A young Jewish lay leader was murdered in Moscow over the weekend after attempting to stop a brawl between two rival non-Jewish gangs.

According to a statement from the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, Yaakov Manasharshivili, 26, encountered the melee on Friday. When he tried to intervene, he was shot at point-blank range. Moscow Police Commissioner Vladimir Kolokoltsev reported that the perpetrator fled, but that he was confident more leads would be found in the coming days.

Born to a traditional Georgian Jewish family and active in the local Georgian community, Manasharshivili served as a counselor at his local Chabad-Lubavitch center in the Khamovniki District of the Russian capital. Jewish community officials, including Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar, took part in his burial on Sunday.

German Family Affairs Minister Kristina Schroder dedicated a new nursery at the Chabad Ohr Avner kindergarten program Wednesday, calling the Berlin institution “a sign of the growing Jewish life in Germany.”

During her visit, Schroder viewed a presentation by students and toured the facility with kindergarten director Annette Lentz.

At the dedication ceremony, Jewish community president Gideon Joffe thanked the Chabad-Lubavitch program for focusing its efforts on educating children, thereby fueling “the growth and development of Jewish life in Berlin.”

Serving children born to parents of both German and Russian-speaking backgrounds, the kindergarten opened with just three students in 2004 with the support of the Ohr Avner Foundation. Today, it includes 150 children, and officials expect a second facility to open after the summer.

Jewish students from top engineering schools throughout Paris, including Ecole Central, Pharmacy Chatenay Malabry, HEC and Polytechnique, travelled to Oxford, England, for a weekend gathering known as a Shabbaton hosted by Chabad on Campus UK.

Organized by the Central School of Sceaux, France, and Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Levi Mimoun as a way for French Jewish students to meet their counterparts in the United Kingdom, the Shabbaton sought to inspire participants to take an active role in Jewish life.

Guest speaker Bernard Yossef Paperon, professor of Jewish studies at the Sorbonne, addressed the students on several subjects, including Psychoanalysis and Kabbalah, French philosopher and Talmudist Emanuel Levinas, and Chasidic thought.

“Hosting French Jewish students in Oxford [afforded] a great display of Jewish unity and [provided] an enriching experience for Oxford students as well,” commented Rabbi Eli Brackman, chairman of Chabad on Campus UK and director of the Oxford University Chabad Society. “We look forward to welcoming Jewish students from other European universities for similar trips in the future to help strengthen Jewish student life in Europe.”

The program included a walking tour of medieval Jewish Oxford, spirited Sabbath meals, student-led discussions, and sightseeing in Central London. It followed two similar programs earlier this academic year hosted by Chabad on Campus with about 60 students attending the annual Chabad on Campus UK Shabbaton in Goytre Valley, South Wales, and a sizable student participation representing the United Kingdom at the International Chabad on Campus Shabbaton in New York last November.

The Shabbaton was sponsored by Chabad on Campus Europe and the Chabad on Campus International Foundation.

Jewish attendees at the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders conference in Omaha weren’t far from Judaism last weekend, with kosher food, prayer services, study opportunities and a rabbi just a stone’s throw away from the cavernous CenturyLink Center.

Coordinated by Chabad-Lubavitch of Nebraska directors Rabbi Mendel and Shani Katzman, the annual “Berkshire Weekend” program affords Jewish visitors a “Sabbath to remember with Chabad.”

The Chabad center set up shot across the street from the conference at the Hilton hotel, where it hosted Friday night and Saturday prayer services, and offered attendees the option to take part in a communal Sabbath dinner or order kosher meals for delivery to their hotels.

Mayor Jim Suttle was on hand to welcome the guests.

For the first time since the municipal government replaced a memorial to the World War II slaughter of 27,000 local Jews with a separate installation that mentioned neither Jews nor the Holocaust, Jewish community officials in Rostov-on-Don joined Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar and Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia president Alexander Barada in persuading regional Gov. Vassily Golubov to erect a more ethnically-sensitive plaque.

During the meeting, Jewish community director Michael Popepov and local Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Chaim Danzinger explained the importance of the memorial for Rostov’s estimated 10,000 Jews, many of whom lost family members in the massacre, an August 1942 mass murder by German soldiers at the Zmiyevskaya Balka site at the edge of the city. It is known as the biggest single atrocity associated with the Holocaust in Russia.

