Communicated: TefillaChillul Tefila Bifarhesia, as well as halachicly challenged verbiage and dress, are external manifestations of a critical lack of personal yiras shomayim which has lethal consequences.
The Israel Free Loan Association has provided $1.5 million in interest-free loans to over 50 small businesses in southern Israel affected by the recent Gaza conflict.
Hundreds of small businesses were hurt by damages or lost productivity during Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza last month.
In an effort to speed up the distribution of funds to Israel’s south, the Jerusalem-based Israel Free Loan Association slightly relaxed its review process for business loan approvals, requiring only two guarantors on the loan, in place of the typical three.
The approved beneficiaries represented a diverse collection of individuals and small businesses including small shops and manufacturers as well as service providers such as hairdressers, carpenters and day care centers. All the affected businesses reported steep cash flow challenges resulting from halted income during the military campaign despite the fact that their expenses continued to accumulate.
The new loans have been made available through two gifts from the Legacy Heritage Fund and the Trudy and Bob Gottesman Fund, amounting to just over $1.5 million.
“The recent violence presented many small businesses and individuals with a desperate economic challenge and we take great pride that we can play our part in helping Israel’s south get on the road to recovery,” said Edward Cohen, chairman of the association.
Founded in 1990, the Israel Free Loan Association has distributed over 46,000 individual loans amounting to more than $170,000,000. The association prides itself on strong fiscal management and identifying loan beneficiaries who will not default on their loan. To date, it has a default rate of less than .5 percent.
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The next chapter of the award-winning novel.

Florida is famous for sparkling water. We have the beautiful Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico surrounding our coast. We have bays, lakes, canals and, of course, an incredible abundance of swimming pools in homes, resorts, apartment complexes and city parks.

The buzz is back as Camp Gan Israel Florida Overnight gears up for another fantastic summer, CGI Florida style. What makes CGI Florida so different from all the other overnight camps? It’s all in the details.
Leah Katz, a TeenZone camper at Oorah’s TheZone summer camp and an 11th grader at Midwood High School, read her winning essay about how TheZone changed her views on Judaism at the Jewish Heritage Awards Ceremony held at Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes’s office in April. The purpose of the Jewish Heritage Essay Contest is to acquaint public school students with Jewish history and customs and to help foster a deeper understanding of Jewish culture. The contest is open to students of all ethnic and religious backgrounds. Leah’s essay is reproduced in full below.
Moshe Sharett, the head of the Jewish Agency’s Political Department, visited Egypt in 1945. In Cairo he met a most remarkable young woman, a beautiful journalist who was the darling of Egyptian high society – from high-ranking military brass, to culture icons and Muslim sheikhs, to the court of King Faruk.
The two proceeded to talk about everyday things and surprisingly her mother-in-law did not find anything else to criticize. This occurred a few more times, with my client changing the topic every time by complimenting her mother-in-law or mentioning something positive about her.
There is always a lot of confusion surrounding sensory processing disorder – mainly because there are many different diagnoses that fall under the catch-all phrase sensory processing disorder (SPD). Among them are three specific subcategories:
The doctor had warned us that even if we did everything right and followed the protocol after the follicle was of the right size, there was no guarantee of success. Fertilization still had to occur, and just like couples do not necessarily become pregnant every month, we had no way to know if we were actually expecting for two full weeks.
The next chapter of the award-winning novel.
Jewish Press columnist Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis, founder and president of Hineni, the international Torah outreach organization, recently addressed an overflowing audience at the Beth Jacob Congregation of Irvine in southern California. Rebbetzin Jungreis’s address theme, “Making a Good Relationship Magical,” was apropos for the evening’s main mission: raising funds for the Irvine community’s mikveh.
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You have probably been planning your marriage since you were about three. Let’s fast-forward to a big milestone– your twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. (Don’t worry, you don’t look a day over twenty one!) Now, would you appreciate your husband buying you a dozen roses that some florist recommended?
A number of bills targeting Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program have advanced in the U.S. Congress. The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday approved and sent to the full House a bill backed by Reps. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), the chairman of the committee, and Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), its senior Democrat, that would [...]
Former Minister of Science and Technology, Professor Rabbi Daniel Hershkowitz was appointed the new president of Bar-Ilan University. Hershkowitz’s appointment was approved unanimously on Monday during a meeting of the university’s board of trustees. He will begin serving in October, at the start of the 2013-14 academic year. The Haifa native succeeds Moshe Kaveh, who [...]
Two New Jersey men, indicted in March for arson and attempted murder and terrorism, pleaded not guilt in a New Jersey court this week. Anthony Graziano of Lodi and Aakash Dalal of New Brunswick, both 21, were arrested after the northern New Jersey’s Bergen County bombings, one of which injured Beth El Congregation Rabbi Nosson [...]
An Israeli soldier was killed in a mine explosion in the southern Golan Heights. The soldier was taking part Tuesday in a minefield-clearing operation, according to the Israel Defense Forces, and was killed when an old anti-tank mine exploded. Two other soldiers were injured. The mine reportedly was cleared and marked before it exploded. The [...]
“A majority of the claims made by the person who wrote the anonymous letter were refuted by Mr. Domnitser,” the report said.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has named Ira Forman, who led President Obama’s reelection campaign in the Jewish community, as his envoy to combat anti-Semitism. The State Department announced the appointment Monday, the same day it released its 2012 report on religious freedom that recorded a “continued global increase in anti-Semitism.” Forman replaces Hannah [...]
Vandals spray painted the Jerusalem home of a long-time board member of the Women of the Wall (WOW) with vicious graffiti, the first time opponents to WOW have resorted to vengeance. Some of the graffiti sprayed on the door and stairwell of Peggy Cidor’s apartment read in Hebrew: “Women of the Wall are wicked,” “Peggy, [...]
An anonymous letter sent to the Claims Conference’s Frankfurt office in 2001 identified five cases where restitution was approved for ineligible claimants.
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