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Over fifteen yeshiva students got together for summer yeshiva in London from after Tisha B'av until the beginning of the month of Elul.

The programme, beginning at 8:00 am and ending at 10:00 pm, was held under the direction of Rabbi Chaim Rapaport. The idea of a summer yeshiva fulfills the directive of the Luabvitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory, to never take a vacation from learning Torah.

Other teachers included Rabbi Leibish Heller from the Lubavitch Yeshiva Gedolah in Kingsley Way, London, and Rabbi Y. D. Klein from Manchester.

There was also a two hour lunch break for recreational activities, when the bochurim played tennis, football and table tennis.

In the words of one of the students: "It would have been very hard to go through the whole summer without being in yeshiva, and I am very grateful to the organisers for the best summer I have ever had."

[Adapted from collive.com] 

Some 1500 children attended Jewish Summer day camps organised by Chabad Lubavitch centres in London, Edgware, Ilford, Wimbledon, Bournemouth, Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester.

Children from all religious backgrounds enjoyed a huge array of educational and recreational activities organised and run by experienced camp leaders and counsellors from the UK, USA, France, Belgium and Israel.

Rabbi Bentzi Sudak, chief executive of Chabad Lubavitch UK, commented on the growing numbers of children enrolled into camps across the UK, saying: “This is crucial step in insuring another generation of Jewish children who are excited about their Jewishness and Judaism. The numbers this year confirm Chabad Lubavitch as one of the largest providers of fun-filled Summer activities for Jewish children in the UK.”

London’s Lubavitch Day Camp had record numbers this year with over 400 children enrolled.

“It has been an incredible summer camp this year - our biggest yet!” says Rabbi Shmuly Karasik who runs the camp with his wife Chana.

This year’s theme was the coming month of Tishrei, which includes the High Holidays.

“The children were imbued with the joys of Tishrei,” said Chana Karasik. “We experienced Tishrei like never before with tashlich wading, apple picking, honey making, crafting Shofars, learning about the lulav and etrog and the excitement of Sukkot.”

North Manchester’s Lubavitch Day Camp also experience unprecedented numbers.

“When we started to run the camp 12 years ago there were only between 40 and 60 children,” says Rabbi Levi Wineberg, camp director. “Now we have over 500.”

“The ten percent increase over last year is a reflection of our non-judgemental approach and our acceptance of every Jewish child regardless of their level of observance,” adds Rivka Wineberg.

The camp takes pride in the fact that it represents the full spectrum of Manchester’s Jewish community.

“We have children from both Jewish and non-Jewish schools. They all thrive, flourish and get along with each other wonderfully,” says Rabbi Wineberg.

In South Manchester Day Camp, some 50 children enjoyed a wide variety of arts and crafts activities, trips and a family BBQ.

“By coming to our camp, the children get to experience a Jewish environment and take pride in their heritage," says Louise Weinberg who runs the camp with Rochel Jaffe.

"There is a lot of competition for children’s attention over the summer. If they didn't come to us, they would be going to a tennis camp or a football camp.”

“Camp has been amazing” said one camper at Camp Gan Israel Ilford, organised by Rabbi Odom and Henry Brandman and Rivky Kesselman, head counsellor.

One parent said: “Last summer my child spent one week at Chabad and one week at another camp. He said that this summer he only wants to go to Chabad!”

Edgware's Camp Gan Israel had close to 150 children in attendance over a three week period.

"We enjoyed activities such as trips to Adventure Island, Woburn Safari Park and Gulliver’s Land, as well as  sports, arts and crafts and a carnival," says Rabbi Yaron Jacobs, camp director.

For more photos, click here. 

When Rabbi Fishel and Esther Cohen came to Birmingham, England, in 1984, neither had any idea what the future would hold.

He, a young Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi fresh out of school, had been asked to become the area’s first full-time university chaplain for the Midlands Region, providing religious and pastoral support to Jewish students attending universities in Birmingham, Warwick, Woverhampton, Derby, Coventry, Loughborough, Leicester and Nottingham. She, barely 20 years old, faced her own challenges in building a home and Jewish center far from her family in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Among the roadblocks was confronting a dearth of kosher facilities; running out of staples such as milk or bread was not an option.

