolic of a number of things -- that only her groom shall gaze upon her beauty, that he is not only interested in her physical beauty, which fades with time, and that the bride seeks to emulate Rebecca, who covered her face out of modesty the first time she saw Isaac.
Tradition also holds that the divine presence rests upon the bride's face, which must be covered just as Moses' face was covered when he received the commandments on Mount Sinai.
Behind her veil, the bride says prayers and asks that she will be as worthy as Rebecca, whose marriage to Isaac marked the beginning of the Jewish people.
After the ceremony, which included the bride circling seven times around her groom and a rabbi's blessing over the wine, the couple and their 500 invited guests went back indoors for a wedding feast with music and dancing -- men in one room, women in another.
The crowd included many people who would not identify themselves as Orthodox. It is the mission of Chabad to reach out to all Jews in an effort to make them more cognizant of the many traditions of the religion.
The bride is the daughter of Staten Island's well-known Rabbi Moshe Katzman and his wife, Rebbetzin Chani Katzman.
She and her new husband, who comes from St. Paul, Minn., will spend a year in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, worldwide headquarters of the Chabad movement.
After that they will continue to work as Chabad emissaries although where they'll be sent is not yet known.
"We hope they'll come to Staten Island," Rebbetzin Katzman said.
Leslie Palma-Simoncek is the religion editor for the Advance. She may be reached at palma@siadvance.com. Visit her Beyond Beliefs Web log at blog.silive.com/beyondbeliefs.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Croatian law to protect Jewish cemeteries
The Croatian prime minister has agreed to change federal law to protect Jewish cemeteries.
Croatian law currently allows for the dead who have no heirs to be disinterred and reburied after 30 years, should the owners of the cemetery land want to resell it. Disinterment generally is prohibited under Jewish law.
A delegation from the Rabbinical Centre of Europe met Monday in Zagreb with Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, Croatian President Stjepan Mesi and Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandi to discuss making changes to the law, according to Lubavitch.com.
The Web site did not note any timetable for changing the law.
Croatian law currently allows for the dead who have no heirs to be disinterred and reburied after 30 years, should the owners of the cemetery land want to resell it. Disinterment generally is prohibited under Jewish law.
A delegation from the Rabbinical Centre of Europe met Monday in Zagreb with Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, Croatian President Stjepan Mesi and Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandi to discuss making changes to the law, according to Lubavitch.com.
The Web site did not note any timetable for changing the law.
Chabad seeks a new chief executive
By Leon Symons
The Lubavitch movement has started a search for a new chief executive and director of fundraising as it seeks to repair the rift caused by the departure of its former chief fundraiser, Rabbi Faivish Vogel.
A letter from the movement’s council of management and executive committee has been sent to the entire Lubavitch community, asking for suitable candidates to be put forward.
Rabbi Vogel resigned after allegations were made that Chabad’s £1.5 million debt crisis had been precipitated by the opening of the Gaon Club for young business professionals in London’s West End in January last year. The club was run by Rabbis Yosef and Mendy Vogel, Rabbi Vogel’s sons.
Both sides faced each other at the London Beth Din at the end of last year, when the brothers were banned from any outreach work for six months.
After Rabbi Vogel’s departure, Lubavitch called in Bolt and Partners, a specialist “turnaround” company, to run its affairs. Bolt appointed a non-Jewish interim chief executive and was asked to produce a three-year plan to ease the movement’s economic crisis.
The letter to members, a copy of which has been seen by the JC, hinted that Bolt was already having an effect, saying: “An enormous amount of work has been achieved over the past few months in regard to organisational, governance and fundraising structures of the Lubavitch head office. An important component is to ensure there is continuity of leadership for Lubavitch UK for the next generation.”
Rabbi Nachman Sudak, the senior outreach emissary of Lubavitch, said: “This is all about achieving much greater transparency for the organisation.
“Bolt’s work will be finished at the end of this month. They have introduced new operating systems that should be modern and practical. Now we are looking for a new chief executive who will run the organisation.”
The Lubavitch movement has started a search for a new chief executive and director of fundraising as it seeks to repair the rift caused by the departure of its former chief fundraiser, Rabbi Faivish Vogel.
A letter from the movement’s council of management and executive committee has been sent to the entire Lubavitch community, asking for suitable candidates to be put forward.
Rabbi Vogel resigned after allegations were made that Chabad’s £1.5 million debt crisis had been precipitated by the opening of the Gaon Club for young business professionals in London’s West End in January last year. The club was run by Rabbis Yosef and Mendy Vogel, Rabbi Vogel’s sons.
Both sides faced each other at the London Beth Din at the end of last year, when the brothers were banned from any outreach work for six months.
After Rabbi Vogel’s departure, Lubavitch called in Bolt and Partners, a specialist “turnaround” company, to run its affairs. Bolt appointed a non-Jewish interim chief executive and was asked to produce a three-year plan to ease the movement’s economic crisis.
The letter to members, a copy of which has been seen by the JC, hinted that Bolt was already having an effect, saying: “An enormous amount of work has been achieved over the past few months in regard to organisational, governance and fundraising structures of the Lubavitch head office. An important component is to ensure there is continuity of leadership for Lubavitch UK for the next generation.”
Rabbi Nachman Sudak, the senior outreach emissary of Lubavitch, said: “This is all about achieving much greater transparency for the organisation.
“Bolt’s work will be finished at the end of this month. They have introduced new operating systems that should be modern and practical. Now we are looking for a new chief executive who will run the organisation.”
Letters: Teaching to the Testosterone
I was fascinated by Elizabeth Weil’s article because I have studied an all-girls’ school in some depth. During graduate school, I lived among the Lubavitcher Hasidim, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn; I’ve recorded my findings in a book. I spent many days observing, in the girls’ high school and post-high-school seminary. Despite my reservations about same-sex schools, I was deeply impressed. In this ultra-Orthodox community known for its stark gender roles, the girls’ ability to adopt stereotypically male personas struck me. Many girls became noisy instigators, impish troublemakers, charismatic schoolwide leaders — niches that disproportionately may fall to boys in coed schools. The boys were not around to usurp these roles, so the girls snatched them up.
I don’t believe that single-sex schools are best for all students. Coed schools have their own benefits. But I am delighted that an option once reserved for private and parochial schools is open to growing numbers of public-school students.
STEPHANIE WELLEN LEVINE
I don’t believe that single-sex schools are best for all students. Coed schools have their own benefits. But I am delighted that an option once reserved for private and parochial schools is open to growing numbers of public-school students.
STEPHANIE WELLEN LEVINE
Monday, March 10, 2008
Rabbi's attackers identified
Ukrainian authorities reportedly identified the four attackers of a Dnepropetrovsk rabbi.
A special unit of the Secret Service and Ministry of Interior Affairs named the assailants who severely beat Rabbi Dov-Ber Baitman, a teacher at the Jewish educational center Shiurey Torah and the anchor of the local Jewish television show “Video-HiTaS,” on Jan. 24.
The break in the case was reported on the Dnepropetrovsk Jewish community's Web site, www.djc.com.ua
During the attack after evening classes at the educational center, the suspects also shouted anti-Semitic slurs at Baitman, a Lubavitch-Chabad emissary.
A special unit of the Secret Service and Ministry of Interior Affairs named the assailants who severely beat Rabbi Dov-Ber Baitman, a teacher at the Jewish educational center Shiurey Torah and the anchor of the local Jewish television show “Video-HiTaS,” on Jan. 24.
The break in the case was reported on the Dnepropetrovsk Jewish community's Web site, www.djc.com.ua
During the attack after evening classes at the educational center, the suspects also shouted anti-Semitic slurs at Baitman, a Lubavitch-Chabad emissary.
Finding the Unexpected Beneath the Gaudy
By MATT GROSS
ONE Friday evening last December, in a typically modern Cancún condo complex, a party was under way. A motley crew of revelers — well-tanned men with curly gray hair, 20-something tourists, women with children and grandchildren on their hips — crowded around four long folding tables sagging with food, and the turquoise-trimmed white walls reverberated with the sounds of familiar songs sung in unison.
The party’s hyperactive host, his shiny yellow tie flung rakishly over his left shoulder, stood on a folding chair, held aloft a plastic cup of Stolichnaya vodka and proposed a toast — to what, I wasn’t sure; the words were lost in a jumble of languages I didn’t understand. But then a traditional cry rose up, and I recognized it instantly:
“L’chaim!”
Yes, in sultry, sinful Cancún, I was spending my Friday night at Chabad House, the outreach center for the Lubavitchers, the Orthodox Hasidic Jewish sect. But why had I, a long-lapsed Jew, chosen this Sabbath bacchanal to break my 11-year avoidance of Jewish events?
Two words: free dinner.
O.K., it was more complicated than that. Frankly, Cancún scared me. On the one hand, this overdeveloped hub of Mexico’s so-called Mayan Riviera seemed like a frugal traveler’s dream, and the $500 I carried for the weekend could easily install me in a hostel with a refrigerator full of Jell-o shots, but I’m about a decade past my “Gross Gone Wild!” days. On the other hand, the five-star Cancún experience — represented by resorts like the Ritz-Carlton and Le Meridien, with their beachside cabana restaurants and hoity-toity spas — was well beyond my budget. And while I could surely afford all-inclusive bliss in one of the Riu Hotel chain’s pseudo-neo-Classical monstrosities, that sort of utter mindless ease offends my adventurous soul.
No, I wanted all of the above — sophomoric fun, total relaxation, a taste of luxury — plus the alternative, “real” Cancún, whatever that might be.
Before stumbling upon the all-too-real Chabad House, my search led me first to Puerto Juárez, a speck of a town five minutes north of Cancún’s gritty but lively downtown, and the Villa Playa Blanca, a $45-a-night bed-and-breakfast opened last March by Alejandro (Alex) Gutiérrez, 26, and his 27-year-old friend Horacio Viazcán.
A whitewashed four-story home in a quiet subdevelopment, the Villa Playa Blanca is a study in clean, contemporary design — soft fabrics, fresh flowers, tea lights on the staircase — and precision hospitality. Minutes after I arrived, I was standing on the roof deck when Mabelu Pedraza, the housekeeper-chef-receptionist, brought me a chilled towel and a glass of pineapple juice with a splash of vodka. I sipped my drink and gazed at the glittering Caribbean and the distant ridge of buildings that make up Cancún’s “zona hotelera,” 13 unfortunate miles of beaches, hotels, malls and nightclubs.
Not only was the Villa Playa Blanca cool, but its proprietors, Alex and Horacio, were just the kind of friendly, knowledgeable locals I’m always hoping to hang out with. And within an hour of checking in, we were taking a late lunch at Pozolería Castillo, a busy little restaurant that specializes in pozole, a rich pork-and-hominy soup embellished with chilies and oregano. A big bowl cost 55 pesos, or about $5 at 10.99 pesos to the dollar, and 15 pesos more bought me a lemonade. I had begun to think I’d discovered my own private, perfect Cancún.
After a solo late-afternoon walk on Playa Niños, a family-friendly beach just down the road from Villa Playa Blanca, I was at Chabad House — one of thousands worldwide, from Bangkok to the Brazilian rain forest — and totally out of my depth. As bearded men in white shirts and dark pants prayed and swayed, their tzitzit, or tassels, dangling from their waists, I tried (and failed) to follow along in the bilingual siddur, and comforted myself with the idea that my atrocious Hebrew made me seem almost fluent in Spanish by comparison.
