From March 7-11, 20 yeshiva high school basketball teams from across the U.S. and Canada met at the Max Stern Athletic Center on Yeshiva University’s Wilf Campus in Washington Heights to battle it out for the top spot in the University’s 22nd Annual Red Sarachek Invitational Basketball Tournament. When the buzzer sounded, the Shalhevet High School Firehawks of Los Angeles, CA were crowned the tournament’s Tier I champions. more

The Five Towns Community Chest is once again planning its annual Youth Board basketball tournament. Lawrence High School has proudly hosted this great event for the past 15 years. Unfortunately the Lawrence gym is not available due to Hurricane Sandy and is currently being renovated. This year HAFTR has come to the rescue and extended their hospitality by offering to host Chest’s tournament at their brand new, state of the art sports complex. more

I might as well start getting ready for Shavuot. It seems Chanukah was just yesterday. How is it possible it’s almost Pesach??? Here we go again….the shopping, cleaning, preparing, cooking, serving and not to mention another Pesach article I have to come up with. Last year I came up with two really funny ones, not sure I can top those. I suggest you look them up on the Internet, seriously. more

The Pesach seder is a ritual based upon questions. The evening’s proceedings begin with questions--four of them. And, even before the holiday, the teachings leading up to the holiday are enveloped with questions concerning observance, ritual, diet, and other cognate matters that make this season a rabbi’s delight at being the one most sought after for the correct answers. more

Twelve years ago, Alan Hirsch saw the intense poverty and the inability of ten families in Maaleh Amos and 12 families in Hevron, to pay their Passover expenses. “The following year there were twice as many and it grew to Gush Etzion,” he said. “The first year or two it was my money, then I was going to people to ask.” more

Simone Healthcare Development and Mount Sinai remain firmly committed to the plan to provide the highest level of comprehensive and coordinated outpatient care to the residents of the Five Towns community. more

On March 20, Lawrence School District 15 residents will be asked if the Number Six School in Woodmere should be sold to Simone Healthcare Development. Unlike most elections, in which the outcome can be reversed in two or four years, the results of this referendum could damage our community forever. more

As the March 20th referendum on the sale of the Number Six School approaches, community efforts to halt the development are intensifying along with acrimony, arguments and advertising campaigns. more

In the shadow of U.S. President Barak Obama’s upcoming visit to Israel, feelings of tension and unified purpose filled the room at the Gush Katif Museum Dinner in Crown Heights Saturday night, as speaker after speaker, recalling the pain of the expulsion of 10,000 Jews from their homes and the destruction of their communities, demanded that it not happen again. Calling on Americans to send a message to Obama, keynote speaker former Arkansas Governor and 2008 G.O.P. presidential candidate Mike Huckabee declared that they should say, “Mr. President, Americans stand with Israel because they are a mirror image of our freedom and our democracy in this country. And, we suggest that before you make any demands of the Israelis to give anything, you sit down and look the Palestinians in the face and ask them ‘What have they given up?” more

You [Moshe] shall make a washstand (kiyor) of copper and its base of copper for washing, and you shall place it between the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and you shall put water therein. (Sefer Shemot 30:18) And he [Bezalel] made the washstand (hakiyor) of copper and its base of copper from the mirrors of the women who had set up the legions, who congregated at the entrance of the tent of meeting. (Ibid. 38:8) He [Moshe] placed the washstand (hakiyor) between the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and there he put water for washing. more