AllJewishLinks.com Newsletter Issue # 40 – July 25, 2012

Where do Israelis find community? They can find it among their extended family, their friends from childhood and the army, their various clubs, sports or hobbies, or their kids’ school activities. The question is whether rabbis should be encouraging Israelis to also find community in synagogue life.

Rav Yosef Shalom ben Chaya Musha Elyashiv, the great Torah Sage, head of the worldwide Lithuanian-hareidi yeshiva world, and leading Torah luminary of this generation, passed away in Jerusalem, at the age of 102. The pious and righteous sage did not want eulogies said at his funeral, so psalms and prayers were recited by speakers instead.

Counterpoint Israel Program is a month-long service-learning initiative which aims to empower the next generation of Israeli youth through a Jewish values-driven summer camp experience, tripled in size with the addition of three new camps in Beersheba, Kiryat Gat and Kiryat Malachi. From July 3 – August 5, counterpoint Israel will serve 300 Israeli campers from varied socio-economic backgrounds in five student-run camps.

Many members of the London Jewish community turned out early Monday morning to watch Chassidic London Jew Ephraim Goldstein carried the Olympic torch for 330 meters, approximately 1080 feet, in southeast London. The British Jewish Defense League website described Goldstein as being so excited he felt like was in flames.

A few weeks ago, someone attacked a blog and suggested this was all a chillul hashem, and that we are all destined to hell. Some fought back by taking the time to comment and show that we have a virtual community here of people who care. Some here are frum, some are not, and we are not defined by our frumkeit, but our humanity, integrity, and humor.

I’m not exactly sure if there’s a shidduch crisis anymore however, someone recently asked why there were no shidduch groups or singles events for frum folks struggling with their weight, obesity does exist in the frum community and that was a fairly interesting question.

Is Tisha B’Av relevant? Some do not think that the fast of Tisha B’Av is relevant anymore. In fact some thinks that we need a holiday from Tisha B’Av. That day was for a long time a commemoration through fasting and prayer over the destroyed city of Jerusalem and the Temple.