Wilhelm, Motti

“To the Sons and Daughters of Our People of Israel, Everywhere.” It was with these words that the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson of righteous memory—began his public letters, which were transcribed and published before major Jewish holidays each y...

In the book of Exodus, we are first introduced to the prophetess Miriam, sister of Moses. There, the Torah—referring to her and her mother as Shifrah and Puah—tells us of their self-sacrifice to defy Pharaoh’s decree to murder all Jewish newborn boys. Ins...

The Crown Heights Jewish community was in the middle of celebrating the strangest Passover in its history. Schools had long been locked, synagogues were shuttered and Seders had no guests. Yet the community shone bright with countless acts of caring, kind...

Mordechai Chein, a printer by trade whose ceaseless Chassidic dedication turned him into a communal mentor and activist by example, passed away on March 31 from COVID-19-related complications. He was 81 years old. Reb Mottel, as he was affectionately know...

The two weeks before Passover are usually one of the busiest times of the year for Rabbi Menachem Altein, co-director, with his wife Mussy, of Chabad at MIT in Cambridge, Mass. A large public seder for students needs to be arranged, packages of handmade s...

Mrs. Dusia (Dvosha) Rivkin, matriarch of a large Chabad-Lubavitch family with hundreds of descendants around the world, passed away on March 29. She was 93 years old. Born in Kharkov , Soviet Ukraine, in 1927 to Mendel and Hinda Deitsch, Dusia absorbed th...

Rabbi Mordechai Gurary, a prominent Torah scholar who served as the rabbi of the Chevra Shas synagogue in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., for many decades, passed away on March 28 after being infected with the coronavirus. He was 84 year...

The Steinsaltz Center in Jerusalem, the umbrella institution for the activities of Rabbi Adin Even-Israel (Steinsaltz), is a hub of publishing and disseminating Torah in multiple languages, especially Hebrew and English. In the past few months alone, the ...

Nearly 6,000 rabbis and guests from around the world will converge this week in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., for the annual International Convention of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries (Kinus Hashluchim). Coming together from 100 countries...

At the turn of the 20th century, there were so many factories in River North on the north bank of the Chicago River that the smoke billowing from their chimneys often blocked the sunlight. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was known as a deserted and danger...