News

The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), representing over 2,500 traditional, Orthodox rabbis in American public policy, Tuesday lamented the decision by Hebrew Union College (HUC), the flagship seminary of the Reform Judaism movement, to admit and ordain rabbinical candidates in interfaith relationships. This comes after the board of HUC dropped its ban prohibiting students from being in a relationship with a person of another faith.

My father, David Baron, whose Iraqi name was Jiji (changed later in Israel and then in America to Baron), was born in Basra, Iraq. In 1948, when war broke out in Israel, my father was one of those Jews who fled to Iran through the underground because the Shah was good to the Jews at that time.  After living in Iran for three years, he made Aliyah to Israel and joined his parents and the rest of his family. Life in Israel was hard for them because they lived in tents. They were accustomed to being non-observant, so they just settled with their way of life as it was.

For a decade and a half, Rav Wolfson made an annual visit to Kew Gardens Hills

The Torah world was thrown into mourning this past Motza’ei Shabbos shortly after midnight, with the p’tirah of Rav Moshe Wolfson ztk”l, 99. In the 1960s, Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky, Rosh HaYeshivah at Mesivta Torah Vodaath of Kensington, Brooklyn, appointed Rav Wolfson, a beloved magid shiur, to be Mashgiach Ruchani at the Torah citadel where he had been one of Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz’s closest talmidim. Rav Wolfson was also the longtime mara d’asra at the Yeshiva’s summer getaway Camp Torah Vodaath, as well as at Beis Midrash Emunas Yisrael of Boro Park, which gained its namesake off the Rav’s everlasting principle of stressing the unique value of faith in our generation. Rav Wolfson, one of the most revered rabbinic figures of our time, delivered a down-to-earth experience to all he encountered.

In joint statement, leaders condemn recent antisemitic incidents and pledge to investigate hate-motivated acts or threats of violence On Tuesday, all 62 District Attorneys in the state of New York, and the New York State Attorney General, individually signed a joint statement reassuring their constituents of their public safety priorities while pledging to prosecute and investigate hate-motivated threats or violence in response to the recent string of antisemitic incidents in New York City.

Nosson Nota (Jonathan) Kaplowitz a”h, 50, of Kew Gardens Hills, was niftar this past Sunday, June 23. Rabbi Shaul Wertheimer, founder of Chabad on Campus at Queens College, officiated a graveside levayah Monday afternoon at New Montefiore Cemetery in West Babylon.

Orot, the ladies-empowered division of Ohr Natan, brought over 300 Jewish women together from all backgrounds – Ashkenazi and Sephardic, young and old – for a powerful pre-Shavuot celebration in Forest Hills on June 9.