“I was determined to make it work,” said Esther Cohen, who with her husband directs campus activities. “I learned how to plan in advance, and the community was very welcoming.”

Ask locals, and they’ll tell you that over the last 25 years, the Cohens have done more than “make it work.” Together, they’ve touched the lives of thousands of students, many of whom still regard the couple as friends.

More than 200 students, alumni, colleagues, friends and family members came out to show their support at a dinner held earlier this year. Sponsored by the Midlands Region Chaplaincy Board, the event honored the Cohens’ quarter-century of service.

Speaking after the dinner, Esther Cohen said that from day one, they focused on finding ways to help Jewish students, many of whom were away from home for the first time, cope with the various challenges of university life. They sought to establish innovative programs and activities with the goal of building a sense of community.

“We were always arranging events,” she related. “Our goal was to create a home away from home. Students would come to us when they were panicking about exams. Sometimes they would knock on our door at midnight to borrow some milk.”

Mendy Cohen, one of the couple’s four sons, compared the constant bustle of his childhood home in England to Grand Central Station in New York City, where he now resides.

“There were always students around,” he said. “It was like a second home to many of them.”

It wasn’t uncommon for the Cohens to prepare enough food for a Shabbat dinner for 20 guests when, without warning, 40 would show up.

“My mother would just make more salads and put up more tables,” said Cohen.

Esther Cohen started teaching and later earned a degree in counseling. In addition to assisting Fishel Cohen with his chaplaincy duties, she also serves as head of religious education at the King David School and runs her own clinic, Kadimah Counseling Service. She said that the research she conducted as part of her course work on the psychological needs of Jewish students was invaluable.

“It gave us both a very strong awareness of what students need,” she said. “There is a skill in working with them and not telling them what to do.”

Over the years, the Cohens’ programs ran the gamut of themes. In addition to their weekly Shabbat dinners and holiday events, they continue to host open houses during exam season, inviting students to drop in between study sessions for a home-cooked meal. Among their new projects is “Esther’s Café,” a group of 50 students who gather at a local Hillel House for a regular address by an educational speaker.

“We aim to create a new event every term,” said Cohen. “We’ve had camping trips. Fishel drove a mini bus filled with students to Scotland. It was a lot of fun.”

Holly Kilim, who attended Birmingham University from 2004 to 2009, met the Cohens during her third year of medical school.

“Until that point I wasn’t really involved in the Jewish scene at the university,” said Kilim, who now lives in Boston with her husband, Daniel Broniatowski. “With their warm hearts and non-judgmental attitude they both created a loving and nurturing environment for me to learn and grow, both Jewishly and personally. I will always remember Fishel coming to kosher the kitchen in my apartment, at my request, and the image of him standing there holding a blow torch to my kitchen taps.”

Kilim and her fiancé studied with the Cohens for several weeks before their wedding in London. Fishel Cohen officiated at the ceremony.

“I always thought that it was endearing, the way they referred to this time as ‘learning with us,’ rather than teaching us,” said Kilim. “I think this is a perfect example of the way they approach their work, not from the top down, but from an equal footing that they share with everyone.”

Louise Weinberg, a Birmingham student in 1995, has fond memories of all-night cooking sessions and lively holiday meals.

“I saw them open their home 24/7 to all who wanted or needed, and their home became my home,” said Weinberg, who lives in Manchester, but still maintains a close relationship with the couple. “When I recently gave birth to twins at 29 weeks, they drove through the night to be by the hospital.”

From their vantage point in the Midlands, the Cohens have witnessed Jewish life change in this corner of England. The Jewish student population, which was about 200 when they arrived, has grown to more than 2,000. To accommodate their growing needs, Fishel Cohen, who acts as a student advocate with administrations, fought to bring kosher food to Birmingham and Nottingham.

For his part, he said that he tries to visit as many students as possible in order to reach the unaffiliated. Esther Cohen, meanwhile, is a regular in the student library during midterms, distributing packages of homemade chocolate cake with “good luck” tags attached.

And they still deal with the age-old problems of homesickness and pre-exam jitters. The economy, they asserted, has only placed more pressure on students.