For years, a plaque identified the site as where thousands of Jews lost their lives, but it was replaced in November.

Lazar suggested making a separate memorial across the street, a proposal that Danzinger was “optimistic” would be implemented by the regional administration.

“It’s now in the hands of the state government,” said Danzinger.

The group also discussed the possible return of Rostov’s Old Choral Synagogue – now being used as a hospital – to the Jewish community.

Unified Hungarian Jewish Congregation director Rabbi Shlomo Koves became the new chief rabbi of Hungary’s army last week, accepting his appointment from Defense Minister Csaba Hende.

In his announcement, Hende pointed out that he and the rabbi had worked together on shared concerns over the past two years and in that time he had come to respect the Chabad-Lubavitch emissary as an “extremely dedicated, noble-minded patriot.”

Koves, whose organization recently made headlines for addressing a Hungarian legislator’s apparent anti-Semitic statements from the floor of the country’s parliament, said that in addition to providing for the spiritual needs of Hungary’s Jewish soldiers, he will work to promote a “bridge” between the Jewish community and the rest of Hungarian society.

Mayor Dmitry Bonohov of Bobruisk, Belarus, welcomed Israeli Ambassador Yosef Shagal and Israeli Consul Gennady Polichuk to the local Ohr Avner Jewish Center where they checked on the progress of restorations to the city’s historic synagogue.

Led by Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Shaul Habobo, the Jewish community has experienced a steady expansion in its activities: Bonohov granted permission a few months ago for the construction of a Jewish ritual bath near the central synagogue, and locals recently celebrated a joint circumcision of men and boys who had chosen to take part in a covenant nearly stamped out before the fall of the Iron Curtain.

The diplomatic visit comes on the heels of a tour by Valery Anatolyevich Malashko, deputy chairman of the Mogilev regional executive committee, and other officials on a fact-finding mission to area Jewish communities.

“This kind of successful cooperation can lead to an impressive positive development in relation to and in cooperation with the Jews of the community,” Habobo said of the community’s relationship with government officials.

New South Wales Gov. Marie Bashir presided over a meeting of Sydney University’s chaplaincy and student-run Interfaith Council at the “Our Big Kitchen” project of the Australian city’s Yeshiva Centre.

Bashir, who also serves as the university’s chancellor, donned an apron and joined attendees in the crowded kosher kitchen to bake Anzac biscuits; proceeds from the on-campus sale of the biscuits provide financial assistance to underprivileged students.

“Sydney University has a proud record of interfaith dialogue and cooperation,” said Rabbi Eli Feldman, the university’s Jewish chaplain and director of the Young Adult Chabad program run under the aegis of the Yeshiva Centre. “The chancellor, chaplains and students … were very excited to visit the kitchen and work together for a good cause.”

Visibly moved by the occasion, the governor told attendees, “I never feel more at home than when I am here at Our Big Kitchen. The spirit of friendship and harmony between members of all faiths coming together for a common good makes me immensely proud.”

Rabbinical leaders and government officials from across the political spectrum also attended.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut found himself in an impromptu prayer session Sunday when he was called over by Rabbi Yossi Deren at the annual Israel Day Celebration sponsored by the UJA Federation of Greenwich.

Deren, director of celebration co-sponsor Chabad-Lubavitch of Greenwich and a friend of Blumenthal’s, called out to the first-term senator as he made his way across the local Town Hall property after addressing the celebration’s rally. When Blumenthal made his way over to Deren’s booths focusing on Jerusalem’s Western Wall and the Kabbalistic teachings that made the city of Safed famous, the rabbi encouraged the senator to don the prayer boxes known as tefillin.

“He knows the work of Lubavitch in Connecticut very well and comes to all our official events,” said Deren. “After he donned tefillin, he also wrote a note and affixed it to our Western Wall display, just like visitors do in Jerusalem.”

The rabbi added that the note, as well as the others written by Israel Day participants, will be sent to the actual Western Wall for placement in the holy site.

Other VIPs at the celebration included Greenwich First Selectman Peter Tesei and U.S. Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut’s fourth congressional district.

