Forward Names Matisyahu in Top Five

The Forward, American Jewry's newspaper of record, today announced its highly-awaited "Forward 50" List of the most influential Jewish Americans.

This year's Top Five, as diverse as the entire list itself, includes Steven Spielberg, Hasidic Hip-Hop sensation Matisyahu, [...]

In the top 50 we find "Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, who has emerged as the most important leader of the Lubavitch Hasidic movement".

From a Press Release by The Forward.

Matisyahu
Equal parts reggae star, rapper and Hasidic cantor, Matisyahu is one of the biggest pop music phenomena of the past year, and the most unlikely. Virtually unknown just a year ago, the Lubavitcher singing sensation now headlines at some of the nation's biggest concert venues. Later this month he heads for gigs in Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin. The singer, 26, whose given name is Matthew Miller, was born in a nonobservant Jewish home in suburban Philadelphia and raised in White Plains, N.Y. After dropping out of high school at 17 and following Phish to the West Coast, he found his way into the famous Carlebach Synagogue in New York City and began a spiritual journey that ended up in the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic community of Brooklyn. Simultaneously he pursued a music career. He now has a following that stretches all the way from Crown Heights to the pages of the "beer and babes" magazine FHM; his television appearances include "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" and "Last Call With Carson Daly." According to his Web site, Miller combines the sounds of Bob Marley and Shlomo Carlebach. His songs, with titles like "Lord Raise Me Up" and "King Without a Crown," speak of spiritual hunger in biblically inflected tones; set to reggae beats, they become supple, airy and sublime.

Yehuda Krinsky
The continuing growth of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement is one of the wonders of modern Judaism. Eleven years after the death of its charismatic leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Lubavitch has firmly established itself as a full-scale wing of American Judaism and a major force worldwide. This past year saw a rapidly growing acceptance of the movement's new role by other Jewish groups. In Russia, the Chabad-dominated Federation of Jewish Communities received acknowledgement of its dominant role in Jewish life when the American Jewish Congress signed a formal cooperation agreement. On American college campuses, the national Hillel foundation began encouraging its local chapters to reach out and cooperate with Chabad Houses — Hillel is on about 500 campuses, compared to nearly 200 for Chabad — rather than view them as competitors, or worse, oddballs. Managing it all with a light touch, like the head of a giant franchising corporation, is Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, the steel-willed administrator once known as the rebbe's "secretary." Lubavitchers continue to insist they have no leader since Schneerson died, but Krinsky heads some of their most important institutions, including the crucial Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch, Lubavitch's educational outreach organization. He sounded uncannily like a leader when he addressed an international convention of Lubavitch rabbis in Brooklyn this past January. "This is the work you do," Krinsky told the emissaries. "You find the people who do not see, and you guide them and hold their hand as you lead them to safe ground."

From The Forward.

Board nears OK for Menorah in Wellesley, MA

Last November, Rabbi Moshe Bleich of the Wellesley-Weston Chabad Center fought the town for the opportunity to hold a menorah-lighting ceremony outside town hall. Bleich threatened to sue, and town officials eventually agreed to allow the ceremony to take place.

With news this week that his congregation can place a menorah on town property without a controversy, Bleich said he was delighted with the town's newest policy.

"Seeing their religious display at Town Hall gives people something to smile about," he said. "Like the expression goes, all's good that ends good."

From an article in the Wellesley Townsman.

Author of Bar Mitzvah Book Across America on Chabad

Mark Oppenheimer traveled in 2002 across the USA to write his book “Thirteen and a Day: The Bar and Bat Mitzvah Across America.”

This is his impression of Chabad:
In Anchorage, Alaska, Oppenheimer spent Shabbat with the Chabad shaliach, put on tefillin, attended the bar mitzvah service and celebration and notes that he “saw how much of an impact Lubavitch has.”

From The Jewish Ledger.

Swampscott, MA: Pastor Writes Letter about Chabad

Photo Credit: MentalBlog.com

Rabbi Yossi Lipsker is a colleague. The people of his congregation worship in the building that once was the spiritual home for the people of the Congregational Church here in Swampscott. There is no doubt in my mind that things material can be repaired.

