North America

The first time Susan Biondi stepped foot in Aishel House, the Houston-based organization founded by Rabbi Eliezer and Rochel Lazaroff to service families in need at nearby Texas Medical Center, she was, in her own words, “blown away.”

Early reports indicated that a near record storm surge, widespread flooding, and massive power outages notwithstanding, things could have been much worse.

As authorities extended hurricane warnings up the Eastern Seaboard in advance of the slow-moving, but strong Hurricane Irene, thousands of people began evacuating from low-lying coastal areas along New York’s Long Island, in Lower Manhattan, on the New Jersey shore, down the Delmarva Peninsula, and across the outer banks of North Carolina.

The record-flooding that struck New York City last weekend left a trail of water damage throughout the state in its wake, inundating at least one Jewish institution in Long Island.

Every year, Andy Luper looks forward to the Jewish softball game. An active congregant of Chabad-Lubavitch of Arizona for the past 20 years, Luper says the game reminds him of his childhood.

Haim Sherrf is a world-renowned artist, rabbi, counselor, husband and father. He helps people recover from drug addiction, teaches Jewish criminals about the beauty of the Sabbath, dismantles gangs and brings peace to the sick and dying. His stories could fill volumes, and Montreal residents got a glimpse into his life’s experience one recent weekend afternoon.

Once lit, a single candle can be used ignite other lights in an endless number of places. But without that initial spark, that same candle cannot light even the smallest space.

Jarred by the news of a Houston family shattered in the blink of an eye in a West Texas car accident, thousands of people from all over the world have rallied to support the three orphaned children.

A proposed ban on circumcision failed a legal test Thursday as a S. Francisco judge, ruling that the initiative conflicted with a state law prohibiting local governments from regulating doctors, struck the item from the upcoming municipal ballot.

For tourists and residents alike, Chabad-Lubavitch at the Shore provides a much-needed spiritual respite from the sand and sun in and around Atlantic City. For the past 25 years, the Rapoport family has served beach-goers with traditional Sabbath and holiday programming, as well as services specific to the South Jersey vacation hotspot.

As temperatures soared in New York during the recent summer heat wave, the staff of the Jewish Girls Retreat in Troy, N.Y., took action to ensure the safety of their preteen and teenaged campers, finding kindness and compassion at the neighboring Italian Community Center.

When the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, arranged for a young Rabbi Marvin Tokayer to serve Jews across Asia from a post in Tokyo, the former U.S. Air Force chaplain didn’t understand why he had been singled out for such a task.

The youngest of nine children, Sholom DovBer Gerber’s passing was a devastating blow to his family and the suburban Philadelphia Jewish community where his parents direct Chabad-Lubavitch of Penn Wynne in Wynnewood.

Rabbi Chaim Block first met Julian Castro when the Texas politician was a young city councilman.

One week after their only son’s burial, Nachman and Itta Kletzky want people the world over to perform “acts of unity and loving kindness” to keep the memory of their angelic Leiby alive.

When a concerned mother in Houston, Texas, named Melissa sent her son to a residential treatment center in Provo, Utah, it was not a decision that she ever thought she would confront.

Stella Kosta knows her synagogue in Markham, Ontario, as a place where her love of Judaism grew and continues to flourish, as home to her children’s Jewish day school, and as a place where she can ask the toughest questions about Judaism and Jewish identity.

Chanie Yarmush grew up helping her parents strengthen Jewish life in the Tampa Bay area, and now she and her husband, Rabbi Mendy Yarmush, are opening the first synagogue in the eastern half of Florida’s Pasco County, just north of Tampa.

Shiel Gayler went to services 25 years ago at what was then the newest synagogue in the young rural outpost of Poway, Calif. He became hooked on the congregation, and wanted to go back every Sabbath.

Three years ago, Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Berel Zaklikofsky was driving across Interstate 10 from Palm Springs, Calif., to Brooklyn, N.Y., when he stumbled upon Goodyear, Ariz., a fast-growing, sun-drenched community 20 minutes west of Phoenix in the state’s arid Southwest Valley.

Friendship Circle International personnel from across the United States and Canada descended on the Detroit suburb of West Bloomfield, Mich., for the chance to inspire one another and strengthen efforts to increase awareness and acceptance of children with special needs.