When the praying ended, dinner began, and I relaxed. Over baked salmon, challah, hummus, baba ganoush, and a cucumber salad that, I swear, tasted just like my mom’s, I befriended Yardena Landau, a Spirit Airlines employee who’d moved there from Mexico City; we bonded over a love of travel and wariness of zealots. Actually, my wariness of the true believers around me slowly dissipated, and while I wasn’t about to go kosher — certainly not on the Yucatán peninsula, home of cochinita pibil, the slow-cooked suckling pig — I happily raised my cup of Stoli when Mendel Druk, the 26-year-old rabbi, reminded us all, “You can come to Cancún, and you can still pray in a synagogue!”
Well, l’chaim to that.The next morning, after devouring my breakfast in bed of coffee, orange juice, toast, yogurt and fruit salad, I went beach-hunting. Still reluctant to confront the zona hotelera, I instead hopped a 35-peso ferry to Isla Mujeres, a five-mile-long island whose Playa Norte had been recommended by Jenny, a veteran Cancún visitor who was staying at my hotel.
Playa Norte was indeed quiet and, as Cancún area beaches go, unpopulated. I settled into a lounge chair between a pair of small piers and waited for the inevitable: a waiter demanding I buy an overpriced cocktail to secure my seat. He never came. For hours I had a free, umbrella-shaded spot next to the bathtub-warm azure water. In fact, I soon began to crave a waiter. I was getting hungry. I wound up having to — horror of horrors — walk across the warm sand to order some fish tacos and a Dos Equis (75 pesos total).
By midafternoon, I caught the ferry back to Puerto Juárez, jumped in my car and drove to Cancún’s inland downtown area and the Xbalamqué Hotel, whose clean, low-key spa is known not only for its traditional Mayan and Nahuatl treatments but also for its affordability. Nothing on the menu, from sports massage to mud, algae and chocolate baths, cost more than 550 pesos, a small fraction of the prices at the Ritz-Carlton.
Still, I picked the cheapest option: 30 minutes in the temazcal, a Nahuatl steam bath, for 120 pesos. Essentially a sauna, the temazcal was a small, brick-lined room illuminated by a single yellow filament bulb, the steam perfumed with mint that tingled my lips as I lay on a bench. When I emerged, every toxin had drained away, and my skin glowed.
Thinking there must be something to ancient local traditions, I invited Yardena to Labná, an upscale restaurant that specialized in Yucatecan dishes and came recommended by Horacio. Labná certainly had ambition: modeled on a stepped Mayan pyramid, its ceiling soared 30 feet high, and bulbous lamps hung down like luminous beehives. Serious money, it seemed, had gone into this place.
If only Labná’s owners had been as serious about everything else. For while the food tasted good — I loved my poc chuc, or grilled pork steak, and Yardena’s fish with astringent hoja santa, or sacred leaf — the presentation was disappointing, verging on depressing. The fish came wrapped in tin foil, and my poc chuc was part of a “Yucatecan Tour” that crammed as many dishes — such as papadzules (egg-stuffed tortillas in pumpkin-seed sauce) — on the plate as possible. Our waiter, though friendly, walked by every two minutes to see if we’d finished. Too soon, we had, having spent a reasonable 430 pesos (including drinks and tip).
Just before we left, my phone buzzed with a text message: Horacio, Alex, Jenny and her fellow American, Morgan, were going to Coco Bongo, a mega-club in the zona hotelera (soon to be opening a branch in Las Vegas). They had a V.I.P. card that would get us inside quickly. It was time to face Cancún’s heart of darkness.
It was just as I’d imagined. Gaudy hotels. International chains (Hooters, anyone?). Flashing neon. The idiotic green amphibian head peering down from the roof of Señor Frog’s. Packs of Americans and Mexicans wearing Abercrombie & Fitch. I winced, snobbishly, and found my gang in Coco Bongo’s V.I.P. express lane. Alex asked for the entry fee, and I handed him 100 pesos to cover myself and Yardena.
He stared at it blankly. No, he said, it’s $45, not pesos.
I stared at him blankly, then I handed over the rest. It was hardly frugal, but I could afford it. (Yardena, however, wouldn’t let me cover her, and took a cab home.) Besides, Alex assured me, inside was an open bar and a floor show that would be more than worth the expense.
Again, my hosts were wise. In the cavernous club (capacity: 1,800), we knocked back whiskey, tequila and various sweet drinks in unnatural colors, and soon the show commenced. On a stage high above, gymnasts performed Cirque du Soleil-style feats to a somber classical score, then a Madonna look-alike sang a medley of the Material Girl’s greatest hits, then a guy in white tux crooned “Mac the Knife,” each number accompanied by smiling dancers, each culminating in an orgasmic burst of confetti.
Soon, the themes took a stranger turn, with whirling aerial numbers inspired by “Beetlejuice,” “Spider-Man” and, of course, “The Passion of the Christ.” As I watched a buff Jesus with a pierced nipple extend his arms in a crucifixion posture while dangling from the ceiling by a toga cloth, I was transported elsewhere: to Brighton Beach, the heavily Russian-Jewish neighborhood of Brooklyn, where the nightclubs feature floor shows almost as ridiculously over-the-top as this one. The only thing missing from Coco Bongo was a spread of pickled dishes, and those, I knew, were back at Chabad House. I ordered another free whiskey and felt, for the very first time in Cancún, entirely at home.
ONE Friday evening last December, in a typically modern Cancún condo complex, a party was under way. A motley crew of revelers — well-tanned men with curly gray hair, 20-something tourists, women with children and grandchildren on their hips — crowded around four long folding tables sagging with food, and the turquoise-trimmed white walls reverberated with the sounds of familiar songs sung in unison.
The party’s hyperactive host, his shiny yellow tie flung rakishly over his left shoulder, stood on a folding chair, held aloft a plastic cup of Stolichnaya vodka and proposed a toast — to what, I wasn’t sure; the words were lost in a jumble of languages I didn’t understand. But then a traditional cry rose up, and I recognized it instantly:
“L’chaim!”
Yes, in sultry, sinful Cancún, I was spending my Friday night at Chabad House, the outreach center for the Lubavitchers, the Orthodox Hasidic Jewish sect. But why had I, a long-lapsed Jew, chosen this Sabbath bacchanal to break my 11-year avoidance of Jewish events?
Two words: free dinner.
O.K., it was more complicated than that. Frankly, Cancún scared me. On the one hand, this overdeveloped hub of Mexico’s so-called Mayan Riviera seemed like a frugal traveler’s dream, and the $500 I carried for the weekend could easily install me in a hostel with a refrigerator full of Jell-o shots, but I’m about a decade past my “Gross Gone Wild!” days. On the other hand, the five-star Cancún experience — represented by resorts like the Ritz-Carlton and Le Meridien, with their beachside cabana restaurants and hoity-toity spas — was well beyond my budget. And while I could surely afford all-inclusive bliss in one of the Riu Hotel chain’s pseudo-neo-Classical monstrosities, that sort of utter mindless ease offends my adventurous soul.
No, I wanted all of the above — sophomoric fun, total relaxation, a taste of luxury — plus the alternative, “real” Cancún, whatever that might be.
Before stumbling upon the all-too-real Chabad House, my search led me first to Puerto Juárez, a speck of a town five minutes north of Cancún’s gritty but lively downtown, and the Villa Playa Blanca, a $45-a-night bed-and-breakfast opened last March by Alejandro (Alex) Gutiérrez, 26, and his 27-year-old friend Horacio Viazcán.
A whitewashed four-story home in a quiet subdevelopment, the Villa Playa Blanca is a study in clean, contemporary design — soft fabrics, fresh flowers, tea lights on the staircase — and precision hospitality. Minutes after I arrived, I was standing on the roof deck when Mabelu Pedraza, the housekeeper-chef-receptionist, brought me a chilled towel and a glass of pineapple juice with a splash of vodka. I sipped my drink and gazed at the glittering Caribbean and the distant ridge of buildings that make up Cancún’s “zona hotelera,” 13 unfortunate miles of beaches, hotels, malls and nightclubs.
Not only was the Villa Playa Blanca cool, but its proprietors, Alex and Horacio, were just the kind of friendly, knowledgeable locals I’m always hoping to hang out with. And within an hour of checking in, we were taking a late lunch at Pozolería Castillo, a busy little restaurant that specializes in pozole, a rich pork-and-hominy soup embellished with chilies and oregano. A big bowl cost 55 pesos, or about $5 at 10.99 pesos to the dollar, and 15 pesos more bought me a lemonade. I had begun to think I’d discovered my own private, perfect Cancún.
After a solo late-afternoon walk on Playa Niños, a family-friendly beach just down the road from Villa Playa Blanca, I was at Chabad House — one of thousands worldwide, from Bangkok to the Brazilian rain forest — and totally out of my depth. As bearded men in white shirts and dark pants prayed and swayed, their tzitzit, or tassels, dangling from their waists, I tried (and failed) to follow along in the bilingual siddur, and comforted myself with the idea that my atrocious Hebrew made me seem almost fluent in Spanish by comparison.
When the praying ended, dinner began, and I relaxed. Over baked salmon, challah, hummus, baba ganoush, and a cucumber salad that, I swear, tasted just like my mom’s, I befriended Yardena Landau, a Spirit Airlines employee who’d moved there from Mexico City; we bonded over a love of travel and wariness of zealots. Actually, my wariness of the true believers around me slowly dissipated, and while I wasn’t about to go kosher — certainly not on the Yucatán peninsula, home of cochinita pibil, the slow-cooked suckling pig — I happily raised my cup of Stoli when Mendel Druk, the 26-year-old rabbi, reminded us all, “You can come to Cancún, and you can still pray in a synagogue!”
Well, l’chaim to that.The next morning, after devouring my breakfast in bed of coffee, orange juice, toast, yogurt and fruit salad, I went beach-hunting. Still reluctant to confront the zona hotelera, I instead hopped a 35-peso ferry to Isla Mujeres, a five-mile-long island whose Playa Norte had been recommended by Jenny, a veteran Cancún visitor who was staying at my hotel.
Playa Norte was indeed quiet and, as Cancún area beaches go, unpopulated. I settled into a lounge chair between a pair of small piers and waited for the inevitable: a waiter demanding I buy an overpriced cocktail to secure my seat. He never came. For hours I had a free, umbrella-shaded spot next to the bathtub-warm azure water. In fact, I soon began to crave a waiter. I was getting hungry. I wound up having to — horror of horrors — walk across the warm sand to order some fish tacos and a Dos Equis (75 pesos total).
By midafternoon, I caught the ferry back to Puerto Juárez, jumped in my car and drove to Cancún’s inland downtown area and the Xbalamqué Hotel, whose clean, low-key spa is known not only for its traditional Mayan and Nahuatl treatments but also for its affordability. Nothing on the menu, from sports massage to mud, algae and chocolate baths, cost more than 550 pesos, a small fraction of the prices at the Ritz-Carlton.
Still, I picked the cheapest option: 30 minutes in the temazcal, a Nahuatl steam bath, for 120 pesos. Essentially a sauna, the temazcal was a small, brick-lined room illuminated by a single yellow filament bulb, the steam perfumed with mint that tingled my lips as I lay on a bench. When I emerged, every toxin had drained away, and my skin glowed.
Thinking there must be something to ancient local traditions, I invited Yardena to Labná, an upscale restaurant that specialized in Yucatecan dishes and came recommended by Horacio. Labná certainly had ambition: modeled on a stepped Mayan pyramid, its ceiling soared 30 feet high, and bulbous lamps hung down like luminous beehives. Serious money, it seemed, had gone into this place.
