As Russian troops and artillery moved into Georgia last week, most of the Jews in Gori, located in the heart of the South Ossetia war zone, fled to Georgia’s capital city, Tbilisi. While many were airlifted off the battlefront to Israel, Mishpacha’s Aharon Granevitch-Granot flew the other way and holed up with the shellshocked refugees. A firsthand report of the devastation of destruction, the jubilation of a cease-fire, and the despair facing further conflict
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Engagements, weddings, sheva brachos, and bar mitzvahs consume thousands of dollars with no lasting effect from all the money splurged — except on the person who laid it out, often going into debt to cover the costs. But the good news for overstretched mechutanim is that community leaders around the world are finally saying “enough.” From Satmar’s list of non-negotiable regulations to Skver’s ceiling on the price of a shtreimel, parents are finally beginning to breathe a sigh of relief
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Falsely accused of spying for Israel, the saga of David Tenenbaum, an Orthodox Jew from Detroit, began more then a decade ago, but justice is just beginning to be done. Mishpacha’s News Editor Binyamin Rose interviewed Mr. Tenenbaum and other players in the case where the only "crime” was being an observant Jew
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1947: Into the gloom of postwar New York — a community of survivors reeling from their losses, numb, uncertain, grieving — came a soul aflame. He melted their doubts with warmth and healed their wounds with love. He too had lost so
much: a wife, children, community … yet he was single minded, focused on the people and their needs: jobs, shidduchim, housing.
1997: He sits at the head of the tisch, surrounded by a wall of devoted chassidim rising to meet the sky, families equaling, perhaps surpassing, the Bobov of his youth.
The Rebbe. Majestic, regal, glowing. Not only what he built, but who he was. Serene, soft, tender, yet clear and
deliberate in his goals for them, for their families. His language touched them all: not only that first group
of war-torn survivors, but even a new generation, the young chassidim, born and nurtured on American soil, were inspired by his bearing, his conduct, his message.
In honor of his yahrtzeit on Rosh Chodesh Av, Mishpacha’s Yisroel Besser sits with two of the Rebbe’s close family members: Rav Benzion Twerski, Rav of Beth Jehudah in Milwaukee, and Rav Chaskel Shia Tauber, Rav of Montreal’s
Bobover kehillah
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Anyone who claims that Jews are demographically doomed to become a minority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean either is dramatically mistaken or is outrageously misleading the public, contends Yoram Ettinger, who has spent years of research refuting the mistaken notions of the doomsday demographers of yore. He shared the results of his findings in a wide-ranging conversation with Mishpacha’s News Editor Binyamin Rose, including: How the Palestinians have wildly inflated their population figures? Why the Israeli government plays along? Birth rate of secular Tel Aviv Jews closing in on the Arab birthrate
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issue 217 page 32Encountering Greatness - For the 10th Yahrtzeit of Rav Ben Zion Abba Shaul, ZTZ”L, Rosh Yeshivas Por by Yisroel Besser
It is ten years since the passing of the great Rosh Yeshivah of Porat Yosef, Chacham Ben Zion Abba Shaul, ztz”l. The Rosh Yeshivah served dual roles in the Torah community, as both a gifted maggid shiur, disseminator of Torah, and a leading posek, a halachic arbiter. In addition, his blessings and advice brought salvation to many. He was a quiet, humble figure who worked assiduously to flee from honor and attention.