For the first time in the Princeton Club’s history, a kosher caterer took full charge of the facility, serving a kosher sit-down dinner for 130 guests. Although previously one could order individual kosher meals, and the Webbs had organized kosher buffets there for a few years, the December gala broke precedent.

“It’s been a festival here all month leading up to the opening,” Raizy Zaklas, Chabad’s representative to Zagreb, Croatia told me Wednesday morning. She and her husband, Rabbi Pini Zaklas, were preparing for the formal inauguration of Zagreb’s new mikvah, the first in seventy years. Aromas were wafting out of Chabad’s kitchen, where a chef was preparing food for a crowd. Raizy was wrapping up a private Torah class with a local woman, and the rabbi was greeting guests who had come from abroad for the occasion.

Center City, Philadelphia is home to some of the oldest synagogues in the United States, like the first Ashkenazic congregation established in the Western Hemisphere in 1795. One of these historic synagogues, the 100-year-old Vilna shul, known for its warm, inclusive services, is renovating its vintage sanctuary and moving weekly prayer services to the third floor to allow a new women’s mikvah to be built in its place.

In the 1970s and ‘80s, many segments of American Jewry led protests and rallies under the banner, “Let My People Go,” agitating to bring Russian Jews out of the former Soviet Union. Where do these Russian transplants and their children and grandchildren figure today in the American Jewish community?

As the first anniversary of last year’s tragic Parkland, Florida shooting arrives, memorial services and events are being held across Parkland and the Coral Springs area. “The mood has again become increasingly somber,” says Rabbi Mendy Gutnick of Chabad of Parkland.

Memorial services were held this week at the Star of David Cemetery in North Lauderdale, Florida and at Chabad of Parkland for some of the Jewish victims of the Parkland school shooting.

A convoy of one hundred cars rolls solemnly through Akron’s Jewish community. People of every affiliation are coming to pay their last respects to the man “who built this community.” Over the course of thirty years, Rabbi Mendy Sasonkin managed to bridge the centuries-old gaps dividing Akron’s diverse Jewish population, promoting the culture of warmth and unity that has come to define the city’s Jewish community. How will the center hold without him?

Designed by the emissaries, the mikvah is uniquely Korean. Its roof is reminiscent of the curved, tiled designs that feature prominently in royal Korean architecture, and the waved aluminium panels on the left side of the building are a nod to the modern, high-tech vibe currently sweeping the country. The mikvah pool features intricate mosaic tiles placed along the walls that were artfully formed in the shape of a single droplet of water, encouraging one to contemplate the sanctity and rebirth associated with the waters of the mikvah.

The goods and clothing donation exchange is marking thirteen years of humanitarian aid in the tri-state area. They match donors to recipients for almost any household item imaginable. Directed by Rabbi Mordechai Hecht, Chabad emissary and rabbi at Anshe Sholom Chabad JCC, the organization aims to provide the material needs of the Jewish community.

“The growth of Intown Atlanta points to the need for a reimagined urban Jewish community center,” says Rabbi Eliyahu Schusterman, who, together with his wife, Dena, founded Chabad Intown in 1997 and built it into a thriving Jewish center.