If only Labná’s owners had been as serious about everything else. For while the food tasted good — I loved my poc chuc, or grilled pork steak, and Yardena’s fish with astringent hoja santa, or sacred leaf — the presentation was disappointing, verging on depressing. The fish came wrapped in tin foil, and my poc chuc was part of a “Yucatecan Tour” that crammed as many dishes — such as papadzules (egg-stuffed tortillas in pumpkin-seed sauce) — on the plate as possible. Our waiter, though friendly, walked by every two minutes to see if we’d finished. Too soon, we had, having spent a reasonable 430 pesos (including drinks and tip).
Just before we left, my phone buzzed with a text message: Horacio, Alex, Jenny and her fellow American, Morgan, were going to Coco Bongo, a mega-club in the zona hotelera (soon to be opening a branch in Las Vegas). They had a V.I.P. card that would get us inside quickly. It was time to face Cancún’s heart of darkness.
It was just as I’d imagined. Gaudy hotels. International chains (Hooters, anyone?). Flashing neon. The idiotic green amphibian head peering down from the roof of Señor Frog’s. Packs of Americans and Mexicans wearing Abercrombie & Fitch. I winced, snobbishly, and found my gang in Coco Bongo’s V.I.P. express lane. Alex asked for the entry fee, and I handed him 100 pesos to cover myself and Yardena.
He stared at it blankly. No, he said, it’s $45, not pesos.
I stared at him blankly, then I handed over the rest. It was hardly frugal, but I could afford it. (Yardena, however, wouldn’t let me cover her, and took a cab home.) Besides, Alex assured me, inside was an open bar and a floor show that would be more than worth the expense.
Again, my hosts were wise. In the cavernous club (capacity: 1,800), we knocked back whiskey, tequila and various sweet drinks in unnatural colors, and soon the show commenced. On a stage high above, gymnasts performed Cirque du Soleil-style feats to a somber classical score, then a Madonna look-alike sang a medley of the Material Girl’s greatest hits, then a guy in white tux crooned “Mac the Knife,” each number accompanied by smiling dancers, each culminating in an orgasmic burst of confetti.
Soon, the themes took a stranger turn, with whirling aerial numbers inspired by “Beetlejuice,” “Spider-Man” and, of course, “The Passion of the Christ.” As I watched a buff Jesus with a pierced nipple extend his arms in a crucifixion posture while dangling from the ceiling by a toga cloth, I was transported elsewhere: to Brighton Beach, the heavily Russian-Jewish neighborhood of Brooklyn, where the nightclubs feature floor shows almost as ridiculously over-the-top as this one. The only thing missing from Coco Bongo was a spread of pickled dishes, and those, I knew, were back at Chabad House. I ordered another free whiskey and felt, for the very first time in Cancún, entirely at home.
Monday, March 03, 2008
The Kremlin's chief rabbi
MOSCOW - Any rabbi in Israel would be envious of Berl Lazar, chief rabbi Of Russia. From his spacious, wood-paneled office at the top of the Jewish Community Center that is located in the Marina Rocha neighborhood, he holds sway over more than 200 communities that comprise, according to unofficial estimates, more than 1 million Jews. The Kremlin considers him the leader of Russia's Jews and Lazar enjoys President Vladimir Putin's trust. He is likely to receive the same treatment from Putin's successor-elect, Dmitri Medvedev. He is backed by billionaire Lev Leviev, who sees the rehabilitation of Jewish religious life in Russia as his life's ambition.
These are good times for Lazar. The Federation of Jewish Communities in Russia (FEOR), which he heads, celebrated its 10th anniversary last week. After years of harsh struggles among the Jewish organizations in Moscow, FEOR has established its leading status. Fact: Even the president of the rival organization, the Jewish Congress of Russia (KEROOR), Arcadi Gaydamak, came to the anniversary celebration to offer his congratulations.
Only 10 years ago, the international Jewish organizations and the Jewish Agency thought the Jewish community in Russia had reached the end of its road. The best of its sons and daughters had immigrated to Israel or to the United States, and it seemed as though the handful who remained would close shop and leave. According to official data, there are currently 250,000 Jews in Russia, but the leaders of the community and many experts believe the real number of is closer to 1 million, half of whom live in Moscow.
Lazar, 43, came to Moscow from New York 18 years ago as the Lubavitcher Rebbe's emissary. Last Wednesday, he oversaw his son's bar mitzvah celebration at the Community Center. The Rolls Royces of the oligarchs who arrived as his guests, surrounded by bodyguards, packed the narrow street. In a city that worships political and financial power, Lazar is considered a significant locus of power.
But should he be envied? It is hard to think of a rabbi who in recent years has been the object of quite so much criticism - a level of vituperation reminiscent of the czarist era. He has been accused of everything: of using economic and political power to get rid of rivals, of forcing Chabad on Russia's secular Jewry, of serving as an "informer" and turning Jews in to the authorities and of whitewashing cases of anti-Semitism to curry favor with the regime. Even within his own movement, Chabad, there were those who said he had not advanced the interests of the religious in order not to damage his good relations with the regime.
Once a quiet life
"I didn't want to be elected chief rabbi," says Lazar in an interview to Haaretz in which he responds for the first time to accusations against him. "The heads of the communities approached me several times, and I said no. Before that, for 10 years I had lived a very quiet and satisfying life here, but they asked again and again and I gave in. I knew that a public figure does not have an easy life, but today I feel very comfortable with myself. It might have been possible to have achieved more, but these are things that could be done."
Why do you think that they are attacking you from so many directions?
"There are people who love success and are trying to blame other people. There are certain possibilities in this community, and we are trying to do the things that need to be done. In this country there is no other way to do this job."
Lazar outright rejects the accusations that he whitewashes incidents of anti-Semitism to help Putin's regime. In the past, a document to this effect was prepared at Nativ but was never published. Lazar's opponents say it was his own lobbying that won him the administration's official recognition as the chief rabbi of Russia instead of Rabbi Adolf Shayevich who had held the position since 1980. Similar accusations were raised several weeks ago after FEOR published figures according to which during the past year there was a drop in the number of anti-Semitic incidents in Russia. The Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University claims, however, that it is possible there has even been an increase in anti- Semitism.
"We are living here every day, we are working with the courts and the police and we put pressure on the government in every case of anti-Semitism," says Lazar in defense of FEOR's record. "Every community knows it is necessary to inform us immediately of every incident; we have a special hotline and we are the first to know and publish everything. Check into the cases that other organizations report to the world, and you will see that their source is our report. There is anti-Semitism and xenophobia here and this is not good, but to say there is an increase in anti-Semitism is simply incorrect."
Aren't you playing into the hands of the authorities, who are perhaps trying to hush up the problem of anti-Semitism?
"Playing into their hands? Of course. If they deserve credit, they deserve it. And when criticism is deserved, we speak out. There's a carrot and a stick, and we mustn't use only the stick."
They say that Putin makes calculating use of the Jews in order to advance his agenda. Are you convinced his affection for the Jews is authentic?
"I have no doubt. There are reasons for this that have to do with his childhood. Jewish teachers helped him very much and he had Jewish neighbors and friends. I once showed him a picture of the synagogue in St. Petersburg. He told me it couldn't be the right building because he remembers how as a boy he would go in there with a friend and eat the leftover matzas. I explained to him that we had simply renovated the building."
Putin is now saying in talks with Jewish leaders that one of the greatest mistakes of the Soviet leadership was that Jewish community life, as well as contact with world Jewry, were perceived as a threat to the regime. Even those who are among Putin's harshest critics, like former minister Natan Sharansky, believe this.
"I have serious complaints about his behavior," Sharansky said last week, "but I believe that in his attitude towards the Jews he is telling the truth."
Lazar: "Until now there has been good work done with the Russian administration regarding restoring assets and rebuilding community institutions. Now they also need to support the spiritual process and the restoration of the Jewish knowledge that was lost during the years of Communism. Putin understands this - a few months ago, he announced a donation of a month's salary to the establishment of the Jewish Museum."
Perhaps he is doing this only in order to gain points in the international arena?
"He doesn't need points in the United States."
What the Russian people wants, says Lazar, is stability "so a person knows that he can open a business without being afraid that someone is going to take it away from him."
And will Medvedev provide this stability?
"He is a very intelligent and open individual, who cares about Russia's future and the relations with the Jewish community. This can be seen in his visit here in the community, three days before it was announced he was the candidate. All of a sudden, he showed up at the synagogue for two and a half hours. Afterward, when Putin announced he would be the candidate, what they showed on Russian television were the pictures from that visit."
As for rumors spread by nationalist and anti-Semitic circles concerning Medvedev's Jewish roots, he prefers not to respond.
Criticism within Chabad
Not only slander has been Lazar's lot during his years in Russia. He was sent by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, as one of the first Chabad emissaries to Russia at the end of the 1980s. His mission was to revive religious life in Moscow and in Russia. During the first years, his large family lived in a small, decaying apartment. His eldest daughter came down with spinal meningitis, and after suitable medical treatment was not found for her in Russia the family went to Finland and from there to Israel, where the child eventually died.
Lazar's devotion to the movement, and the fact that during his years in the country the Chabad rabbis established their nearly exclusive control of established Jewish life, do not render him immune to criticism within the movement. Some of the factions in the Hasidut are not pleased with the nearly total control that Lazar has obtained in Russia, with the backing of Leviev, who is currently the most significant donor to Chabad activity.
An especially fraught issue is the fate of the Chabad Library, a large collection of antique books that belonged to the previous Lubavitcher rebbe and were confiscated by the Communists. Before his death, the Rebbe appointed four personal emissaries to deal with the issue, in order to pressure the Russian authorities, who relate to the library as a national asset and are refusing to hand it over to them. Some Chabad officials say Lazar prefers to see to his personal connections with the Putin government rather than help restore the library. His supporters, however, say that the four emissaries made every possible mistake and succeeded only in increasing the anti-Semitism in Russia through their actions.
Lazar himself is very cautious when he relates to this matter: "The Rebbe sent four rabbis to deal with the matter of the library. This is their mission. When they contact me, I will look into what can possibly be done about the matter. I have never been asked by them to deal with this. This is a matter of a decision by the Chabad center."
But the library is peanuts compared to the emotions that were stirred at the Chabad centers around the world in the wake of the arrest of 13 youngsters, Chabad yeshiva students, in the town of Rostov. The Tomkhei Temimim Yeshiva is one of the few Chabad institutions in Russia that is not under Lazar's control. Four months ago, the police raided the yeshiva a few hours before the start of the Sabbath. Thirteen students, citizens of the United States and Israel, were arrested. They were held under arrest over the Sabbath and afterward, and were then deported from Russia along with the local Chabad rabbi.
At Kfar Chabad in Israel, people accused Lazar of acting as an "informer" and of giving the authorities information to the effect that the students did not have valid visas. Lazar, who usually answers every question with a smile, tenses when he is asked about the affair and firmly refuses to relate to it. At the time he sent a letter to the rabbis of Kfar Chabad in which he refuted the accusations. "It is open season on me everywhere," he wrote. "My blood is being spilled like water in public."
Lazar claimed at the time that the students had been arrested because they had not updated their visas, despite clear instructions to do so.
But Lazar knows that on this issue he has entered sensitive territory. The accusations are similar to those raised against him several years ago. That was when one of his local rivals, the chief rabbi of Moscow on behalf of the Jewish Congress in Russia, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, was arrested upon entering Russia and deported. At the time, too, people accused Lazar of involvement in the affair. Lazar sighs again when these issues are raised during the course of the interview. Such is the price of success in Russia.
These are good times for Lazar. The Federation of Jewish Communities in Russia (FEOR), which he heads, celebrated its 10th anniversary last week. After years of harsh struggles among the Jewish organizations in Moscow, FEOR has established its leading status. Fact: Even the president of the rival organization, the Jewish Congress of Russia (KEROOR), Arcadi Gaydamak, came to the anniversary celebration to offer his congratulations.
