“The Rabbaim are the ema and abba (mother and father) of the chayalim (soldiers),” Nahal Haredi CEO Rabbi Tzvi Klebanow, on a fund-raising visit to the Five Towns, told the Jewish Star this week. more

The community turned out in force — 1,600 strong — to the 33rd annual Hatzalah Barbecue on Sunday at the Sands at Atlantic Beach. more

Amid the fallout from the recording of racist comments by the Jewish owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team, Jewish organizations both local and national have moved quickly to take the focus off his ethnicity and remind the country of the Jewish involvement in the civil rights movement. more

“We know we are going to be bamboozled,” a despondent Stephen Wise, the foremost American Jewish leader of his time, confided to a friend before boarding a ship bound for England in early 1939. The British had invited Wise and other Zionist leaders from the United States and Palestine to take part in a “peace conference” with Arab leaders. more

“I vaguely recalled that the song, ‘Am Yisrael Chai’ had been an expression of defiance and hope in Nazi Germany, and after the war it had been sung in Displaced Persons camps. As the Soviet Jewish resistance movement developed, the distinguished Yiddish poet Yosef Kerler composed his own version. However, when I enlisted Shlomo’s aid in 1964, none of these versions were current.” more

When the Presbyterian Church’s biennial assembly meets in Detroit, calls for divestment from Israel are likely to be considered, supported by the infamous “Zionism Unsettled” study guide. more

Secretary of State John Kerry’s controversial remark that Israel risks becoming “an apartheid state” in the absence of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shined a spotlight on a perceived demographic threat to Israel—a threat that some experts say is not based on current reality. more

Two weeks ago I lost a very special friend. Hundreds of people thought of her as their special friend as well — I should say relative because, Selma Weber was known as Aunt Selly to all who knew her. more

Rabbi Meir Soloveichik told a communal Yom Hazikaron (memorial day) / Yom Haatzmaut (independence day) program on Monday night that the unity of the Jewish people was the key — together with Torah and mitzvot — to the nation’s survival over centuries and to the modern rebirth of Medinat Yisrael. more

In 1941 the evil of the Nazi regime touched Konstantyn’s family. Now 76 years old, Alex was 3 when he fled his home in Varenz, Poland. The East Meadow resident of more than 30 years said he recalls much of his journey, and the rest was passed down to him years later by his mother, Hannah who was in her mid-20s when they left home. more