While an air of mystery surrounds the details of Jewish businessman Jacob Ostreicher’s return to U.S. soil after being held for more than two years in Bolivia, the involvement of legislators and a high-profile celebrity in his case may shed some light on the conditions that could lead to the freedom of other high-profile Jewish prisoners. more

THURSDAY DEC. 26 LUNCH & LEARN with Rabbi Shalom Ax- elrod of YI Woodmere.Traditions Restaurant, 302 Central Ave., Lawrence. 12:30-1:30 pm. Buy a great $12 lunch, eat and learn. Alan Stern 516-398-3094. more

Rambam Mesivta held another successful toy drive for Chai Lifeline, under the captainship of juniors Hudi Rosenfeld and Shlomo Sandler, with guidance from history teacher Ariel Jerushalmy. more

Midreshet Shalhevet held its annual school wide Shabbaton this past weekend at Capital Camps in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. more

HANC parents, students and alumni gathered at the 609 Campus in West Hempstead for the first ever Mishmar On The Road Program, allowing members of different communities to learn Torah with HANC administrators, teachers and alumni outside of the school setting. more

A capacity crowd of high school and seminary girls and representatives of 13 community organizations filled Achiezer’s Central Avenue office in Lawrence to explore chesed as the raison d’être of every Jew. Rabbi Boruch Ber Bender, Achiezer’s founder, cited a chilling Gemara of a Tzaddik who climbed into his wagon to retrieve a piece of bread for a poor person, only to find that the hapless man had expired in the brief time that it took to find the bread. Rav Chaim Shmulevitz explains that it is not enough for a Jew to be happy to help another when asked — a Jew must always be prepared with a piece of bread in his back pocket, just in case! more

After Chava Willig Levy exits the main sanctuary of Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, with congregants wishing her a “good Shabbos,” she is on her way, often accompanied home by one or two young women who push her wheelchair and stay to visit and assist. That Chava, a survivor of childhood polio who is a lecturer, writer and editor, is defined by more than her disability, is made clear in her just-published memoir, “A Life Not With Standing.” more

A recently approved trilateral plan to create a water pipeline connecting the Red Sea and the rapidly evaporating Dead Sea has everything to do with providing freshwater to a desperate region, and less to do with reversing the receding water levels in the Dead Sea. “This project will not save the Dead Sea,” Prof. Jiwchar Ganor, faculty member at the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, told JNS.org. Each year, the Dead Sea loses approximately 800 million cubic meters of water, and the shoreline recedes by approximately one meter. more

If international legitimacy for the settlement enterprise were a horse, one could say that it’s been long out of the barn. Those roaming the halls of power worldwide have for years regarded the territories of Judea and Samaria as Palestinian territory that is currently under occupation. The hostile attitude toward the settlement enterprise is a direct derivative of this premise. Even those who negotiate on behalf of the State of Israel, men and women who officially adhere to the party line that Judea and Samaria, the cradle of Jewish civilization and peoplehood, is not occupied territory, have long ceased to make this statement publicly. more

At some point over lunch on Shabbat, the story of my husband Jerry’s first car accident came up. My sister-in-law, Shirley, while trying to catch her breath, be- cause she was laughing so hard, turned to me and said “this is you’re article for next week’s paper.” And so it is. As soon as Jerry got his license, he and his friends jumped into his dad’s car to take it for a spin. Before even making it fully out of the driveway he was smashed by a car driving down the street. more