When the more than 100,000 runners taking part in the New York City Marathon approach Mile 15 just before the Queensboro Bridge this Sunday, a crew from Chabad-Lubavitch of Long Island City will be waiting with kosher sports drink in hand.

Says Rabbi Zev Wineberg, who has a community member participating in the race: “A marathon represents the power of a person to challenge themselves, to accomplish what they never thought possible.” …

Continuing an annual Chabad-Lubavitch tradition dating back to 1947, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Wilhelm, the emissary responsible for Israel’s Egged bus lines and terminals, hand delivered sets of the Four Species to President Shimon Peres and other leading politicians in advance of the holiday of Sukkot.

Wilhelm met with Peres at the official presidential residence in Jerusalem; he also stopped by the Knesset to meet with opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, internal security minister Avi Dichter and Israel Beiteinu party leader Avigdor Lieberman. …

Among the hundreds of people who heard the call of the shofar at last month’s Arts & Music Festival in Hoboken, N.J., were U.S. Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez, who stopped by the booth set up by the local Chabad-Lubavitch center to wish Rabbi Moshe Schapiro and his team of rabbinical students a happy new year.

Schapiro and his crew were on hand to help Jewish visitors to the festival don tefillin and learn about their heritage. They also distributed hundreds of sets of Shabbat candles. …

More than 200 women spent a night out at Double Bay, Australia’s glamorous Stamford Plaza Hotel for a concert by internationally-acclaimed singer Debra Jacobs on the anniversary of the passing of Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson, mother of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory.

Pnina Feldman, principal of Bondi’s Yeshiva College, gave an address highlighting the importance of Jewish unity, nurtured specifically by the special influence women have on Jewish life. …

The Tel Aviv suburban newspaper Bikat Ono named Rabbi Shimon Vainer its Man of the Year for the 14th year in a row, citing his “holy work” as director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Yehud.

Together with his wife, Nechama Vainer, the rabbi coordinates activities in nursing homes throughout the city, visits after-school clubs to teach Torah and prepare older boys for their bar mitzvahs, and runs a school-supply distribution program alongside the municipality.

Said Vainer: “We help all Jews with all of our hearts.” …