On Monday afternoon, eight-year-old Leiby Kletzky left his Borough Park summer camp for a three-block walk to his mother. He disappeared into the streetscape and thousands of Jews mobilized to search for the boy. The massive search brought together the Shomrim, Chaveirim, Hatzolah, NYPD and FBI, and some 3,000 additional volunteers from as far as Lakewood, to find Kletzky, even as thousands more prayed for his safety. The search ended with a gruesome find of body parts stuffed into a trash container in Park Slope on early Wednesday morning. more

The liberals call them conservatives And the hard liners call them leftists The free thinkers call them close-minded And the open-minded call them Reconstructionists The traditionalists … more

It seems as if the straw has broken the camel’s back. According to multiple sources, Democrats of the Jewish faith are waking up to the fact that Barack Obama is not a friend of Israel. And many of them are considering holding back their campaign donations and their votes back from the President’s re-election campaign. Giving further credence to the reports, the re-election campaign is taking additional steps to “spin” the administration’s Israel story to make it seem more favorable to the Jewish State. more

I remember it like it was yesterday. While millions of Americans celebrated their nation’s independence, we were all glued to our radios and television sets waiting for news of the fate of the Israeli hostages hijacked on an Air France jet and being held captive in Uganda. more

The first thing you notice when you talk to singer Sholom Jacobs is the accent. I couldn’t quite place it. Perhaps English? A bit South African maybe? I was wrong on both counts. The son of Chabad shluchim, Jacobs, 33, was born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland, where he began his musical career as a child singing in shul, school choirs and concerts ran by his father. Jacobs left Scotland at 16, spending three years learning in an Israeli yeshiva before finally settling in New York. more

Avigdor “Randy” Yonah grew up in a state that prized football, but with few Jews around, his observance of Torah was a private affair, known to only a few. After a decade of growth in his Orthodoxy, Jonas is set to return to Jerusalem on Aug. 3 for his second year as the assistant coach of the Jerusalem Lions football team, living his dream of football greatness in the holy city. more

On a windy day this past February, 44 Jewish teenagers from the New York area stood upon Har Herzl, Israel’s largest military cemetery, to gain a broader understanding of Israeli casualties and the brutal truth of fighting to protect one’s country. The teenagers were part of the Write On For Israel high school Israel advocacy program, meeting with Israeli officials, IDF soldiers, and media correspondents. more

Rebbe Menachem Mendel Shneerson zt"l was a prominent chasidic rebbe who led the Chabad movement. In order to spread his message of Jewish outreach, he sent out Chabad emissaries all over the world to inspire Jewish communities of all sizes. On July 5, the Rebbe’s Gimmel Tammuz yahrtzeit, when I walked through a line separating male and females all leading towards an extravagant grave, conflict arose more

Calendar for the week of July 7, 2011 more

Dear Aviva, My wife and I just moved to a wonderful Jewish community. We are very happy with our new home and our new friends. However, we generally feel like we are the most right wing of our group and it bothers us. We can’t be 100% sure of some of our friends’ kashrus, a lot of my friends don’t go to minyan (and when they do, they shmooze throughout!) and a lot of them are more caught up in drinking than giving divrei torah at the Shabbos table. I know I must sound very judgmental, since we are all on different levels of hashkafah (philosophy) and we do like our friends; we just feel like they are not a good influence on our family. What to do? -Frummy Friend more