Updates From the Front

Children from northern Israel displaced by the month-long fighting in Lebanon have been attending day camps in the center of the country.

It certainly wasn’t the special day 13-year-old Nadav Elharar had in mind for his bar mitzvah.

With Haifa neighborhoods in shatters, Chabad-Lubavitch outposts in the port city have come up with “mitzvot against missiles” campaign.

The impact of three missiles in the Hadera-Zichron Yaakov could well indeed target Israelis as far south as 30 kilometers from Tel Aviv. However it failed to detract more than 300 educators from holding their convention within range of the deadly Katyusha rockets that weekend.

Camps operated by the Chabad-Lubavitch throughout the country are operating normally, with minor changes.

Thousands of families, couples, and singles from Israel's north have left to stay with family or friends farther south. More than 400 residents of Safed have found their way to Kfar Chabad.

Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries and their congregants have responded to the call in particularly spiritual terms, in addition to giving speeches at rallies and running fund-raisers of their own.

The idea of distributing fresh-baked goods to Israel Defense Force soldiers all along the Lebanese border has picked up steam with the participation of scores of women in Tel Aviv.

Safed has become a virtual ghost town in the last three weeks. Streets normally full of children are now practically empty, save for the occasional cat or dog. “Listen to the quiet,” said Rachel Chitrik, “Normally it would be so noisy...”

Rabbi Ariel Goren, 30, who was called for reserve duty more than two weeks ago along with the rest of his Israel Defense Forces artillery unit, is no ordinary soldier.

Hundreds of Chabad-Lubavitch yeshiva students in Israel have volunteered to spend their summer vacation, which begins after Tisha B’Av, helping Jews throughout Israel to fulfill the biblical commandment of putting on tefillin (phylacteries).

The Chabad-Lubavitch Youth Organization in Israel is distributing one million books of Psalms around Israel, according to an announcement made this week.

It’s an eerie feeling driving north these days from Tel Aviv. Traffic thins consistently on the coastal road, and by the time you get to Haifa there is nary a car on the road.

Dr. Arnon speaking before a large group of Chabad emissaries made an emphatic case, that the emissaries’ visits to bomb shelters and its outpouring of support for bereaved families is a lifeline for the families

As Hezbollah missiles continue to rain down on Israeli cities, hundreds of college students have undertaken the challenge of sponsoring the writing of a Torah scroll

As the Israel Defense Forces calls up its reserve troops and prepares for a protracted campaign in Lebanon, Chabad is similarly mobilizing forces

Braving a record-setting heat wave, 10,000 Jews of all ages and walks of life thronged into a half-mile-square area of Los Angeles’ famed Wilshire Boulevard

Words cannot begin to describe the amount of dust near the Israeli border with Gaza. Even without a lineup of tanks, armored bulldozers and other heavy equipment, one hour in leaves one brushing sand out of hair, ears, nose, pockets and everywhere else.

It's difficult to be positive when your shul has been destroyed, your neighbors are living in bomb shelters, and daily Katyusha attacks claim more and more casualties.

Katyusha rockets had been falling on Kiryat Shmona long before the arrival of Chabad-Lubavitch emissary Rabbi Yigal Tzippori in 1992. But that didn't stop him from moving to this town on the Lebanese border.