Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman recently endorsed the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute's new course on Israel, "The Land & the Spirit." The course "informs the mind and inspires the soul," wrote Gillerman, calling it a "must-see for those learning and advocating for Israel." ...

In town for his team's Thursday night exhibition game against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden, Maccabi Tel Aviv coach Oded Kattash prayed at the Queens gravesite of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory...(Photo: Benjamin Lifshitz)

Asheville, N.C., Mayor Terry M. Bellamy joined 300 people at the ribbon cutting for the new home of Chabad-Lubavitch of Western North Carolina, co-directed by Rabbi Shaya and Chana Susskind...


Los Angeles’ Jewish Journal reported on Deborah Gordon, co-director of Chabad of Encino, and her unique double-life as a color therapist. The student of design and color operates Flying Colors, which is part interior-decorating service, part counseling center with an emphasis on the spiritual dimensions of color...

Traveling mohel Rabbi Yossi Simon, also the director of Tzivos Hashem in the United Kingdom, made stops in Asia last week to conduct circumcisions for the sons of Rabbi Avremi and Nechamie Greenberg, co-directors of the Chabad of Pudong in Shanghai, China, and an Israeli couple living in South Korea. The Londoner took along his pop-up sukkah for the trip, in which the Israelis ate, fulfilling one of the commandments associated with the holiday...

A handful of foreign affairs honchos visited with Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Levi Matusof in Brussels, Belgium. Along with former U.S. ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, Israeli MKs Tzachi Hanegbi, Yuval Steinitz, Limor Livnat and Kolet Avital, who were in town for a meeting of the European Parliament’s security and defense subcommittees, stopped by Matusof’s sukkah. Hanegbi, the chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, made a blessing on the lulav...

A New Jersey public high school rescheduled a back-to-school night that conflicted with Simchat Torah following the intervention of Rabbi Chaim Boyarsky, co-director of Lubavitch of the Palisades. The principal of Northern Valley-Demarest High School also requested Jewish calendars be sent to him and his colleagues in advance of next year's scheduling meetings...

Thousands of Israelis participated in Second Hakofos celebrations throughout the country on Friday. By far, one of the largest gatherings – a repeat of the dancing with a sefer Torah that took place on Simchat Torah the day before – was at the central synagogue in Kfar Chabad...