Only 10 years ago, the international Jewish organizations and the Jewish Agency thought the Jewish community in Russia had reached the end of its road. The best of its sons and daughters had immigrated to Israel or to the United States, and it seemed as though the handful who remained would close shop and leave. According to official data, there are currently 250,000 Jews in Russia, but the leaders of the community and many experts believe the real number of is closer to 1 million, half of whom live in Moscow.
Lazar, 43, came to Moscow from New York 18 years ago as the Lubavitcher Rebbe's emissary. Last Wednesday, he oversaw his son's bar mitzvah celebration at the Community Center. The Rolls Royces of the oligarchs who arrived as his guests, surrounded by bodyguards, packed the narrow street. In a city that worships political and financial power, Lazar is considered a significant locus of power.
But should he be envied? It is hard to think of a rabbi who in recent years has been the object of quite so much criticism - a level of vituperation reminiscent of the czarist era. He has been accused of everything: of using economic and political power to get rid of rivals, of forcing Chabad on Russia's secular Jewry, of serving as an "informer" and turning Jews in to the authorities and of whitewashing cases of anti-Semitism to curry favor with the regime. Even within his own movement, Chabad, there were those who said he had not advanced the interests of the religious in order not to damage his good relations with the regime.
Once a quiet life
"I didn't want to be elected chief rabbi," says Lazar in an interview to Haaretz in which he responds for the first time to accusations against him. "The heads of the communities approached me several times, and I said no. Before that, for 10 years I had lived a very quiet and satisfying life here, but they asked again and again and I gave in. I knew that a public figure does not have an easy life, but today I feel very comfortable with myself. It might have been possible to have achieved more, but these are things that could be done."
Why do you think that they are attacking you from so many directions?
"There are people who love success and are trying to blame other people. There are certain possibilities in this community, and we are trying to do the things that need to be done. In this country there is no other way to do this job."
Lazar outright rejects the accusations that he whitewashes incidents of anti-Semitism to help Putin's regime. In the past, a document to this effect was prepared at Nativ but was never published. Lazar's opponents say it was his own lobbying that won him the administration's official recognition as the chief rabbi of Russia instead of Rabbi Adolf Shayevich who had held the position since 1980. Similar accusations were raised several weeks ago after FEOR published figures according to which during the past year there was a drop in the number of anti-Semitic incidents in Russia. The Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University claims, however, that it is possible there has even been an increase in anti- Semitism.
"We are living here every day, we are working with the courts and the police and we put pressure on the government in every case of anti-Semitism," says Lazar in defense of FEOR's record. "Every community knows it is necessary to inform us immediately of every incident; we have a special hotline and we are the first to know and publish everything. Check into the cases that other organizations report to the world, and you will see that their source is our report. There is anti-Semitism and xenophobia here and this is not good, but to say there is an increase in anti-Semitism is simply incorrect."
Aren't you playing into the hands of the authorities, who are perhaps trying to hush up the problem of anti-Semitism?
"Playing into their hands? Of course. If they deserve credit, they deserve it. And when criticism is deserved, we speak out. There's a carrot and a stick, and we mustn't use only the stick."
They say that Putin makes calculating use of the Jews in order to advance his agenda. Are you convinced his affection for the Jews is authentic?
"I have no doubt. There are reasons for this that have to do with his childhood. Jewish teachers helped him very much and he had Jewish neighbors and friends. I once showed him a picture of the synagogue in St. Petersburg. He told me it couldn't be the right building because he remembers how as a boy he would go in there with a friend and eat the leftover matzas. I explained to him that we had simply renovated the building."
Putin is now saying in talks with Jewish leaders that one of the greatest mistakes of the Soviet leadership was that Jewish community life, as well as contact with world Jewry, were perceived as a threat to the regime. Even those who are among Putin's harshest critics, like former minister Natan Sharansky, believe this.
"I have serious complaints about his behavior," Sharansky said last week, "but I believe that in his attitude towards the Jews he is telling the truth."
Lazar: "Until now there has been good work done with the Russian administration regarding restoring assets and rebuilding community institutions. Now they also need to support the spiritual process and the restoration of the Jewish knowledge that was lost during the years of Communism. Putin understands this - a few months ago, he announced a donation of a month's salary to the establishment of the Jewish Museum."
Perhaps he is doing this only in order to gain points in the international arena?
"He doesn't need points in the United States."
What the Russian people wants, says Lazar, is stability "so a person knows that he can open a business without being afraid that someone is going to take it away from him."
And will Medvedev provide this stability?
"He is a very intelligent and open individual, who cares about Russia's future and the relations with the Jewish community. This can be seen in his visit here in the community, three days before it was announced he was the candidate. All of a sudden, he showed up at the synagogue for two and a half hours. Afterward, when Putin announced he would be the candidate, what they showed on Russian television were the pictures from that visit."
As for rumors spread by nationalist and anti-Semitic circles concerning Medvedev's Jewish roots, he prefers not to respond.
Criticism within Chabad
Not only slander has been Lazar's lot during his years in Russia. He was sent by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, as one of the first Chabad emissaries to Russia at the end of the 1980s. His mission was to revive religious life in Moscow and in Russia. During the first years, his large family lived in a small, decaying apartment. His eldest daughter came down with spinal meningitis, and after suitable medical treatment was not found for her in Russia the family went to Finland and from there to Israel, where the child eventually died.
Lazar's devotion to the movement, and the fact that during his years in the country the Chabad rabbis established their nearly exclusive control of established Jewish life, do not render him immune to criticism within the movement. Some of the factions in the Hasidut are not pleased with the nearly total control that Lazar has obtained in Russia, with the backing of Leviev, who is currently the most significant donor to Chabad activity.
An especially fraught issue is the fate of the Chabad Library, a large collection of antique books that belonged to the previous Lubavitcher rebbe and were confiscated by the Communists. Before his death, the Rebbe appointed four personal emissaries to deal with the issue, in order to pressure the Russian authorities, who relate to the library as a national asset and are refusing to hand it over to them. Some Chabad officials say Lazar prefers to see to his personal connections with the Putin government rather than help restore the library. His supporters, however, say that the four emissaries made every possible mistake and succeeded only in increasing the anti-Semitism in Russia through their actions.
Lazar himself is very cautious when he relates to this matter: "The Rebbe sent four rabbis to deal with the matter of the library. This is their mission. When they contact me, I will look into what can possibly be done about the matter. I have never been asked by them to deal with this. This is a matter of a decision by the Chabad center."
But the library is peanuts compared to the emotions that were stirred at the Chabad centers around the world in the wake of the arrest of 13 youngsters, Chabad yeshiva students, in the town of Rostov. The Tomkhei Temimim Yeshiva is one of the few Chabad institutions in Russia that is not under Lazar's control. Four months ago, the police raided the yeshiva a few hours before the start of the Sabbath. Thirteen students, citizens of the United States and Israel, were arrested. They were held under arrest over the Sabbath and afterward, and were then deported from Russia along with the local Chabad rabbi.
At Kfar Chabad in Israel, people accused Lazar of acting as an "informer" and of giving the authorities information to the effect that the students did not have valid visas. Lazar, who usually answers every question with a smile, tenses when he is asked about the affair and firmly refuses to relate to it. At the time he sent a letter to the rabbis of Kfar Chabad in which he refuted the accusations. "It is open season on me everywhere," he wrote. "My blood is being spilled like water in public."
Lazar claimed at the time that the students had been arrested because they had not updated their visas, despite clear instructions to do so.
But Lazar knows that on this issue he has entered sensitive territory. The accusations are similar to those raised against him several years ago. That was when one of his local rivals, the chief rabbi of Moscow on behalf of the Jewish Congress in Russia, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, was arrested upon entering Russia and deported. At the time, too, people accused Lazar of involvement in the affair. Lazar sighs again when these issues are raised during the course of the interview. Such is the price of success in Russia.
Perelman gives $50 million to hospital
Billionaire businessman Ronald Perelman has given $50 million to a New York hospital.
The New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center announced the gift in a news release last week.
The gift will be used to establish the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute, which will support research and clinical care initiatives.Perelman, the chairman of MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, is worth an estimated $10 billion.
He was born into a Conservative Jewish family but now belongs to an Orthodox synagogue. He keeps kosher and observes the Sabbath, according to the book "Stars of David."
Perelman has given extensively to higher education, including a $4.7 million to Princeton University to create the Ronald Perelman Institute for Jewish Studies. He also has given to Chabad.
The New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center announced the gift in a news release last week.
The gift will be used to establish the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute, which will support research and clinical care initiatives.Perelman, the chairman of MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, is worth an estimated $10 billion.
He was born into a Conservative Jewish family but now belongs to an Orthodox synagogue. He keeps kosher and observes the Sabbath, according to the book "Stars of David."
Perelman has given extensively to higher education, including a $4.7 million to Princeton University to create the Ronald Perelman Institute for Jewish Studies. He also has given to Chabad.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Did broker pray with, bilk clients?
Monday, February 25, 2008
In the past decade, the case shows losses of almost $20 million.
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
MIAMI — With a prayer shawl draped over his shoulders, stockbroker Gary Jay Gross cradled the Torah at the Chabad of Boca Raton — praying with worshippers and recruiting them as investors.
One was the rabbi. Another was an elderly widow. Another was a Holocaust survivor who met the broker at a Jewish scholarship dinner.
For their trust, the charismatic stockbroker promised to watch over their retirement accounts — persuading congregation members and others to funnel their money into the brokerage where he worked.
For years, Gross convinced clients he was honoring his pledges — in some cases, boasting double-digit returns on their investments.
But what the elderly clients say they didn’t know: The self-styled investment guru was wiping out their accounts in risky, highly volatile securities — losing millions — while racking up huge commissions for himself, according to arbitration complaints.
Along the way, investors say, he falsified reports to cover his tracks and hide the losses.
The FBI has just begun an investigation into a case that shows losses nearing $20 million in the past decade — the numbers rising with more clients emerging, according to arbitration claims.
Some clients have put their homes up for sale; others are seeking help from bankruptcy lawyers.
“I was suicidal when I found out,” said Sheila Kramer, 72, of Deerfield Beach, Fla., who lost $1 million.
The investigation is a case study of a state regulatory system unable to stop a troubled broker who left a trail of red flags.
Years before the latest wave of complaints, the Florida Division of Securities was warned about Gross — with numerous investors stepping forward — but no disciplinary action was taken, The Miami Herald found.
To this day, Gross has one of the longest records of complaints in the nation.
A Miami Herald analysis of nearly 600,000 stockbrokers found that he had more complaints against him than 99.9 percent of all brokers.
Nearly 100 of his former clients at Boca Raton’s Axiom Capital Management — including actor Henry “The Fonz” Winkler of TV’s Happy Days — are now his creditors.
“I had such faith,” said widow Carol Hoffer, 75, who entrusted her entire savings to Gross before her husband died. “I thought Gary was such a templegoer that he would be honest in his dealings.”
Gross has tried to distance himself from the scandal, resigning in January from the Boca Raton brokerage where he worked for five years. He has not been charged with any crimes.
The firm has paid nearly $3.8 million to some of the former investors.
For now, Gross, 56, says he doesn’t want to talk about the investigation. “These clients had investments that went down,” he said. “It’s that simple.”
But lawyers and investors say that it’s not that simple, that for years he parlayed his position as a member of an established synagogue to meet new customers — and later betrayed them.