Leaders from the local Jewish community were on hand for the official grand opening of Lifeline, a Chabad-Lubavitch run program formerly known as Project Pride, at the onetime residence of Samuel Cohen, the first executive director of Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital.

Begun in 1989, Lifeline is a non-sectarian organization that helps those recovering from substance abuse, and provides for individuals and families affected by addiction.

Hosted by retired businessman Eddie and Heleena Wiltzer, the last week’s event featured two testimonials from recovering addicts about how the program saved their lives, and a tribute longtime supporter Stephen Vineberg, who recently passed away.

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands named Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs, chief rabbi of the Inter-Provinical Chief Rabbinate, an Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau, only the fourth Jewish citizen to receive the royal honor.

Jacobs, 62, was among 22 people named as officers of the Order of Orange-Nassau in connection with Friday’s Queen’s Day festivities. Jacobs, who is also a member of the Rabbinical Centre of Europe and part of the leadership of Lubavitch of the Netherlands, was the only one from the province of Utrecht..

“This is an important day for Jews in this part of the world,” said Dr. Benoit Wesly, chairman of the Jewish community of Limburg, a fellow officer who recommended Jacobs for the award. “It gives our community great pride and we thank G-d and congratulate Rabbi Jacobs and his wife on this great honor.”

Established in 1892, the Order of Orange-Nassau is one of the highest decorations offered to civilians in the Netherlands.

One week before the 26th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear explosion that rained down fallout across an entire swath of Eastern Europe, Chabad’s Children of Chernobyl brought 26 more children to safety and medical care in Israel, its 97th rescue mission.

“On this significant anniversary, thousands of children every day are still feeling the tragic consequences of the Chernobyl disaster,” said Nancy Spielberg, founding board member of CCOC, in a statement. “They are facing devastating illnesses from radiation contamination –radiation that will be with us for thousands of years. As we’ve seen from the recent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan, the impact from this kind of radioactivity is as devastating today as it was 26 years ago.”

To date, the Chabad-Lubavitch run organization, which was designed to rescue those most vulnerable from the April 26, 1986 meltdown that left thousands of square kilometers uninhabitable, has helped 2,822 children escape the contaminated living conditions surrounding that portion of Ukraine. Most are brought to a sprawling educational and residential complex in the central Israeli village of Kfar Chabad, where they’re provided with medical care and social services.

The organization also provides medicine, equipment and other needed items for those who cannot leave Europe.

Spielberg pointed to World Health Organization statistics, which show the rate of thyroid cancer in the contaminated areas surrounding Chernobyl as more than 200 times the world norm.

Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbis Asher Herson and Eli Kornfeld joined the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education last week, two of 16 appointees named by Gov. Chris Christie in connection with worldwide ceremonies remembering the Holocaust.

Herson, who directs the Chabad Center of Northwest New Jersey in Rockaway, will use his post to develop and back curricula that, by “focusing on the lessons we can learn from the heroes who perished and those who survived, will give us instructions for the present and the future.”

“That’s what the martyrs would want,” he added, “to be able to make a difference in the lives of children today.”

Kornfeld directs Chabad of Hunterdon County in Annandale. Calling his appointment an “honor,” he told the Hunterdon County Democrat that it “comes with a great responsibility.”

“More than 67 years ago, when the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps were liberated, the world stoop up and promised, ‘Never again,’ ” Christie said in a statement. “Today gives us an opportunity to remember that horrible tragedy, reaffirm that promise and recommit ourselves to never allowing such atrocities to happen again.”

Commanders and their staff at the Israeli Border Police’s recent graduation ceremony at its headquarters in Lod took the opportunity to make a special blessing on blossoming fruit trees at the encouragement of Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Yaakov Gloiberman.

The dignitaries included police chief Yohanan Danino, former police chief Asaf Hafetz, and former vice commissioner Gabi Last, chairman of the Delek Group.

Traditionally made upon first seeing a fruit blossom during the Hebrew month of Nissan, the blessing – known as birkat hailanot in Hebrew – thanks the Almighty for leaving nothing lacking in the world.

Gloiberman directs Yad B’Yad, a social service organization in the center of the country.