From "Letter: Chabad vandalism disturbs pastor" (Swampscott Reporter)

Westborough, MA: Public Menorah Denied

Rabbi Green lighting the Menorah

The request was made in September by Rabbi Michoel Green, director of the Chabad Jewish Center in Westborough, who wished to display the menorah from Dec. 25 to Jan. 2, in celebration of Hanukah. Officials delayed a ruling and asked Green to elaborate on the temple's involvement in Shrewsbury.

From "Unclear policy sways menorah decision" (Shrewsbury Chronicle).

Peace Talks between Cunin and Leviev

Photo Credit: Michael Levin

Mr. Lev Leviev, President of the Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS, on a bussiness trip to Los Angeles, got a tour of the new "770" on Pico by Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Cunin of West Coast Chabad-Lubavitch. Leviev came to Daven, got an Aliyah with a Mi Sheberach, got invited for breakfast, wrote a letter in a Sefer Torah, spoke with Marshall Grossman about the Rebbe's books in Russia and even got the title "General" from rabbi Cunin.

Chabad of California, Shturem.net, Col.org.il.

Rabbi YY Gorodetsky on the Second Intifada

Rabbi Yossi Gorodetski, a Paris-based emissary for Chabad-Lubavitch, echoed these concerns.

“We don’t want it to turn into anything more than it is,” said Rabbi Gorodetski, an American who has lived in France for 13 years. “We don’t want it to take on an anti-Semitic or anti-Israel nature.”

He said the civil unrest, which started in the Paris suburbs and spread throughout France and to several other European cities in recent days, is an outgrowth of the anti-Semitic furor — synagogues have been firebombed, Jewish cemeteries desecrated, kipa-wearing Jews intimidated or assaulted — that has plagued French Jewry in recent years.

“It’s obvious that we were left out to dry for a certain amount of time,” Rabbi Gorodetski said, referring to what he sees as the government’s initial failure to acknowledge the scope of the anti-Semitic incidents. “Maybe if the French government had reacted properly when it was only affecting the Jewish community, we wouldn’t be where we are today.”

Had the response to the wave of anti-Semitic attacks been swifter and more severe, he said, “whoever is rioting and burning and attacking the entire French population might think twice about what they’re doing.”

From "French Jews Worry Violence May Spread".

Ronen Zvulun Shoots of Right-Wing Convention

Right-wing Jews wave flags during a convention in support of former Gaza Strip settlers in Jerusalem November 9, 2005. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

An Orthodox Jewish man waits for the start of a right-wing convention in support of the former Gaza Strip settlers in Jerusalem November 9, 2005. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun


Orthodox Jewish men take part in a right-wing convention in support of the former Gaza Strip settlers in Jerusalem November 9, 2005. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

From Arutz Sheva:
Kiryat Motzkin Rabbi Druckman: "Torah comes before everything, as every child in heder [school] knows. Just as the Baal Shem Tov's father wrote in his will, we must not fear anything in the world except for G-d. We must state clearly and strongly that the Land of Israel is all ours, and the Land, Torah and G-d of Israel are all one... We do not know what the future holds in store, and so we must strengthen ourselves in faith and mitzvot [Torah commandments], especially the two that the Lubavitcher Rebbe [promoted], tefillin and Sabbath candles."

The Jewish Week on the NYU Conference: 2004 or 1994?

Debra Nussbaum gives a pretty good report of the Conference entitled "Reaching for the Infinite: The Lubavitcher Rebbe - Life, Teachings and Impact" for "The Jewish Week" besides one small mistake.

Lubavitch.com article on the conference.
Yori Yanover reports on his website.
Forward reporter Steven I. Weiss reports about the conference on his blog. David Berger & The Lubavitch Conference, At the Rebbe Conference, What is this Lubavitcher Rebbe Conference About?, “The Rebbe and the Habad Movement” 4:30-6:30, Interviewing Lawrence Schiffman, Interview with Chaim Rapoport, Is Israeli Politics Ever Out of the Discussion?, Norman Lamm Comes Ready to Play, Follow-Up Interview With Lawrence Schiffman, Avrum Ehrlich, The Messianism of Menachem Mendel Schneerson.

Matisyahu Changing Policy

"There's a law that no man and woman may touch unless they're married," says the twenty-six-year-old MC. "I was caught doing it. So I checked, and, no, can't do that anymore -- there's women touching you for sure. That, and I also I got dropped once. I took, like, six people down."

From RollingStone.com "Matisyahu Spaces Out"