Nearly a dozen investors said they trusted Gross, in part because of the devotion he showed to Orthodox Judaism, promoting himself as mishpoche: part of the family. Sometimes, he would wear his prayer shawl to the office, literally cloaking himself in Yiddishkeit.
That wasn’t the only thing that impressed his clients. Gross showed all the signs of success: expensive clothes; a Jaguar XJ; a home and country club membership at the Boca Raton Polo Club.
And he was eager to share with his clients, buying them show tickets and taking them to fancy restaurants, according to interviews.
From hundreds of court and arbitration records, a snapshot of Gross’ career emerges: A business graduate of Hofstra University, he owned dry cleaners before obtaining a broker’s license in November 1993 — shortly before filing for his first bankruptcy.
His first job was with Smith Barney in Boca Raton, and eventually he moved to Raymond James in 1996.
The following year, customers began to accuse him of sinking their money into unsuitable securities — not in keeping with investment objectives. But in each case, the brokerage denied the claims.
Gross moved to his third brokerage, CIBC World Markets Corp., in 1998, incurring new complaints — allegations of unsuitable investments — with his employer making several settlements.
But it wasn’t until he moved to UBS Financial Services in 2000 that the first big wave of complaints began — with investors claiming much bigger losses, records show.
With complaints mounting, Gross was allowed to resign from the brokerage “for conduct inconsistent with firm policies and standard business practices,” industry records state.
But it wasn’t so easy to move to his next firm. When he reapplied with the state to work at Axiom — a standard requirement — regulators began an inquiry.
Numerous investors were interviewed and hundreds of documents inspected by the state, but no actions were taken — even though lawyers for a half-dozen investors managed to settle more than $1 million in claims with UBS.
Instead of stopping Gross, the state agreed in 2003 to allow him to continue selling stocks. But regulators required him to be placed under “heightened supervision” — a form of self-monitoring in which the brokerage takes responsibility for a broker’s actions.
However, the supervising broker put in charge of Gross, David V. Siegel, had troubles of his own.
In the late 1990s, Siegel was censured, fined and suspended by out-of-state regulators for charging consumers unfair prices, records show. The day his supervisory duties began, he was in personal bankruptcy.
The state’s decision to allow Gross to continue as a broker proved costly.
Over the next four years, dozens of Axiom customers — some recruited at the synagogue — claimed they lost millions of dollars in personal investments turned over to Gross, in some cases their life savings.
At least 23 customers alleging a host of misdeeds — including fraud, mispresentation, excessive trading, and falsifying statements — lost at least $10 million, according to industry records.
Brandeis students raise big bucks for Chabad
Waltham Chabad hosts gala dinner
At its Feb. 10 gala dinner in a large hall at Lexington Chabad
House, nearly 100 Brandeis University students raised more than
$30,000 for the Waltham house.
Run by Rabbi Peretz and his wife Chanie
Chein out of their home across the street
from campus, the Waltham house
operates on a shoestring budget, hosting
crowded weekly Shabbat dinners and
holiday celebrations and offering a series
of classes as part of their iLearn series.
The house was established in 2001, and
the gala was the first of its kind. All
proceeds raised from the event will fund
operating expenses such as the cost of
food and a modest living for the rabbi.
There is a small fee for the popular classes offered at the house
throughout the week in which a reported 90 students are currently
enrolled.
“Chabad House is independently funded and we receive no major
contributions from donors or institutions,” said Chein, whose
students address him by his first name. “The people we serve don’t
have the ability to support our costs and that makes fundraising
extremely challenging.”
Relying only on small donations from people who come to the
house often, Chein said the house has operated under a deficit over
the last few years and there needs to be ways to support the work
they do. The gala itself was conceived and planned entirely by
seniors Cindy Kaplan and Yael Klein with help from other students,
including sophomore Lily Namanworth.
And despite the ice storm that night, close to 100 people attended
the fundraiser, paying the rather steep price of $180 a ticket.
Though shy of the 120 expected, in addition to the $31,000 raised,
someone reportedly made an additional pledge of $20,000.
What’s the attraction?
“Personal relationships and personal interaction,” said Chein, 32,
recalling a recent conversation with a 2004 Brandies graduate who
called to say hello and talk. “It develops and evolves and gets
people interested. That’s why they’ll come in big numbers. Everyone
feels special and important. We’re engaging, speak to important
issues and people of all backgrounds feel comfortable here.”
“We love Chanie and Peretz,” said Namanworth. “Every Friday
there’s a dinner at their house with something like 150 people.
They’re constantly giving to us and being there for the students.”
With a strong Reform, Conservative and Orthodox community,
Chein said Chabad is still able to have large dinners without
decreasing involvement in Hillel and other Jewish organizations on
campus.
“The number of those not engaged far exceeds those that are,”
Chein said. “When Chabad arrived we created a different model
and attracted those who were not engaged.”
He said the model starts with a “principle belief in the innate value
of every Jew regardless of, not despite, their current level of
engagement and observance.”
He said his goal and responsibility is to move everyone who walks
through his door forward from where they were before.
“As long as they’re moving forward, the individual answer is
different for everybody,” Chein said.
Senior Cindy Jacobs, who was raised Orthodox in New York, said
she’s been going to the house for Shabbat dinner and classes since
her sophomore year
“I hadn’t been happy at other places I’d gone before and a friend
told me about Chabad,” Jacobs said. “I’ve never had the experience
where I could consider a rabbi a friend. Peretz and Chanie are
amazing. Their door is always open and it’s a place where I can be
the kind of Jew I want to be. It’s important to have an anchor and
somewhere to go that feels like home.”
At its Feb. 10 gala dinner in a large hall at Lexington Chabad
House, nearly 100 Brandeis University students raised more than
$30,000 for the Waltham house.
Run by Rabbi Peretz and his wife Chanie
Chein out of their home across the street
from campus, the Waltham house
operates on a shoestring budget, hosting
crowded weekly Shabbat dinners and
holiday celebrations and offering a series
of classes as part of their iLearn series.
The house was established in 2001, and
the gala was the first of its kind. All
proceeds raised from the event will fund
operating expenses such as the cost of
food and a modest living for the rabbi.
There is a small fee for the popular classes offered at the house
throughout the week in which a reported 90 students are currently
enrolled.
“Chabad House is independently funded and we receive no major
contributions from donors or institutions,” said Chein, whose
students address him by his first name. “The people we serve don’t
have the ability to support our costs and that makes fundraising
extremely challenging.”
Relying only on small donations from people who come to the
house often, Chein said the house has operated under a deficit over
the last few years and there needs to be ways to support the work
they do. The gala itself was conceived and planned entirely by
seniors Cindy Kaplan and Yael Klein with help from other students,
including sophomore Lily Namanworth.
And despite the ice storm that night, close to 100 people attended
the fundraiser, paying the rather steep price of $180 a ticket.
Though shy of the 120 expected, in addition to the $31,000 raised,
someone reportedly made an additional pledge of $20,000.
What’s the attraction?
“Personal relationships and personal interaction,” said Chein, 32,
recalling a recent conversation with a 2004 Brandies graduate who
called to say hello and talk. “It develops and evolves and gets
people interested. That’s why they’ll come in big numbers. Everyone
feels special and important. We’re engaging, speak to important
issues and people of all backgrounds feel comfortable here.”
“We love Chanie and Peretz,” said Namanworth. “Every Friday
there’s a dinner at their house with something like 150 people.
They’re constantly giving to us and being there for the students.”
With a strong Reform, Conservative and Orthodox community,
Chein said Chabad is still able to have large dinners without
decreasing involvement in Hillel and other Jewish organizations on
campus.
“The number of those not engaged far exceeds those that are,”
Chein said. “When Chabad arrived we created a different model
and attracted those who were not engaged.”
He said the model starts with a “principle belief in the innate value
of every Jew regardless of, not despite, their current level of
engagement and observance.”
He said his goal and responsibility is to move everyone who walks
through his door forward from where they were before.
“As long as they’re moving forward, the individual answer is
different for everybody,” Chein said.
Senior Cindy Jacobs, who was raised Orthodox in New York, said
she’s been going to the house for Shabbat dinner and classes since
her sophomore year
“I hadn’t been happy at other places I’d gone before and a friend
told me about Chabad,” Jacobs said. “I’ve never had the experience
where I could consider a rabbi a friend. Peretz and Chanie are
amazing. Their door is always open and it’s a place where I can be
the kind of Jew I want to be. It’s important to have an anchor and
somewhere to go that feels like home.”
Multiply, Get Fruits
Have babies, get cash
Published: 02/20/2008
A Russian Jewish communal organization will pay Jewish families to have more babies.
At a news conference marking its tenth anniversary, the Chabad-led Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia announced it will subsidize Jewish families who have three or more children, Ha’aretz reported.
"Our goal for the next decade is to create a stronger community of young people and families," the group's chairman, Alexander Boroda, said. "This additional money is sometimes what a young family needs to have another child."
Aside from Chabad's interest in bolstering Jewish population, Russia has been in an ever-worsening demographic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The average Russian family has only 1.4 children, and the average male life expectancy is a mere 59 years. In 2007, President Vladimir Putin proposed a similar stipend for the general population to combat the crisis.
The federation’s stipend will be about $100 per month and is intended to boost Jewish community involvement.
Published: 02/20/2008
A Russian Jewish communal organization will pay Jewish families to have more babies.
At a news conference marking its tenth anniversary, the Chabad-led Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia announced it will subsidize Jewish families who have three or more children, Ha’aretz reported.
"Our goal for the next decade is to create a stronger community of young people and families," the group's chairman, Alexander Boroda, said. "This additional money is sometimes what a young family needs to have another child."
Aside from Chabad's interest in bolstering Jewish population, Russia has been in an ever-worsening demographic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The average Russian family has only 1.4 children, and the average male life expectancy is a mere 59 years. In 2007, President Vladimir Putin proposed a similar stipend for the general population to combat the crisis.
The federation’s stipend will be about $100 per month and is intended to boost Jewish community involvement.
Friday, February 01, 2008
The Jewish outreach absurdity
Instead of competing against each other, Jewish outreach groups should join forces to battle assimilation
Rabbi Levi Brackman
There has been a real transformation of the Orthodox Jewish landscape recently, but until now I have been only vaguely aware of it. Of course I knew that there are many different outreach organizations, all trying to reach and inspire the ever-elusive assimilated Jew. However, the extent of this movement within the Orthodox world—outside of Chabad—was not known to me.
Last week, for the first time, I went to a Jewish outreach convention in Baltimore, Maryland, which was hosted by The Association for Jewish Outreach Programs (AJOP). This convention was attended by over 550 Orthodox outreach professionals with representation from over 20 orthodox outreach organizations including Aish, Ner L’Elef, The Orthodox Union, NCSY, Torah Umesorah and Ohr Samayach. This was an opportunity for me to get a broad view of Jewish outreach and what makes it tick.
Clearly the sometimes insular Orthodox world has woken up and they have begun to organize in a serious way to combat assimilation. In fact it was inspiring to meet at the convention Yeshiva students from the local Ner Yisroel Yeshiva in Baltimore who had already decided to dedicate their lives to Jewish outreach. The ideal within the mainstream Orthodox Yeshiva world to leave the enclave and do outreach is still in its infancy there is no doubt however that the movement will grow both in strength and in numbers in the years to come. With the stunning statistics of assimilation and intermarriage throughout the Western world the awakening to do Jewish outreach has not come a minute too soon.
It seems, however, that there is still a rift between what is now known as the “kiruv world,” or the world of Orthodox outreach professionals, and the community of Chabad emissaries which do similar work. When, for example, one of the convention organizers presented statistics on outreach across the world the Chabad contribution to Jewish outreach was not included.
