may 042012
West Jerusalem’s Gan Sacher is the best park of Jerusalem, with a kilometers-long stretch of space separating Nachlaot and Rechavia from the government complex housing the Knesset and the Supreme Court.
The park’s amenities include two play areas for children (one large and modern, the other old, wooden and emblematic of a more austere Israel), basketball courts, tennis courts, soccer pitches, a skateboarding park, a dog area, a walking/running path, and two tunnels which seem to serve as the communal canvas of Jerusalem’s graffiti artist community.
The park is often host to huge concerts during holidays and yearly festivals, and every inch of it is covered by grill-bearing families committed to having fun the only way they know how on Independence Day.
I was there during Passover. During the holidays, many Jewish families take the opportunity to enjoy the facilities and spend the day. It is common to see many families picnicking, playing in its attractions and enjoying the peace of their surroundings.
may 032012
Kfar Chabad was established in 1949 by Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn.The first inhabitants were mostly recent immigrants from the Soviet Union, survivors of World War II and Stalinist oppression. Kfar Chabad, which is located just outside Lod and about 8 km south-east of Tel Aviv, includes agricultural lands as well as numerous educational institutions. It serves as the headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch Chassidic movement in Israel. Kfar Chabad is a Lubavitch community.
Menachem Mendel Schneerson (April 5, 1902 – June 12, 1994), known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe or just the Rebbe among his followers, was a prominent Hasidic rabbi who was the seventh and last Rebbe (Hasidic leader) of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. He was fifth in a direct paternal line to the third Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneersohn. In January 1951, a year after the death of his father-in-law, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, he assumed the leadership of the Lubavitch movement.
He led the movement until his death in 1994, greatly expanding its worldwide activities and founding a worldwide network of institutions to spread Orthodox Judaismamong the Jewish people. These institutions include schools, kindergartens, synagogues, Chabad houses, and others, and are run under the auspices of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational branch of the Chabad movement. During his lifetime many of his followers had considered him to be the Jewish Messiah.
I had the opportunity to visit Kfar Chabad with Mr. Pini Gorelik, who offered me the chance to visit the village and know its peculiarities. I was impressed by the legacy left by the Rabbi Schneerson. I was struck by the history of sunday Dollars.
“Sunday Dollars”
As the Chabad movement grew and more demands were placed on Rabbi Schneerson’s time, he limited his practice of meeting followers individually in his office. After his heart attack in 1977, he reduced the frequency of his twice-weekly practice of all-night Yechidut—private audiences with whomever would request an appointment, and from then until 1982 only foreign visitors, and families with a momentous occasion such as a wedding or bar-mitzva were allowed private meetings —though community leaders and Israeli government officials would also still occasionally meet with the Rebbe in private for lengthy discussions. These private audiences had generally taken place on Sundays and Thursdays, starting at 8pm and often continuing until 8am. At such private audiences he would meet over three thousand people.
In 1986,Rabbi Schneerson again began to regularly greet people individually. This time, the personal meetings took the form of a weekly receiving line in “770″. Almost every Sunday, thousands of people would line up to meet briefly with Schneerson and receive a one-dollar bill, which was to be donated to charity. People filing past Schneerson would often take this opportunity to ask him for advice or to request a blessing. This event is usually referred to as “Sunday Dollars.”
may 022012
@jordicohen. Birkat Kohanim at the kotel (Jerusalem)
abr 252012
@jordicohen. Kotel (Jerusalem)
abr 252012
@jordicohen. Kotel (Jerusalem).
abr 242012
@jordicohen. Kotel (Jerusalem)
abr 222012
@jordicohen. Rabbi Mr Zarbiv Family. Makor Barush (Jerusalem).
The Passover Seder is a Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. It is conducted on the evenings of the 14th day of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, and on the 15th by traditionally observant Jews living outside Israel.
The Seder is a ritual performed by a community or by multiple generations of a family, involving a retelling of the story of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt.
Seder customs include drinking four cups of wine, eating matza, partaking of symbolic foods placed on the Passover Seder Plate, and reclining in celebration of freedom. The Seder is performed in much the same way by Jews all over the world.
In the last Passover I had an opportunity of attending the Seder of the house of Mr. Zarbiv Rabbi. Mr Zarbiv gives welcome and food to the needy in the neighborhood of Barush Makor, Jerusalem.
abr 192012