Psycho-biologist Bertha Madras spoke to Dartmouth University students about the problems of drug use and addiction at a Monday talk sponsored by Chabad at Dartmouth.

Madras, a Harvard Medical School professor who served as deputy director for demand reduction at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, explained how various illegal drugs affect the brain because they chemically resemble its own signaling its system. Drug use by youths presents particularly dangerous consequences because youths’ brains are still developing, she said.

“The younger the age of use [of a first drug], the higher the use of other drugs,” said Madras, according to a report in The Dartmouth. “Nobody knows why, but we do know that this is a period of rapid brain development.”

Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Moshe Gray told the newspaper that the lecture is just one of many ways his organization enriches the lives of students and infuses them with meaning. He said he witnessed the dangers of drug addiction six years ago when an alumnus reached out to him for help with a heroin addiction.

The young man is now in recovery.

Rabbi Boruch Shmuel Liberow, director of the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish Student Center serving Florida Atlantic University, Lynn University, and Palm Beach State College, delivered the invocation for the swearing in of new members of the Boca Raton City Council.

In introducing the rabbi at the April 2 meeting, just days after some Jewish students at FAU received fake eviction notices traced to a pro-Palestinian group, Council Member Constance Scott lauded the work Liberow and his wife, Rivka Rochel Liberow, do in providing for the spiritual needs of Jewish students in the area.

In his remarks, Liberow blessed the council for a successful term and noted that its task in upholding justice corresponded with the biblical imperative to maintain civil societies.

Three years after purchasing the property that sparked an ultimately victorious legal showdown with the city of Hartford, Conn., and its zoning board, Chabad Chevra will join Jewish students, community leaders and University of Hartford president Walter Harrison in inaugurating the new Rohr Chabad House.

According to Rabbi Yosef Kulek, who founded the organization under the direction of Rabbi Yosef Gopin of Chabad-Lubavitch of Greater Hartford, the April 29 ceremony and dedication brunch will provide an opportunity to thank the community for its support.

Since Superior Court Judge Maria Araujo Kahn ruled the city’s limiting Jewish use of the building – which had formerly been used as a church – both unfair and illegal, the Chabad House has been able to put up a sign and publicize events. And it no longer must limit attendance to 40 people.

At the ceremony, Chabad Chevra will recognize the support of David and Rhoda Chase and family, as well as Alan and Marcia Lazowski and family. Susan and Simon Kaye will also be given the Parent Award.

At a recent policy meeting between Mayor Meir Yitzhak-Halevy of the Red Sea port of Eilat and the Israeli city’s educational directors, Yitzhak-Halevy focused on the accomplishments made by the local Chabad-Lubavitch run public school directed by Leah Eisenbach.

The mayor had recently visited the school and was struck by the professionalism of its staff and demeanor of their students.

“The unique Chabad education produces outstanding results all over the world,” he said at the meeting.

The meeting came just before the city was awarded with the Education Prize from Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar.

President Barack Obama proclaimed April 3, 2012, the 110th anniversary of the birth of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, as Education and Sharing Day, U.S.A., noting that “for centuries, the pursuit of knowledge and the cultivation of character have driven American progress and enriched our national life.”

The proclamation is the 34th such document issued by the White House, continuing a tradition begun by a joint Congressional resolution in 1978. Since then, each administration, in conjunction with the Washington, D.C. based American Friends of Lubavitch, has designated Education and Sharing Day on the anniversary of the birth of the Rebbe, who dedicated his life to the cause of education.

“Time and again, during moments of trial, Americans have demonstrated a fundamental commitment to compassion, cooperation, and goodwill toward others -- doing not what is easy, but what is right. These qualities have come to define us, and as we prepare today’s students to become tomorrow’s leaders, let us nourish in them the virtues that have sustained our country for generations,” the president declared. “On Education and Sharing Day, U.S.A., we reflect on the teachings of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who embodied that humanitarian spirit.

“As a tireless advocate for youth around the world, he inspired millions to lift the cause of education, to practice kindness and generosity, and to aspire toward their highest ideals,” continued Obama. “His enduring legacy lives on in those he touched, and today, we resolve to carry forward his dedication to service and scholarship.”