Thousands of people took part in the Sixth Hungarian ‘Cholent Festival’ (“Sólet” in Hungarian) at the Újbuda outdoor theater in Budapest before the start of the High Holidays, organized by the Chabad Lubavitch organization Association of Hungarian Jewish Communities (EMIH).
Where there were once 150 synagogues in Budapest, there are now fewer than two dozen; however, efforts in the past decade to foster a resurgence in Jewish life have proven successful.
There is no such thing as a good tragedy, and a shocking event that rocks a community can never be considered timely. But to Rabbi Avremel Vogel, there is something symbolic to be found in the Aug. 25, 2020, arson that gutted the Chabad Center for Jewish Life on South College Avenue in Newark, near the University of Delaware campus.
Rabbi Mendy Schapiro hopes the completion of a new Sefer Torah at the Chabad Jewish Center of Monroeville will lead to centuries of continued Jewish community in Pittsburgh’s eastern suburbs.
Those receiving addiction help from Caron Treatment Centers have a new place to practice their Jewish faith with the opening of the Chabad of Berks County hospitality center in Muhlenberg Township.
A 17-year-old teen from Bellevue, Washington named Nathan Sheyman, met with the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog Sheyman as part of a special delegation of eleven teen representatives of the Chabad Teen Network, CTeen. Sheyman represented CTeen of Bellevue.
As about 125 people from the Chabad Jewish Center of Petaluma warmly socialized in the sunshine and enjoyed ornate desserts, rabbi and scribe Levi Potash was putting the final touches on a new, hand-written Torah scroll, over a year in the making. Once completed, the full assembly would celebrate by dancing the Torah down the streets of Petaluma to its new home at the Chabad Center on Keller Street.
Last summer Central Massachusetts Chabad distributed fruits and vegetables to families in the Central Mass. area in collaboration with Boston Area Gleaners of Waltham as part of the USDA school lunch program for families with children ages 0-18.
The Chabad Center opens its new Holocaust Education Center, with some 700 artifacts recovered from Nazi concentration camps and collected by Mel Mermelstein. Among those are uniforms worn by inmates, pieces of barbed-wire fence and even parts of a prayer book found buried near an incinerator.
“With great pomp and fanfare we completed the Torah and welcomed it to our shul,” Chabad of Uptown Rabbi Chaim Lazaroff told the JHV.
After years of renovation and more than $10 million invested by the community and donors, the Chabad Center for Jewish Life in Newport Beach is ready to be unveiled.
Chabad of Santa Fe is in the closing stages of remodeling the three-story, 16,000-square-foot former State Engineer’s Office into a new Jewish Center with a synagogue, social room, kitchen, deli, classrooms and six rooms for overnight accommodations.