“It used to be that you got a degree and were fairly certain to get a job,” said Cohen. “Now even a degree from a good school doesn’t guarantee that.”

Looking to the future, she predicted that Jewish life in the area would continue to grow.

“Life is unpredictable,” she said, “but we hope to carry on and keep growing. The more we give, the more we get back. We’re so full of energy, we want to expand.”

Leeds is opening a Jewish educational centre where children can take a walk through time into a 19th century eastern European shtetl.

The Jewish Heritage Centre for Children, due to open in October, is the brainchild of Leeds Lubavitch education director Shoshana Angyalfi and her project co-ordinator Ruth Bell, who gave the Jewish Chronicle a sneak preview of the museum.

Mrs Angyalfi said: "Each house in the shetl shows a different aspect of Jewish life. We have the scribe's house where we learn about the Torah. There is a succah, and a candle store where we learn about the different uses for candles - for Shabbat, for Chanucah, for yahrzeits (memorials).

"In the family home a sewing machine is set up and a Shabbat table - to show that during the week we work and on Shabbat we rest."

The houses in the shtetl have been deliberately built crooked, the narrow streets in between them are cobbled, and the ceiling has been painted to look like sky by local painter Judith Levin. She is the project's resident artist and also created the detailed stained-glass windows of the shtetl synagogue.

In each house, a video, shot by award-winning local filmmaker Simon Marcus and featuring costumed child actors, explains the meaning of the items in the house.

Some of the furniture was donated by members of the community, and the authentic metal lanterns which light the homes were donated after Mrs Angyalfi spotted them at a Chabad convention in New York.

Mrs Bell has come up with many innovative ways to teach visitors about halachah (Jewish law). In the shtetl stable, children can stamp animal hooves into sand to see if the hooves are cloven and establish whether or not the animal is kosher.

As visitors emerge from the shtetl, they enter a modern kosher play-kitchen and a mini-supermarket. Mrs Bell said: "We want to show that we still follow the traditions and laws of the shetl, but we do it in a modern way."

The £274,000 project was made possible thanks to a grant from the
Heritage Lottery Fund.

It will open as an extension to the existing Chabad Centre on Shadwell Lane, Moortown, and will include a café and soft play area. Cookery workshops, lectures, and arts and crafts will also be run in the centre.

Although the centre will not be open every day to the general public, Mrs Angyalfi said there was a huge demand for school visits and interest from adult groups, including the Women's Institute and the Gypsy and Traveller Association.

Mrs Angyalfi added: "The Jewish community in Leeds has been very supportive of the project - the Leeds Representative Council has held a meeting here already. We really want it to be something they are proud of."

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[From thejc.com] 

Some 150 people turned out last Sunday morning at Lubavitch of Edgware to a joint celebration making the groundbreaking of centre’s new mikvah and Rabbi Leivi Sudak 50th birthday.

Supporters, friends and rabbis from all over London participated in the symbolic turning over of the soil, the mixing of cement and the laying the first stones of the new building.  Among the honoured guests were Rabbi Nachman Sudak OBE, principal of Chabad Lubavitch UK; Rabbi Shmuel Lew, head of Lubavitch Senior Girls' School and member of the directorate of Lubavitch UK; Dayan Levi Raskin; and Rabbi Yitzchok Sandler, director of Aish in Edgware.

Rabbi Leivi Sudak spoke of his joy at being able to start the building work following the granting of planning permission.

“A farmer ploughs his field, cutting open the smooth surface of his land, so that he can 'receive' the blessing of the growth of his produce,” he said.

“A groundbreaking cuts open the ground, so that it may receive the blessing of the new build. Giving charitably 'cuts open one's pocket' so that we can receive the 'provident blessing of abundance'. May all who engage in this project be blessed.”

The new mikvah replaces the one destroyed by fire last year. It will be more than double the size of the old one and available for both women and men.  Half of the costs have already been pledged and construction work is anticipated to commence after the September High Holy Day period.

All adults and children attending were invited to dig some soil and place specially selected stones into the cement.  Following the ceremony, the participants were invited to a buffet celebrating Rabbi Sudak's 50th birthday.