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Report: Chabad Rabbi Aquitted On Drug Trafficking Charges

Two Chabad blogs are reporting that Rabbi Eli Hecht, a charity collector from Tzefat, Israel, was aquitted of drug trafficking charges by a Spanish court today. Hecht claimed that a another person gave him a suitcase and asked him to take it, but did not tell Hecht that the suitcase contained what turned out to be a large amount of illegal drugs.

Video: Tel Aviv – A Day In The Life Of A Sudanese Refugee

He sleeps in a park with other refugees. He has no job, no food and no shoes. He is hungry and afraid. The government demands huge fines from employers who hire these people. The High Court stayed that law but employers are still afraid the government will punish them if they hire African refugees. The government wants to keep African refugees in a detention center but hasn't managed to finish preparing it, even though it has been working on it for months and it won't be much more than a tent city once it is finished. On the day the world commemorates as Holocaust Remembrance Day, here's a video portrait of a day in the life of a Sudanese refugee asylum-seeker who thought Jews or all people would help him.

The Story Behind Knesset Row Over Censored Report On Ethiopian Jews Wife Murders

"The successes are fabulous," she says. "We have a lot of Ethiopian students at the university level, and they are coming out working in free professions, particularly law and now teaching." She also points to Ethiopians in the Knesset, singers, actors, cinematographers and producers, as well as "A Star is Born 9" winner Hagit Yaso and soccer player Baruch Dego. She says statistics can be confusing because it is unclear which groups people are talking about - new immigrants [i.e., Falash Mura] or veterans.

Hasidic Groups Issue Wedding Restrictions

Large Hasidic movements – such as Ger, Vizhnitz, Satmar, Sanz and Belz – recently issued special rules aimed at cutting wedding costs. The Sanz movement, for example, released a book of rules presenting the maximum prices the bride and groom's families should pay for each wedding clause in order to save tens of thousands of shekels. Here are a few examples…

Exclusive: Alleged Chabad Pedophile Now Faces 51 Counts Against Him

David Cyprys, a long time employee of Chabad's Yeshiva Centre in Melbourne, Australia, had 22 more counts added against him in a court appearance today (Friday in Australia). Cyprys asked the court for a media blackout of the trial. The judge is expected to make her decision regarding that next week. Cyprys was allegedly protected for years by Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner, the late head of Chabad in Australia. Police have had contact with almost 20 men who say they were victims of Cyprys when they were  students in Chabad's yeshiva. Many of them are part of the court case against Cyprys.

Video: Woman Attacked By Haredim In Beit Shemesh

Three haredi men were arrested for their participation in a haredi mobs attack on a woman in Beit Shemesh this week. Here's video of the woman and her damaged car.

How A Rabbinic Ban On Bugs May Have Led To The Creation Of Christianity

“From a Torah perspective, eating a Big Mac or eating a salad with insects in it, the salad is worse,” Rabbi Eliezer Eidlitz, who runs the nonprofit Kosher Information Bureau said. The cost of kosher-grown lettuce is markedly higher than regular lettuce. In late January, Glatt Mart, an RCC-certified supermarket on Pico Boulevard in LA, was selling an ordinary head of romaine lettuce (1 pound, 6 ounces) for $1.19, while a much smaller head of "kosher" romaine (10.3 ounces) was priced at $3.59, seven times as much per ounce.

Israeli Jews Becoming More Religious, Poll Finds

Israeli Jews are becoming more religious, according to a study published Thursday by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) in conjunction with AVI CHAI Foundation. The survey, entitled "A Portrait of Israeli Jews: Beliefs, Observance, and Values of Israeli Jews," examined levels of religiosity of Israeli Jews in comparison with levels of the past twenty years.

Hasids Verses Hipsters

There's a clash of cultures Crown Heights, the Chabad-Lubavitch stronghold in Brooklyn.

Video: Haredi MK Expelled From Knesset Session

MK Yisrael Eichler of the Ashkenazi haredi United Torah Judaism party was tossed out of the Knesset session after he called the leader of the opposition, MK Tzipi Livni, "our enemy."

"העלפן מיר!" Israeli Rescue Dog Speaks Yiddish, Works With Haredim

The Israel Fire and Rescue Services' ultra-Orthodox unit in the Judea and Samaria District received unusual reinforcement recently – a dog who can take orders in Yiddish.

Immigration Fraud Rabbi Extradited From Canada

Earl Seth David, an Orthodox Jew who billed himself as Rabbi Avraham David and wrote articles and a book on supposed codes in the Torah and on Kabbalah, was extradited yesterday from Canada to New York City where he was arraigned on massive immigration fraud charges.

Israeli Builder Allegedly Refuses To Sell Apartment To Ethiopian IDF Commander

Avi Tesera, 35, a university student and a company commander in the Paratroopers Corps, told the lawmakers he tried to buy an apartment in a new housing project some five months ago. "The contractor said, 'You can't afford the price, leave it alone,' even before quoting any price or knowing what I had," Tesera said. "When I insisted, he said NIS 980,000. I spoke to neighbors who had already bought an apartment and are not from Ethiopia and they said they paid NIS 740,000 for the same apartment. I realized he simply didn't want to sell me an apartment."

Gay, Orthodox, And Fed Up With Frum Homophobia And The "Torah Declaration"

"It confuses me that this Torah Declaration contains flawed arguments that would pass muster in the beis medrash. Saying that Hashem would never make a gay person unable to change is simplistic, inconsistent and flat-out wrong. If someone gets into an accident we would never say that we know he can be “cured” simply because his affliction is not genetic and he wasn’t born this way. We would never tell a deaf person (born deaf or not) that his nisayon is to find a way to hear again, so that he can be mekayem the mitzvah of shofar? Yet the Torah Declaration uses all of these arguments to make gay people feel that their nisayon in life is to change their sexuality, simply because it may not be genetic and Hashem would never make it unchangeable. This is the worst kind of rationalized homophobia."

Leading Rabbi Says Not Publishing The Face Of A Woman Is An "Act Of Respect" For Her – Even When She Is Dead

Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, one of the most prominent Zionist Orthodox leaders, justified the decision to blur a picture of Ruti Fogel, who was brutally murdered in the settlement of Itamar along with her husband and three of their children. The censored family portrait was published in a weekly bulletin published by the Machon Meir yeshiva. "It's an act of respect," he said. "Although she has died, it doesn't mean she shouldn’t be respected."