Jubilant faces are a rare sight after a devastating loss by the home team, yet it was all smiles for the thousands of Jews who participated in CTeen’s Jewish Heritage Night during Chanukah at the Brooklyn Nets Game at Barclays Center. more

Israel ended 2013 in much the same way as previous years: facing a surge of terrorist activity from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. more

Al-Qaeda terrorists have held 72-year-old Warren Weinstein since mid-August 2011. On Wednesday, Al Qaeda released a video with Dr. Weinstein asking President Obama to negotiate his release. We know that he was alive when the video was made, but we don’t know when it was made and if he is alive now. The mainstream media covered the release of the video, but I knew Warren Weinstein; he is a human being, a good one at that. more

My stepdaughter Yardena gave birth to her third bouncing boy a few weeks ago and my husband Jerry was planning to head to Israel for the bris. He had such wonderful memories of the last trip to Israel for the last bris that he wanted to replicate it. I advised against a nine-hour layover in Romania, as it would be best if he spent more time with the grandchildren than in the airport. Boy did he ever owe me for that advice. Had he taken the layover, he would have gotten to Israel after all roads to Yerushalayim from Tel Aviv were closed due to snow. more

i-Shine In last week’s front page article about the Nassau Herald’s “people of the year” award, The Jewish Star neglected to properly identify Deena Intrator as one of the three founders of i-Shine along with Annette Kaufman and Stacy Zrihen. more

Three Kulanu Academy students joined two teenage shadow students from Kulanu’s Sunday Program to teach sensitivity to 120 girls at the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach’s elementary school. more

Older Five Towns singles have a new place to meet and mingle: The Young Israel of Woodmere’s Singles Initiative. The YIW group has been organizing high-quality matchmaking events, and on Dec. 21, greeted a capacity crowd at Masago Asian Fusion restaurant, 1034 Broadway in Woodmere for wine tastings, an elegant four course meal, and lots of networking. The event, for men and women aged 45 to 55, was billed as A Sterling Evening. more

THURSDAY JAN. 2 LUNCH & LEARN with Rabbi Shalom Axelrod of YI Woodmere.(See photo.) SATURDAY JAN. 4 THEMES IN TANACH. Continuing series on Biblical themes by Rabbi David Fohrman. 7 pm. Young Israel of Woodmere. Free. more

A much neglected book was recently brought to my attention by my friend, Yitzy Gruen of Brooklyn’s famed Judaica Place on Avenue M, published by the OU, entitled “Missing the Point: What’s Wrong with the Orthodox Jewish Community and How to Fix It.” Its author is Rabbi Dr. Gidon Rothstein of Riverdale. more

On a virtual stroll through the website of the “U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel” — a deeply unpleasant experience — I came across an article that drew an analogy I hadn’t encountered before. Intellectually ludicrous and morally ugly, the writer compared the situation of Aida, a Palestinian refugee camp near Bethlehem, with the bombing by the German Luftwaffe of the Basque city of Guernica in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. The Aida camp is not the most luxurious place on earth, yet it is far from being the worst. more