The Shluchim from YG went on mivtzoim during Pesach as usual and this year have been very active as far as publicising their good deeds. A few weeks ago they produced a very professional looking booklet with stories of the events that took place around Australia and in New Zealand. Now they have produced a video of these same events. It is great to see their achievements in outlying communities. Keep up the great work!
I was remiss in not mentioning that this year also marks 40 years since the Rebbe initiated Mivtza Tefillin just before the Six Day War. As usual Chabad.org has some interesting and informative pages about the Tefillin Campaign in general and the 40th anniversary in particular.
Rabbi Sholom Ber Lipskar, director of Aleph Institute,
COL reports that 1,000 people put on tefillin at this year's March of the Living in Poland this week:
Shluchim to Poland, Rabbi Sholom Dovber Stambler and Rabbi Eliezer Gurary, held a tefillin campaign at the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps in Poland this week, where large group of Jewish youths gathered for the 'march of life'. The Chabadniks laid tefillin with nearly 1000 of them and also handed out the newly published Chabad booklet on the Holocaust.As I have said many times before, this is what Chabad is about. Quite understandably, participants in this important project experience intense emotions when visiting the concentration camps, Warsaw Ghetto and other sites of the Holocaust. The shluchim are providing the participants a positive way in which to express these feelings. I hope that as well as attending to the men the women were provided with Shabbos Candles or some other tangible Mitzvah.
I hope we that I will be posting photos of these boys at home very soon and not at the front.
More photos can be found here.
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The Baleboosteh does it again. She has some amazing and gut-wrenching photos on her site here as well as some more positive ones such as those above. Whatever one thinks of the sign on the "Mitzvah Tank" these bochrim are doing something positive for our soldiers. I am jealous of the opportunity they have to contribute to Eretz Yisroel and they certainly have my respect.
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The Kotel at last
Putting tefillin on soldiers
Election Day in Israel is a day of vacation when families flock to the parks and other amusement venues or just go for a nice stroll in the neighborhood. Subsequently, Rabin Square in Tel Aviv was packed with people.(From Shturem.net)
Shaliach Mendy Wilansky and Eran Spiezman of the Lubavitcher Chazon Eliyahu yeshiva located nearby decided that there could be no better time than to engage in Mivtza Tefilin. They went down to the Square and set up booths and put on Tefilin with literally hundreds of passersby.
Asked if he encountered any rejection or criticism by the crowd, they said "not at all, all were very receptive."
Hundreds of journalist from around the globe, public figures, politicians and concerned civilians have been filling the entrance lawn to the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Yerushalayim, where Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been under medical surveillance and in critical condition since last Wednesday.
Thereupon, bochrim from Toras Emes and Anash from nearby locations took this opportunity to do a massive tefillin laying project. Many agreed to put on the tefillin immediately while others conditioned this with 'so that Arik recovers'. One of the Anash members told COL that literally hundreds laid tefillin in a single day. These 'mivtza' scenes were also covered by many media personnel on the spot.
These photos were sent to me by "Yossi" and show the menorah and Chanukah display at Chadstone organised by Rabbi Mendel Raskin of Bentleigh Chabad. It is located outside K-Mart and will be open every day of Chanukah from 9am to 5pm.
As well as the menorah the stall has computers showing Chanukah DVDs and games for the children to play. There are also Jewish books and Judaica for sale. I am told that there has been great interest in the stall by Jewish shoppers.
Kol hakavod to Rabbi Raskin and his team of helpers.
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Chabad.info has some photos of Mivtzoim here in Melbourne - see them here.
(If anyone has any photos of events in Melbourne I am happy to post them here. Just send them to me at aussieecho@gmail.com)
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Another story from COL this time about the mivtzoim done at the Kotel. Anyone who has been there has witnessed the wonderful work these guys do. (Click on the link for more photos)
On Thursday, 14th of Tamuz, a ceremony of the 17th Maccabiah took place at the Western Well in the presence of 3,500 Jewish athletes from all over the world. Just before the closing ceremony of the Maccabiah, the athletes chose to visit the Western wall, remnant of the Beis Hamikdash, and for many of them this was the first visit to the Kosel and their excitement was visible.
Rabbi Yosef Halperin, shliach and Chabad booth director at the Kosel greeted the athletes with a staff of volunteers, young men and bochrim, students of the Tsemach Tsedek Colel and of Maayanot in Yerushalayim. These activists immediately got to work to make sure to lay teffilin to all of these thousands of athletes. The visitors were glad to find "Chabad also here at the Kosel, just like in our state and city". A few dozen of them laid teffilin for the first time and thereby eliminated their categorization as a 'karkafta' (a head that had never donned tefillin).
Surely this is the sort of thing we should be doing to support Israel and her soldiers.
As reported in Chabadnik.com:
Donors from France Donate Dozens of Tefilin to IDF soldiers
Yesterday, Thursday, Rabbi Shmuel Gurewitz and his brother Shalom from Lyons, France, arrived in Hebron yesterday with dozens of pairs of Tefilin for IDF soldiers. The Tefilin were donated by generous donors from France.
The commanders thanked Rabbi Gurewitz and the donors for the gracious act.