Considering the impact Chabad emissaries and Chabad organizations have had and continue to have on the Jewish world, the omission was absurd.
Same ultimate aim
Nonetheless, in conversation with some of the pioneers of the kiruv world, I found a dichotomy. When these pioneers got involved with outreach in the 1960s and 1970s, they told me that they took their inspiration from the work of the Lubavitcher Rebbe of Blessed Memory and from Chabad. One such pioneer actually explained to me that the only way they were able to get the rest of Orthodoxy involved in doing outreach was by making as if Chabad did not exist and then doing it independently of Chabad. “Chabad has to be ignored if we are to get the the ultra-Orthodox Yeshiva world to do outreach,” this individual explained.
From my experience Chabad also seems to ignore the good work done by other outreach programs, so this problem goes both ways. But my intention here is to encourage rather than to criticize. Clearly, all groups involved in Jewish outreach are doing important work and have the same ultimate aim, which is to stem the tide of assimilation and to encourage Jews to get more deeply involved with their Judaism. The methods and strategies used may vary slightly, but the resources displayed at both the AJOP and the Chabad conventions show that they are essentially the same. The question then demands to be posed: Why are they ignoring each other?
The notion that the outreach organizations are in competition with one another is ridiculous. With the high rate of assimilation and intermarriage in the West, I cannot imagine that there could be too many outreach workers in the field. The day that happens will be a blessed one. The battle against assimilation is far too important for its warriors to get embroiled in politics of this sort. Undoubtedly, all the outreach organizations, Chabad included, should put their differences aside and pool together all their resources and ideas to create an even brighter Jewish tomorrow.
Rabbi Levi Brackman (www.levibrackman.com) is executive director of Judaism in the Foothills (www.jitf.org). His upcoming book, about Jewish Business Success, is set to be published in late 2008.
Rabbi Levi Brackman
There has been a real transformation of the Orthodox Jewish landscape recently, but until now I have been only vaguely aware of it. Of course I knew that there are many different outreach organizations, all trying to reach and inspire the ever-elusive assimilated Jew. However, the extent of this movement within the Orthodox world—outside of Chabad—was not known to me.
Last week, for the first time, I went to a Jewish outreach convention in Baltimore, Maryland, which was hosted by The Association for Jewish Outreach Programs (AJOP). This convention was attended by over 550 Orthodox outreach professionals with representation from over 20 orthodox outreach organizations including Aish, Ner L’Elef, The Orthodox Union, NCSY, Torah Umesorah and Ohr Samayach. This was an opportunity for me to get a broad view of Jewish outreach and what makes it tick.
Clearly the sometimes insular Orthodox world has woken up and they have begun to organize in a serious way to combat assimilation. In fact it was inspiring to meet at the convention Yeshiva students from the local Ner Yisroel Yeshiva in Baltimore who had already decided to dedicate their lives to Jewish outreach. The ideal within the mainstream Orthodox Yeshiva world to leave the enclave and do outreach is still in its infancy there is no doubt however that the movement will grow both in strength and in numbers in the years to come. With the stunning statistics of assimilation and intermarriage throughout the Western world the awakening to do Jewish outreach has not come a minute too soon.
It seems, however, that there is still a rift between what is now known as the “kiruv world,” or the world of Orthodox outreach professionals, and the community of Chabad emissaries which do similar work. When, for example, one of the convention organizers presented statistics on outreach across the world the Chabad contribution to Jewish outreach was not included.
Considering the impact Chabad emissaries and Chabad organizations have had and continue to have on the Jewish world, the omission was absurd.
Same ultimate aim
Nonetheless, in conversation with some of the pioneers of the kiruv world, I found a dichotomy. When these pioneers got involved with outreach in the 1960s and 1970s, they told me that they took their inspiration from the work of the Lubavitcher Rebbe of Blessed Memory and from Chabad. One such pioneer actually explained to me that the only way they were able to get the rest of Orthodoxy involved in doing outreach was by making as if Chabad did not exist and then doing it independently of Chabad. “Chabad has to be ignored if we are to get the the ultra-Orthodox Yeshiva world to do outreach,” this individual explained.
From my experience Chabad also seems to ignore the good work done by other outreach programs, so this problem goes both ways. But my intention here is to encourage rather than to criticize. Clearly, all groups involved in Jewish outreach are doing important work and have the same ultimate aim, which is to stem the tide of assimilation and to encourage Jews to get more deeply involved with their Judaism. The methods and strategies used may vary slightly, but the resources displayed at both the AJOP and the Chabad conventions show that they are essentially the same. The question then demands to be posed: Why are they ignoring each other?
The notion that the outreach organizations are in competition with one another is ridiculous. With the high rate of assimilation and intermarriage in the West, I cannot imagine that there could be too many outreach workers in the field. The day that happens will be a blessed one. The battle against assimilation is far too important for its warriors to get embroiled in politics of this sort. Undoubtedly, all the outreach organizations, Chabad included, should put their differences aside and pool together all their resources and ideas to create an even brighter Jewish tomorrow.
Rabbi Levi Brackman (www.levibrackman.com) is executive director of Judaism in the Foothills (www.jitf.org). His upcoming book, about Jewish Business Success, is set to be published in late 2008.
'Laughter yoga' gains popularity in Lower Hudson Valley
Marcela Rojas
The Journal News
DOBBS FERRY - Inside the Chabad Synagogue on a recent Wednesday night, Simeon Darwick encourages a small group of believers to produce what he calls an innate - but little practiced - sound within them all.
With a bit of prompting, laughter, in all its forms, suddenly reverberates throughout the sanctuary. From soft, childlike giggles to loud, infectious guffaws, the merriment is inescapable.
"Laughing is the greatest thing. It's contagious. It crosses all boundaries, religions, sects and genders. There's nothing it can't break through," said Darwick, a holistic health counselor from Hartsdale. "If it's not programmed nowadays in the society we live in, people don't spontaneously laugh."
In December, Darwick, who runs Life Integrated Foods, began teaching "laughter yoga" at Chabad, a relatively new technique now gaining a following in the Lower Hudson Valley. The 45-minute class, also known as the Laughter Club, blends quick laughing exercises with gentle stretching and yoga breathing. The combination is hailed as simultaneously energizing and relaxing.
Along with the enjoyment participants say they experience from a good, hearty chuckling session, research has shown that laughter has tremendous therapeutic value.
"I don't think about pain when you do this," said Bea Gottlieb of Hartsdale, 84, who suffers from arthritis and walks with a cane. "You just feel happy and alert."
"You generate healthful chemicals," chimed in Joel Ross, 58, a retired medical researcher from Ardsley. "There's no reason to go through life sour - might as well laugh."
Indeed, studies have indicated that laughter is a natural healer with several health benefits, including reducing stress, boosting the immune system and increasing the supply of oxygen to the body.
"Stress is the No. 1 killer. It affects your heart. It's bad for your immunity," said Dr. Kishore Ranade, a neurologist at Putnam Hospital Center and clinical assistant professor of neurology at New York Medical College in Valhalla. "One of the ways to relieve stress is to laugh."
Ranade further explained that laughter jogs the internal organs, producing an aerobic activity that stimulates the heart and circulation. One minute of laugher is reportedly equivalent to 10 minutes of jogging or rowing.
Deep belly laughter clears out the lungs, allowing more oxygen into the body, Ranade continued. Laughter also raises the antibodies immunoglobulin A - strengthening the immune system - and releases endorphins, a natural pain killer, he said.
"Anecdotally, happy people don't get sick," he said. "Positive emotion does have a beneficial effect on your immune system."
Laughter yoga, or hasya yoga, was founded by Dr. Madan Kataria in 1995. Kataria, a physician from India and a student of yoga, was writing about laughter for a medical journal when he came up with the concept. Today, there are more than 5,000 laughter clubs in more than 50 countries worldwide.
Chun Kim-Levin of Mahopac, a longtime hatha yoga instructor, became certified in laugh yoga in April. She was trained by Kataria in Niagara Falls. She leads a laughter club session on Fridays at the Mahopac Public Library, and has offered the program at senior centers and women's shelters. In December, she gave an introductory class to a dozen people at the Brewster Public Library and expects to return there regularly.
"In ordinary settings we look for reasons to laugh," said Kim-Levin, who offers several therapies through her LifeSpring Holistic Services. "When we laugh without any reason, then everything suddenly can seem funny."
In Mahopac, she begins the class with enthusiastic clapping while repeating the phrase "HO HO HA HA." She moves into a series of laughter exercises, such as the "lion" laughter that works to release tension in the thyroid gland, she said. There's the greeting laughter, shaking hands or bowing while chortling, and bicycle laughter, air peddling to a vigorous har-de-har-har. Each of the exercises lasts about 20 seconds and is followed by stretching and breathing.
Typically, what starts out as forced, simulated laughter usually turns into genuine, uncontainable laughter.
Liz Benediktson said that since taking the class, she has noticed that her muscles are looser and that she is more flexible.
"I couldn't imagine life without it," said Benediktson, 57, a library clerk from Mahopac. "It opened up my heart."
For Marcia Allen, laughter yoga has made day-to-day challenges easier to deal with.
"It leaves me feeling light and free," said Allen, a retiree from Yorktown. "I think I laugh more."
Dr. G.J. Peister, a nonpracticing psychiatrist from Suffern, began teaching laughter yoga on Wednesday nights at the Peace through Play Nursery School in Chestnut Ridge in November. She too became certified by Kataria last year. Peister offers laughter yoga through her Dr. Wellbeing program.
Personally, she said, the practice has improved her digestion and her overall outlook on life. Stored negative energy, she emphasized, is released with laughter.
"The thing about laughter is that it's always been tied to humor," Peister said. "But what laugh yoga does is say do it (laugh) because we can do it. You can learn to laugh for no reason whatsoever."
The Journal News
DOBBS FERRY - Inside the Chabad Synagogue on a recent Wednesday night, Simeon Darwick encourages a small group of believers to produce what he calls an innate - but little practiced - sound within them all.
With a bit of prompting, laughter, in all its forms, suddenly reverberates throughout the sanctuary. From soft, childlike giggles to loud, infectious guffaws, the merriment is inescapable.
"Laughing is the greatest thing. It's contagious. It crosses all boundaries, religions, sects and genders. There's nothing it can't break through," said Darwick, a holistic health counselor from Hartsdale. "If it's not programmed nowadays in the society we live in, people don't spontaneously laugh."
In December, Darwick, who runs Life Integrated Foods, began teaching "laughter yoga" at Chabad, a relatively new technique now gaining a following in the Lower Hudson Valley. The 45-minute class, also known as the Laughter Club, blends quick laughing exercises with gentle stretching and yoga breathing. The combination is hailed as simultaneously energizing and relaxing.
Along with the enjoyment participants say they experience from a good, hearty chuckling session, research has shown that laughter has tremendous therapeutic value.
"I don't think about pain when you do this," said Bea Gottlieb of Hartsdale, 84, who suffers from arthritis and walks with a cane. "You just feel happy and alert."
"You generate healthful chemicals," chimed in Joel Ross, 58, a retired medical researcher from Ardsley. "There's no reason to go through life sour - might as well laugh."
Indeed, studies have indicated that laughter is a natural healer with several health benefits, including reducing stress, boosting the immune system and increasing the supply of oxygen to the body.
"Stress is the No. 1 killer. It affects your heart. It's bad for your immunity," said Dr. Kishore Ranade, a neurologist at Putnam Hospital Center and clinical assistant professor of neurology at New York Medical College in Valhalla. "One of the ways to relieve stress is to laugh."
