News

The Orthodox Union (OU) — the nation’s largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization — is pleased to announce Monday that Executive Vice President Rabbi Moshe Hauer has been appointed by U.S. Department of Homeland (DHS) Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the agency’s Faith-Based Security Advisory Council (FBSAC).  

Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), representing over 2,000 traditional, Orthodox rabbis in American public policy, announced the launch of CJV Australia, to pursue “Down Under” the same mission of promoting traditional Jewish values. The organisation will be led by Rabbi Dovid Freilich, the former Chief Rabbi of the Perth Synagogue and a past president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia (ORA).

YU Professor Rabbi Jacob Schacter Writes New Commentary on Selihot

In preparation for the New Year and Yom Kippur, Jews recite a series of prayers known as Selihot. From the word “forgive,” these soul-stirring supplications ask G-d for Divine mercy. They are usually said in the morning, before the Shacharit morning prayer service.

During the Ten Days of Repentance between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, B’nei Yisrael take upon themselves to recite T’hilim, because saying T’hilim is a s’gulah for t’shuvah. According to Likutei Moharan II:73, saying T’hilim is a great way to rouse feelings of awakening toward Hashem.

Growing up as a kid, I distinctly recall a large black box with a couple of low, stuffed chairs sitting in the corner of my shul’s social hall. This chevrah kadisha box, originally containing soft-covered siddurim falling apart and later upgraded to the ArtScroll Siddur Nechamas Yisrael, was spotted at shiv’ah houses across the neighborhood. Dealing with death is an uncomfortable part of life, and aside from the emergent scenarios – such the death of a loved one, and the family is therefore sitting shiv’ah – when the community springs into action, or the annual Chevrah Kadisha dinner, dealing with death is “out of sight, out of mind” for most people.

David and Ruth Weichselbaum, pillars of the Kew Gardens Hills community, were a couple who rose above the atrocities of the Holocaust to build a flourishing family that has left its mark on their respective communities. Their lives chronicled the Jewish triumph and remain an everlasting legacy to how the Chosen Nation continues to survive and thrive in face of Amalek.