Chabadnik News
An energetic leader and personal mentor to hundreds, she worked under the Rebbe’s guidance for decades The story of Rebbetzin Rachel Altein’s life is intertwined with the history of Chabad in America like that of few others. She served for decades as the English language editor of Di Yiddishe Heim, a periodical by and for […]
NEW YORK (JTA) — Sitting at my Seder table with my two eldest daughters and my wife, I was struggling to find something to say that would provide meaning to this moment. Here we were: alone, beginning a Passover unlike any other we had ever experienced and, please God, will ever experience. Moments before Passover began, […]
With synagogues shuttered indefinitely, Jewish life is evolving to conform with the new home-based reality. When possible, technology is taking a more prominent role, facilitating Torah study, fellowship and more. Perhaps one of the most difficult mitzvahs to fulfill in an ordinary year is the counting of the Omer, which requires that each sequential day […]
Chabad of Huntsville was spray-painted with swastikas and racial slurs after a different synagogue was vandalized on the first night of Passover A second synagogue was vandalized in Huntsville, Alabama, days after another one was plastered with anti-Semitic slurs. The Chabad of Huntsville was spray-painted with swastikas and what local media describes as anti-Semitic graffiti and racial slurs […]
Repurposed RVs as “Mitzvah Tanks” are a familiar sight on the streets of New York City every year during the days before Passover. Staffed by young yeshivah students armed with shmurah matzah, these “tanks” roll through the city and deliver the traditional handmade discs to thousands of Jews across the metropolis. This year, the repurposed […]
It’s the last rite of honor, but for many during the COVID-19 pandemic, that right is no longer In this multimedia mini-series, we look at Chabad’s response to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on Jewish life events. As people die and are buried with no family to see them off, part four examines how […]
In past years, when Jews in his area needed to sell their chametz (leaven) before the start of Passover, Rabbi Levi Dubinsky would meet them in person to fill out forms that would authorize him to sell their leavened products on their behalf. This year, though, with the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic people are staying home, […]
5:30 a.m. It’s still dark outside when Chani Benjaminson, coordinator of Chabad.org’s “Ask the Rabbi” and Reader Feedback departments, sits down at her screen, steaming hot tea in hand, and begins to sort through the day’s mail. She’s on the lookout for the kind of questions that cannot wait: “Suicides, end-of-life issues, timely Shabbat and […]
Three weeks ago, after speaking with a physician friend who works for a pharmaceutical company, Rabbi Shmuel Gancz made “a simple calculation” and closed his synagogue before any edict from elected officials. If the coronavirus led to even 1% of the county’s 325,000 residents needing hospitalization, and hospitals in adjoining counties refused Rockland’s cases, Gancz thought, the […]
Aspen-based visual artist Marc Bennett’s debut film will screen at 2020 Aspen Shortsfest. Bennett’s animated short adaptation of the children’s book “The Tattooed Torah” is in the family-friendly Program Nine of the Oscar-qualifying festival, which has gone virtual this year as the coronavirus pandemic has shuttered public spaces including the Wheeler Opera House, where Shortsfest […]