Life sucks. But you have two choices: Sit there and be depressed about it, or you go out there and do something about it.
“FEAR can hold you back from doing something you know within yourself that you are capable of doing, .”
Speakers:
Les Brown, Eric Thomas, Steve Jobs, Louis Zamperini
Riccardo Pacifici questioned by police after setting off alarm as he tried to escape former death camp.
Auschwitz concentration camp
An Italian Jewish leader, whose grandparents were murdered in Auschwitz, says he was trapped in the former Nazi death camp on Holocaust Memorial Day.
Riccardo Pacifici, the head of Rome’s Jewish community, and an Italian TV crew found themselves locked in Auschwitz after filming a television programme about the infamous concentration camp.
The group had been given permission to film live from the site, near Krakow, on Tuesday, the 70th anniversary of the camp’s liberation.
But at around 11pm, amid freezing temperatures, the guards who were meant to let them out had not arrived and they realised they were locked in, said Fabio Perugia, Rome’s Jewish community spokesman, who was with Pacifici.
Since the inception of the Mayor’s expanded Universal Pre-K (UPK) program in January 2014, OU Advocacy-Teach NYS has been advocating for full inclusion for all Jewish day school students. Currently, 89 percent of pre-school aged students within the Jewish day school community are not able to participate in a full-day UPK program. This is due to the difficulty Jewish day schools encounter in order to adequately accommodate 6 hours and 20 minutes of uninterrupted secular instruction while maintaining appropriate levels of privately-funded religious instruction.
As the largest provider of non-public education in New York City, Jewish day schools should be a partner in Mayor de Blasio’s UPK program, but his restrictive hour requirements make it impossible for Jewish day schools to participate.
OU Advocacy, together with our coalition of New York City Jewish day schools, has asked the Mayor repeatedly to make the requirements of the full-day UPK program more flexible and to expand the slots available for the half-day UPK program, in order to realize the Mayor’s vision of Universal Pre-K education for every child in New York City. Unfortunately, Mayor de Blasio has responded to our requests with no clear plan or timetable for including Jewish day school students.
Please contact Mayor de Blasio today and urge him to open New York City’s pre-K program to make it truly universal. Ask him to accommodate the Jewish day school community by making the restrictive hour requirements more flexible and adding enough slots to the program for Jewish day school students.
On January 27, 2015 we will commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi German concentraction and extermination camp Auschwitz. On this day the whole world will be listening to the voices of Auschwitz. On this day we will meet at the authentic site of the former camp as the sign of our remembrance.
The whole commemoration event will be streamed on-line on January 27, 2015. More information: http://70.auschwitz.org
LONDON — Of all the stories of survival from the Auschwitz concentration camp, Gena Turgel’s is one of the most astonishing.
“When I think back, I have to pinch myself sometimes to see if I’m really alive,” the 90-year-old told NBC News.
Turgel, an elegant woman with more than a hint of mischief in her blue eyes, survived not one or two, but three Nazi concentration camps.
In the most notorious of all, Auschwitz-Birkeanau, she was herded naked into a gas chamber with hundreds of others.
Yet Turgel, who was 21 at the time, walked out alive.
by Rabbi Uziel, Israel’s first Sephardic Chief Rabbi the State of Israel.
On the State of Israel as a fulfillment of Biblical Prophecy
The first stage to redemption is removing the Jewish people’s subservience to the nations of the world. This messianic stage is taking place before our eyes, as we well know that our past subservience to the nations has caused us great harm, but now, with the return of the Jewish people to their land and the building of our own state, we are no longer subservient to the nations. Despite all of the dangers we are encountering in realizing this messianic stage, we nevertheless see an awakening of God’s will for the Jewish people to settle in their own homeland. This Divine awakening is what inspired us towards the Declaration of Independence of our own Jewish state. We live in an era where we are witness to the fulfillment and realization of the vision of our prophets.
Actor awarded Genesis Prize for his commitment to Judaism and Israel
Michael Douglas, the actor who last year suffered a hora-related injury at his son’s bar mitzvah then bravely continued the coming-of-age celebrations with a trip to Israel, has been awarded the second-ever $1 million Genesis Prize for his commitment to Judaism and the State of Israel.
1910: The Angel Island Immigration Station opened today.
Prior to the opening of the Immigration Station, immigrants landed directly in San Francisco.
Jews immigrated through Angel Island primarily in two waves:
in the 1920s from Russia to escape the Bolshevik revolution,
and between 1938 and 1940, when German and Austrian Jews crossed Asia to flee the Nazis.
In some ways, Angel Island was the Ellis Island of the West.
But because of the politics and laws of its time, unlike Ellis Island,
many immigrants were detained on Angel Island for weeks or months at a time,
particularly Chinese and other Asian immigrants.
The historic Jewish cemetery in Ioannina, Greece
suffered serious damage in a severe storm that struck Saturday, Jan. 3.
According to local media reports and representatives of the local Jewish community,
gale force winds uprooted a number of trees, including a tall cypress tree that toppled onto the tahara house
and also damaged the surrounding pavement.