Ranade further explained that laughter jogs the internal organs, producing an aerobic activity that stimulates the heart and circulation. One minute of laugher is reportedly equivalent to 10 minutes of jogging or rowing.
Deep belly laughter clears out the lungs, allowing more oxygen into the body, Ranade continued. Laughter also raises the antibodies immunoglobulin A - strengthening the immune system - and releases endorphins, a natural pain killer, he said.
"Anecdotally, happy people don't get sick," he said. "Positive emotion does have a beneficial effect on your immune system."
Laughter yoga, or hasya yoga, was founded by Dr. Madan Kataria in 1995. Kataria, a physician from India and a student of yoga, was writing about laughter for a medical journal when he came up with the concept. Today, there are more than 5,000 laughter clubs in more than 50 countries worldwide.
Chun Kim-Levin of Mahopac, a longtime hatha yoga instructor, became certified in laugh yoga in April. She was trained by Kataria in Niagara Falls. She leads a laughter club session on Fridays at the Mahopac Public Library, and has offered the program at senior centers and women's shelters. In December, she gave an introductory class to a dozen people at the Brewster Public Library and expects to return there regularly.
"In ordinary settings we look for reasons to laugh," said Kim-Levin, who offers several therapies through her LifeSpring Holistic Services. "When we laugh without any reason, then everything suddenly can seem funny."
In Mahopac, she begins the class with enthusiastic clapping while repeating the phrase "HO HO HA HA." She moves into a series of laughter exercises, such as the "lion" laughter that works to release tension in the thyroid gland, she said. There's the greeting laughter, shaking hands or bowing while chortling, and bicycle laughter, air peddling to a vigorous har-de-har-har. Each of the exercises lasts about 20 seconds and is followed by stretching and breathing.
Typically, what starts out as forced, simulated laughter usually turns into genuine, uncontainable laughter.
Liz Benediktson said that since taking the class, she has noticed that her muscles are looser and that she is more flexible.
"I couldn't imagine life without it," said Benediktson, 57, a library clerk from Mahopac. "It opened up my heart."
For Marcia Allen, laughter yoga has made day-to-day challenges easier to deal with.
"It leaves me feeling light and free," said Allen, a retiree from Yorktown. "I think I laugh more."
Dr. G.J. Peister, a nonpracticing psychiatrist from Suffern, began teaching laughter yoga on Wednesday nights at the Peace through Play Nursery School in Chestnut Ridge in November. She too became certified by Kataria last year. Peister offers laughter yoga through her Dr. Wellbeing program.
Personally, she said, the practice has improved her digestion and her overall outlook on life. Stored negative energy, she emphasized, is released with laughter.
"The thing about laughter is that it's always been tied to humor," Peister said. "But what laugh yoga does is say do it (laugh) because we can do it. You can learn to laugh for no reason whatsoever."
Friday, January 25, 2008
Chabad: there's no big secret
A recent published report on a plan to expand a West Street building into a synagogue and community center for Chabad Lubavitch called the project "a secret."
But the plans are no secret, and the organization, led by Rabbi Joseph Eisenbach, has every intention of pursuing its plans for the project. Whether it can and will sue the historic district commission on its ruling to deny the plan, or comply with its suggestion to reduce the size of it, remains to be seen.
"The issue is that right now the process the team is putting together is not a secret," Rabbi Eisenbach said Monday. "They just haven't done anything yet. That's the only secret.
"The bottom line is there's really nothing's happening ... our plan of action is that there's no secret. We haven't decided on what we're going to do," he said.
The proposal would expand the historic building on West Street and would include administrative offices, kitchen facilities, a swimming pool and a ceremonial bath, classrooms and a synagogue, as well as residential quarters on one floor of the addition.
Chabad Lubavitch bought the old building in 2006 and presented its expansion plans to the Litchfield Historic District Commission last year, participating in a hearing process that requested that board to grant them a certificate of appropriateness for the plans. The commission, after numerous hearings and discussion, ruled that the size of the plans were too large for the historic district and asked that it be scaled back, noting that it would allow the Chabad to create an addition that would double the size of the building, not quadruple it. The existing building is about 2,600 square feet.
The additions proposed to the West Street structure, a house that was designed by the Deming family in the 1870s, would create an extension to the building behind it. The front of the original structure would have a clock tower and a Star of David added to the façade as well as stonework on the front of the building. The rabbi said recently that the changes his architects are proposing to the original building maintain its historic character. But because it is a religious facility, some changes must be made to reflect that fact.
One of the controversies surrounding the proposal is the claim that the Chabad's freedom of religion rights are being impeded by the commission ruling. The controversy began in the fall when commission chairman Wendy Kuhne noted that the Star of David and changes to the front of the building might not comply with the character of the district, resulting in a firestorm of criticism that her comments were somehow "anti-Semitic."
Ms. Kuhne was eventually asked to recuse herself from the hearings on the proposal, which she reluctantly did. She was then criticized on an online blog, which included a photograph of a woman in a Nazi uniform with her name next to the image. That blog was linked to the Cool Justice Web site, a blog run by Litchfield resident and journalist Andy Thibault, This outraged many citizens in town, including Rabbi Eisenbach, who said any connection to the Nazis and the Holocaust was inappropriate.
Bloggers and opinions aside, the commission members have maintained at hearings and through their attorney, Jim Stedronsky, that they are charged with preserving the historic character of the borough of Litchfield and that they are simply trying to uphold their responsibilities.
When the vote was made at the commission's hearing late last year, however, Rabbi Eisenbach said he believed that the Litchfield of today was supportive of the plan to expand the house and that his organization has outgrown its current home on Village Green Drive, which proved the need for the new facility.
Rabbi Eisenbach, however, said that at this point, there are no plans in place to sue anyone. He has, however, maintained that the 20,000-square-foot addition is necessary.
"What we're going to do, and how we're going to proceed; it just hasn't been decided yet," the Rabbi reiterated. "We have not had any contact with the historic district commission, because we're still digesting the information we received from them at the last hearing. Our team is going over it."
©The Litchfield Enquirer 2008
But the plans are no secret, and the organization, led by Rabbi Joseph Eisenbach, has every intention of pursuing its plans for the project. Whether it can and will sue the historic district commission on its ruling to deny the plan, or comply with its suggestion to reduce the size of it, remains to be seen.
"The issue is that right now the process the team is putting together is not a secret," Rabbi Eisenbach said Monday. "They just haven't done anything yet. That's the only secret.
"The bottom line is there's really nothing's happening ... our plan of action is that there's no secret. We haven't decided on what we're going to do," he said.
The proposal would expand the historic building on West Street and would include administrative offices, kitchen facilities, a swimming pool and a ceremonial bath, classrooms and a synagogue, as well as residential quarters on one floor of the addition.
Chabad Lubavitch bought the old building in 2006 and presented its expansion plans to the Litchfield Historic District Commission last year, participating in a hearing process that requested that board to grant them a certificate of appropriateness for the plans. The commission, after numerous hearings and discussion, ruled that the size of the plans were too large for the historic district and asked that it be scaled back, noting that it would allow the Chabad to create an addition that would double the size of the building, not quadruple it. The existing building is about 2,600 square feet.
The additions proposed to the West Street structure, a house that was designed by the Deming family in the 1870s, would create an extension to the building behind it. The front of the original structure would have a clock tower and a Star of David added to the façade as well as stonework on the front of the building. The rabbi said recently that the changes his architects are proposing to the original building maintain its historic character. But because it is a religious facility, some changes must be made to reflect that fact.
One of the controversies surrounding the proposal is the claim that the Chabad's freedom of religion rights are being impeded by the commission ruling. The controversy began in the fall when commission chairman Wendy Kuhne noted that the Star of David and changes to the front of the building might not comply with the character of the district, resulting in a firestorm of criticism that her comments were somehow "anti-Semitic."
Ms. Kuhne was eventually asked to recuse herself from the hearings on the proposal, which she reluctantly did. She was then criticized on an online blog, which included a photograph of a woman in a Nazi uniform with her name next to the image. That blog was linked to the Cool Justice Web site, a blog run by Litchfield resident and journalist Andy Thibault, This outraged many citizens in town, including Rabbi Eisenbach, who said any connection to the Nazis and the Holocaust was inappropriate.
Bloggers and opinions aside, the commission members have maintained at hearings and through their attorney, Jim Stedronsky, that they are charged with preserving the historic character of the borough of Litchfield and that they are simply trying to uphold their responsibilities.
When the vote was made at the commission's hearing late last year, however, Rabbi Eisenbach said he believed that the Litchfield of today was supportive of the plan to expand the house and that his organization has outgrown its current home on Village Green Drive, which proved the need for the new facility.
Rabbi Eisenbach, however, said that at this point, there are no plans in place to sue anyone. He has, however, maintained that the 20,000-square-foot addition is necessary.
"What we're going to do, and how we're going to proceed; it just hasn't been decided yet," the Rabbi reiterated. "We have not had any contact with the historic district commission, because we're still digesting the information we received from them at the last hearing. Our team is going over it."
©The Litchfield Enquirer 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Excerpt from: Righteous Indignation: How Are We To Understand the Alleged Spinka Scandal?
..To this day, the most renowned Hasidic sect, Chabad-Lubavitch, religiously celebrates the anniversaries of the release from Russian jails of its revered founding Rebbe, Shneur Zalman of Lyadi in 1798, as well as the subsequent liberations of his descendants, Rabbi Dov Ber Schneerson in 1826 and Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneerson, who had been imprisoned by the Soviets in 1927. Behind all these unjust incarcerations lay the mischievous work of Jewish informants, initially from among the misnagdim, Hasidism’s mainstream rabbinical opponents, later the maskilim or Jewish champions of the European Enlightenment, and finally the radicals of the notorious Yevseksia, the “Yiddish division” of the Communist Party. Indeed, during the dark days of Soviet Communism, zealously anti-ecclesiastical members the Yevseksia did the government’s dirty work of shutting down synagogues and yeshivas and jailing their rabbinic leaders. It is thus for legitimate historical reasons that, in the Hasidic psyche, the deepest contempt is reserved for Jewish informants, or mosrim.
Rabbi Zacks Joins Chabad Jewish Community Center
January 24, 2008
By ANN BELL
Special to the Palisadian-Post
Rabbi Shloime Zacks and his wife Moriel have joined the staff at the Chabad Jewish Community Center of Pacific Palisades. They will head two important departments: Adult Education and Community Outreach.
Rabbi Zacks is from London and received his rabbinical ordination from the Rabbinical College of America in Morristown, New Jersey. Following his marriage to Moriel, he spent two years in New York attending college. He also lectured on various subjects (including law, Kabbalah, and character refinement) at two Jewish centers for adult education.
'Growing up the way I did brought me into contact with the full spectrum of Jewish affiliation,' says Rabbi Zacks. 'I learned to befriend, love and respect all people for who they are.'
Whether on the soccer field, at the Sunday farmers market, in synagogue, or just around town, he truly enjoys making new friends here in the Palisades.
This month, as head of the adult education department, Zacks is teaching a crash course in reading Hebrew. On February 6 he begins the winter Jewish Learning Institute course, 'Beyond Belief: Reflections on Jewish Faith.'
'It is a great pleasure to teach in the Palisades,' Zacks says. 'I find that people here are bright and very insightful and from so many diverse backgrounds!'
The rabbi teaches the Talmud on Sunday mornings following a lox and bagels breakfast at the Chabad. He also lectures on contemporary issues.
Moriel Zacks was born and raised in the Palisades by her parents, Shimon Waysman, O.B.M., and Dr. Dalia Goldfarb-Hecht. She attended Bais Channah in Los Angeles, finished her high school education in New Haven, Connecticut, and continued her higher education in Israel.
