Twenty-five years ago, Rabbi Benny Zippel had more to worry about than how to launch a new congregation. He’d been instructed by his religious leader to go to Utah, and he had no idea where that was.

In Jewish communities across Long Island, interest is growing in an ancient ritual with intricate rules in which women immerse themselves in small, elegant indoor pools.
Known as mikvahs, the pools traditionally are used by observant Jewish women to purify themselves seven days after each menstrual cycle, providing a deeply spiritual experience.

The Chabad House in Frederick is just one year old, but its basement will already be getting a facelift after more than a foot of flood water washed it out last week.
Thanks to a matching donation, the Chabad of Frederick raised $50,000 as of Friday to get started on renovations and installing future preventive measures, said director Rabbi Boruch Labkowski.

THE Jewish community is mourning Rebbetzin Devorah Groner, who passed away on Sunday at the age of 92.
The wife of the late Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner, was born in Russia in 1926, and as a child, migrated to the US, where her parents fostered Chassidic Judaism.
Rabbi Shimshon Yurkowicz told The AJN his late mother-in-law “was a very modest, dedicated, devoted shlucha [emissary]. She was sent from New York to Australia, which was very far and very difficult”.

More than 300 people attended the Hallandale Beach -based Chabad of South Broward’s recent 37th annual dinner in Fort Lauderdale .
Chabad of South Broward is home to more than 45 local Jewish institutions and agencies, including its main synagogue, Congregation Levi Yitzchok-Lubavitch in Hallandale Beach.

Eighty Palm Beach County women, representing three generations of women from ages 10 to 70, attended the recent Mega Challah Bake.
The Mega Challah Bake was organized by both Chabad of Delray Beach and Chabad Jewish Center of West Boynton and took place at the clubhouse of Deauville Village in Delray Beach.

A delegation of five MKs arrived Thursday morning at the grave of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in New York. The visit was organized by Agudat Chassidei Chabad in Israel.
The delegations included MKs Shuli Moalem Rafaeli, Yoel Hasson, Nurit Koren, Oded Furer, and Minister of Culture and Sports Miri Regev.

If you see a group parading up Route 9 in Poughkeepsie Sunday, don’t be alarmed.
Members of the mid-Hudson Valley’s Jewish community plan to parade from the Hampton Inn on South road to the Chabad Lubavitch Center.

Speaking at the opening of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem two weeks ago were Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Ruvy Rivlin, Jared Kushner … and Rabbi Zalman Wolowik.
He is the Chabad shliach of the Five Towns where he first met Ambassador Friedman over two decades ago.

IF North Shore Chabad was hoping to deeply inspire each of the 250 guests at its annual fundraising gala dinner at Curzon Hall on May 16 by their choice of guest speakers, it succeeded greatly.

It is nearly ten years since the Beis Gavriel Chabad community was established in Hendon.
To meet the needs of the growing community — today numbering 200 adults and children — Beis Gavriel affiliated to the Federation of Synagogues and a permanent site was purchased in Sunningfields Road for a £2.3 million project.

This Sunday, Tierra Rejada Road in Moorpark will be enlivened by a parade of people dancing to traditional music in celebration of a Torah that brings together the past and present for residents of the Jewish faith.