A number of graves, particularly in the oldest section of the cemetery, were also reported to be damaged.
We publish here photos sent by Moses Eliasaf, President of the Jewish Community in Ioannina,
to Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos, museum director at the Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue in New York,
which is spearheading a drive to raise money for repairs (estimated, Marcia says, at more than $50,000).
Kehila Kedosha Janina had already been working to fund-raise to restore the cemetery,
which in 2012 was designated an historical landmark.
The cemetery has suffered several vandal attacks over the years.
As many of you know, a severe storm in the beginning of January severely damaged the Jewish Cemetery of Ioannina.
Trees were uprooted, pathways demolished and many tombstones severely damaged.
Needless to say, the small Jewish community in Ioannina cannot possibly repair the cemetery on their own.
Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue will spearhead a drive to raise money
for repairs(estimated at over $50,000).
This is not the first time we have done this.
For those of you living in the United States, send your checks to
Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue, 280 Broome Street, New York NY 10002.
The Association of Friends of Greek Jewry will absorb the costs of bank transfers
so that every dollar raised will go directly to the Jewish Community of Ioannina.
For those of you outside the United States
who wish to make bank transfers directly to the Jewish Community of Ioannina,
contact us atkehila_kedosha_janina@netzero.net
and we will send you the bank information for the community in Ioannina.
We sincerely thank those who have already given.
Please encourage your family and friends who have not yet given to do so.
Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos
Museum Director
Kehila Kedosha Janina
280 Broome Street
NYC, NY 10002
Friends of Yoav Hattab, the son of the Tunis chief rabbi who was killed in the attack on the Hyper Cacher market, describe his love of Israel.
Most friends who meet on Birthright Israel trips get to look forward to lifelong connections with their fellow participants.
Yoav Hattab never got that chance. The son of the Chief Rabbi of Tunis, who traveled to Israel on Birthright last month, had only been back in Paris for a few weeks when he was gunned down by the terrorist who laid siege to the Hyper Cacher supermarket on Friday.
The 21-year-old, Hattab was a student when he signed up for one of the free Birthright tours to Israel offered to young Diaspora Jews around the world. Hattab grew up in La Goulette, a coastal town in the suburbs of Tunis, the Daily Mail reported, but had moved to Paris to study marketing and international trade.
But one of his Birthright companions said his ultimate aim was to move to Israel, even though the Birthright trip was his first time in the country.
February is IMAGE’s Wedding/Party Issue.
We would like to put together a collage of community parties.
Send us your Bar/Bat Mitzvah, Wedding and Brit Milah photos
from years ago and see them in next month’s issue.
Please tell your family and friends.
Let’s make this a community issue.
Email photos to editor@imageusa.com by January 19th.
MIDDLETOWN, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) — A retired elementary school principal is New York’s biggest jackpot winner.
Harold Diamond, 80, of Wurtsboro is the sole winner of the $326 million Mega Millions jackpot drawn on Nov. 4, lottery officials revealed Monday.
Diamond picked up his ceremonial check at the Valero gas station on Route 302 in Middletown, where he bought the winning ticket.
We are called settlers, occupiers and much worse. While the Palestinian Authority incites violence against Israelis, the media brings legitimacy to the terror.
The world is divided between people who believe Israel is the home of the Jewish people and people who believe Jews have invaded the land and forcibly expelled the true Palestinian people. Who is correct?
Media outlets such as CNN, BBC, CBS and many others have been telling a tragic story about Palestinians who were forced out of their homeland and into a harsh life in which they are refugees living under brutal oppression. The oppressors are the vicious Zionists, the many thousands of Jews who manufactured a story about a Holocaust in order to inhabit Palestinian land. The claim is that the Zionists have no claim to the land, having abandoned it over 2000 years ago. Bear in mind, there are those who say the Jewish people have no link to “Palestine” at all. These same people often refer to the Holocaust as the “holohaux” and who portray Hitler as a hero. When confronted by archaeological proof about the Jewish connection to Israel, they say that the Jews of today are not the same as the Jewish people who lived over 2000 years ago. Where are those Jews? Dead. Assimilated. The answers vary.
She did not intend to become the heretic of the checkout line. But as she watches her food bill skyrocket, Deborah feels compelled to make snarky remarks. “Why bother eating kosher?” she asks those behind her. The patrons tut-tut in agreement and discuss how expensive kosher food has become, and on top of the “tuition crisis” — the exorbitant expense of Jewish day schools — how can anyone afford to shop in Glatt markets? But the reality is: the price of kosher is the least of it.
“For the record, most items with a kosher certification are not more expensive,” says Menachem Lubinsky, an authority on the kosher food industry, CEO of Lubicom Consulting and Founder of Kosherfest, “What are more costly are the specifically produced kosher foods that require extra kosher certification, particularly in meat and dairy. Prices may be 10 percent to 20 percent higher than non-kosher items.” He adds that despite higher fuel and commodity prices in recent times, costs of most kosher ethnic foods have either stayed the same or gone up by no more than 3 percent to 5 percent.
Lubinsky’s information confirms that the cost of kosher food is nothing when compared to the exorbitance of Jewish day school tuition.