After their marriage, the Zackses settled in New York, where Moriel worked with children with special needs and teenage volunteers in a program called The Friendship Circle. After seeing how successfully the program worked within several communities, Moriel is eager to implement and direct the same outreach program at Chabad in the Palisades.
'The Friendship Circle is enjoying great success in many communities worldwide,' Moriel says. 'The aim is to bring smiles and friendship to children with special needs, and peace of mind to their parents. The program also fosters the values of volunteerism and compassion among youth.'
Rabbi Zushe Cunin is director of Chabad in the Palisades. For more information, visit www.chabadpalisades.org or write to info@chabadpalisades.org.
excerpt from: A Few Things Are Illuminated: A Wild and Crazy Roots Trip to the Old Country
...In order to find the best archivists and genealogists available in a certain town or region, it is best to contact the local Jewish community in advance. In Rostov, I contacted Rabbi Chaim Friedman, the Chabad-linked spiritual leader of Rostov Jewry, who not only put me into contact with archivist Yevgeni Gimodudinov but made sure Tanya and I had the chance to participate fully in the life of the community. A well-preserved 19th century city of over one million that serves as the unofficial capital of Russia's south, Rostov is booming these days with plenty of new construction, emblematic of a prosperity that has now spread from Moscow to major regional centers.
Rabbi Boteach, you're wrong about Chabad
In his Post column "Chabad Messianists: Wrong, but still Jews" (January 20), Shmuley Boteach asserts that the refusal of a rabbinic court in Israel to accept a convert who believes that the Lubavitcher Rebbe is the Messiah is an "act of serious contempt for a non-Jew who has made sacrifices to ally himself with the Jewish people."
On the contrary, to accept such a convert would be an act of serious contempt for generations of Jews who gave their lives to preserve the theological boundaries between Judaism and Christianity.
Rabbi Boteach maintains that only two of the differences between Judaism and Christianity really count: the belief in the divinity of the Messiah and failure to observe the Torah. Since Lubavitch hassidim observe the Torah, and "no one in Chabad would ever assert" that the Rebbe is divine, the belief in a Messiah who announces that redemption will come in his generation, dies in an unredeemed world, and is then resurrected for his second coming does not disqualify the believer as a fully Orthodox Jew or, if he is not yet Jewish, as a prospective convert.
FOR MORE than a thousand years, Jews have told Christian missionaries that the Jewish denial of a second coming is a bright line dividing the religions. From Nahmanides to R. Hayyim of Brisk, from R. Yom Tov Lipmann Muelhausen to R. Judah Aryeh da Modena, the Messiahship of Jesus was ruled out of court on the explicit grounds that Judaism affirms that once the Messiah begins his redemptive career, he completes it during his lifetime.
In the words of R. Pinhas Elijah Hurwitz of Vilna (1765-1821) in his Sefer ha-Berit, "We are obligated to believe that a Jewish man will come who will begin to save Israel and will complete the salvation of Israel in that generation. One who completes the task is the one, while one who does not complete it in that generation but dies or is broken or is taken captive [Exodus 22:9] is not the one and was not sent by God." Not only does this position stand at the core of the historic Jewish defense against the Christian mission; it served as the criterion for the uncompromising rejection of movements of false messianism after the death of the messianic figure.
THE ISSUE before us is not whether belief in a second coming, which shatters the parameters of the messianic faith of Judaism, is outright heresy. Not every non-heretic has a presumptive right to be welcomed into the Jewish people. To allow a non-Jew to cross the line into Judaism while affirming a belief that Jews through the ages have seen as a defining characteristic of a rival faith is to declare that that belief, while probably incorrect, is acceptable in Judaism. It is to declare that on a matter of fundamental principle, our martyred ancestors were wrong, and their Christian murderers were right.
But this is not the end of it. Tragically, Rabbi Boteach's assertion that no one in Chabad would ever assert that the Rebbe is divine is also misguided. Without engaging in theological niceties, I present quotations from statements by religious mentors in respected Lubavitch institutions in both Israel and the United States.
1. Rabbi Levi Yitzhak Ginsberg (written after the Rebbe's passing): Yes, the Rebbe's body is composed of flesh and blood, but as far as he's concerned he is not compelled or limited by anything - not by physical limitations nor by spiritual limitations. He "is what he is." [This refers, of course, to the divine name in Exodus 3:14.] Even as he is enclothed in a physical body, he remains limited by nothing whatsoever and he has the ability to do everything and be everything in an unlimited manner.
2. Rabbi Levi Yitzhak Ginsberg (written after the Rebbe's passing): The Rebbe is the "master of the house" with respect to all that happens to him and all that happens in the world. Without his agreement no event can take place, and if it is his will, he can bring about anything, "and who can tell him what to do" ….In him the Holy One Blessed be He rests in all His force just as He is (because of his complete self-nullification to God, so that this becomes his entire essence).
3. Rabbi Sholom Charitonow, asserting that the Rebbe manifests the Essence of the unlimited God and explaining why it follows that even his physical body remains alive in the deepest sense: Interruptions can only apply where there are borders and limitations (as opposed to Essence), which have been utilized to a maximum, making it necessary to proceed to new borders and limitations. Concerning the Essence, however, in relation to which borders and forms do not conceal at all - on the contrary, they actually become united with the Essence - all causes of interruption do not apply. In other words - not only is the interruption unnecessary, it is in fact impossible. This can apply to something which has a form (whether of a physical or a spiritual nature); it cannot, however, apply to something that is eternal by nature, having no form whatsoever.
4. Rabbi Yashovam Segal (written in 2003):
We Lubavitch hassidim believe that the House of our Rabbi in Babylonia [i.e., 770 Eastern Parkway] is the Temple, and the Rebbe is the Ark of the Covenant standing on the Foundation Rock in which [referring to the Rebbe/ark] the divine Being and Essence rests.
He goes on to say that the prohibition against associating God with something else (shittuf), which is the classic category used in Judaism to analyze the status of Christianity, applies to the sun and moon but not to the supremely righteous, who are one with God.
THERE IS much more, but these quotations will have to suffice. If a published report that the prospective convert in question believes that the Rebbe is physically alive is correct, then he belongs to a group suffused with this theology. Thus, it is more than likely that to accept him into the Jewish people is to erase even a line that Rabbi Boteach wishes to preserve.
I do not, however, want to "define deviancy down." Belief in posthumous false messianism is sufficient to disqualify a potential convert. The decision of this rabbinic court provides a small glimmer of hope that Orthodox Judaism will refuse to legitimate the historic betrayal of Judaism that has unfolded in the last decade and a half. I hope against hope that the decision will be allowed to stand.
The writer is professor of Jewish history at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Yeshiva University and author of The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Comedy Central Chabad from NYT
By GREGORY BEYER
AS usual, Mendy Pellin wore the traditional black coat and hat of a Hasid and sat on a high stool facing the camera. He read quickly through a page of notes, shook his head vigorously in the way of preparation, and signaled his readiness with a nod to his cameraman, Dovi Trappler. As the camera rolled, Mr. Pellin’s voice dropped to the confident baritone of an overeager news anchor.
Mr. Pellin, a garrulous 25-year-old, was beginning yet another segment as the host of “The Mendy Report,” an Internet news broadcast on the Web site ChabadTube.com. He runs the broadcast out of his childhood bedroom, now cluttered with production lights and videotape cassettes, in his family’s fourth-floor walk-up apartment on Kingston Avenue in a Hasidic enclave of Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
Standing 6 feet 2 inches and wearing a long, dark beard, Mr. Pellin is aware that his appearance may suggest, to those outside the Hasidic community, an intense humorlessness. “The Mendy Report” is his lighthearted attempt to prove otherwise by parodying local, national and international news, in a style that sometimes recalls Comedy Central staples like “The Daily Show” or “The Colbert Report.”
“There’s a certain stereotype of Hasidim, and I think this has been a big tool in breaking that stereotype,” Mr. Pellin said of his program, which, he said, has been viewed a half-million times since its debut last January. It was the subject of a recent article in The Jewish Sentinel, a local weekly newspaper.
“The Mendy Report” is also a looking glass for Mr. Pellin’s fellow Hasidim. Most Hasidic Jews in Crown Heights don’t own televisions, Mr. Pellin says, and despite its lighthearted tone, his online broadcast has emerged for some members of his community as a legitimate source of news. “We’re not really that exposed to the outside world,” he said, half-jokingly.
On Tuesday afternoon, from a stool in his bedroom studio, Mr. Pellin filmed a few segments for the show’s third season, which will begin on Feb. 18. Afterward, he went down to the street to film a segment about what he described as “the happiest people in the community” — school crossing guards. Who are they, he wanted to know, and what is the source of their boundless cheerfulness?
Mr. Pellin and his cameraman found their crossing guard standing at an Eastern Parkway median, in front of the Oholei Torah elementary school, and began firing questions at her. Do crossing guards get paid? (Yes.) Did she like her flashy yellow uniform vest? (No.) What would happen if a child crossed in front of a speeding car? “Is it like a presidential bodyguard,” he asked, “where you’re required to jump in front of the child?” The guard said it was not like that.
As Mr. Pellin conducted his interview, bearded men in dark coats and hats paused to snap his picture with their cellphones. One man declared Mr. Pellin “the best man in town.” Mr. Pellin later identified the individual as his former principal, who, since his school days, it seemed, had grown more tolerant of his antics.
Mr. Trappler, the cameraman, is another admirer of Mr. Pellin’s approach.
“He was the first one to venture out and do things in a casual way,” Mr. Trappler said. “A lot of people got the chills. But he took a black-and-white community and turned it into color.”
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Lubavitch Non-Messianists Win Court Battle
by Debra Nussbaum Cohen
Staff Writer
In the fight for control of 770 Eastern Parkway— the headquarters and heart of the Lubavitch movement, which has been the site of passionate and sometimes violent fights between messianists and non-messianists — a court decision last week has come down clearly on the side of the non-messianists.The strongly worded decision from Justice Ira Harkavy of New York State Supreme Court on Dec. 27 says that the only parties with the right to determine what happens at 770 are its owners, two of the movement’s central organizations, Agudas Chasedei Chabad and Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch (Association of Chabad Chasidim and the Lubavitch Educational Organization).The decision marks a victory for those in the movement who have been trying to marginalize the messianists — who believe in proclaiming the last, late Lubavitch rebbe as the messiah —since the faction began asserting itself when the rebbe was debilitated by a stroke in 1992, two years before he died. A spokesman for Agudas and Merkos, Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, said, “We’re very gratified by the court’s decision. We’re pained by the events that led us here and still harbor hopes that those responsible will recognize the error of their ways.” [follow link for the rest]
Staff Writer
In the fight for control of 770 Eastern Parkway— the headquarters and heart of the Lubavitch movement, which has been the site of passionate and sometimes violent fights between messianists and non-messianists — a court decision last week has come down clearly on the side of the non-messianists.The strongly worded decision from Justice Ira Harkavy of New York State Supreme Court on Dec. 27 says that the only parties with the right to determine what happens at 770 are its owners, two of the movement’s central organizations, Agudas Chasedei Chabad and Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch (Association of Chabad Chasidim and the Lubavitch Educational Organization).The decision marks a victory for those in the movement who have been trying to marginalize the messianists — who believe in proclaiming the last, late Lubavitch rebbe as the messiah —since the faction began asserting itself when the rebbe was debilitated by a stroke in 1992, two years before he died. A spokesman for Agudas and Merkos, Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, said, “We’re very gratified by the court’s decision. We’re pained by the events that led us here and still harbor hopes that those responsible will recognize the error of their ways.” [follow link for the rest]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)