Accuweather reporting we might get SNOW

According to the East Regional News story, the storm will produce 3-6 inches of snowfall in the Laurel and Pocono mountains of Pennsylvania. From central Pennsylvania to northeastern New Jersey and southern New York, lighter snowfall amounts are forecast, but for many this will be the first accumulating snow of the 2007-08 winter season. Because temperatures are near or even above freezing in many places, much of the snowfall will be confined to grassy surfaces, but heavier bursts of snow can create a slushy, slippery accumulation on roadways.

She’s Jewish and He Is Muslim, United on the Issue of Pork

 Brooklyn, NY – Sam Habib and Cindy Gluck opened their first Dunkin’ Donuts in 2005. Mr. Habib, 47, is a Muslim immigrant from Egypt, and Ms. Gluck, 34, is a Orthodox Jew from Borough Park, Brooklyn. Both had sunk their entire savings into buying the franchise, on a busy stretch of Church Avenue at East 17th Street in Flatbush.

It was a terrifying gamble. The two had known each other only a few months when Mr. Habib, asked Ms. Gluck, a real estate broker he had met while looking for a location, to join him in business. He knew she was an Orthodox Jew but said he didn’t care.

Cindy Gluck (her real name is Hindy) grew up in Hasidic Williamsburg. At 20, she was married off to a man of her parents’ choosing; four children later, she went into real estate to try to make some money.
“I had never met a Muslim before,” Ms. Gluck said. Mr. Habib chimed in with a laugh: “All her friends told her that she should be careful that her crazy terrorist Arab partner doesn’t put bombs in her packages.”

Under their ground rules, Ms. Gluck takes off Saturdays to celebrate the Sabbath, and Mr. Habib worships at the mosque every Friday. The doughnuts come from a kosher bakery in Borough Park. On Jewish holidays, Mr. Habib technically owns the entire business because Ms. Gluck is not allowed to earn money on those days.

And there is one edict they both obey. “Neither of us is allowed to enjoy the profits of the pork,” Ms. Gluck said. Any money the business makes on the sale of bacon, sausage or ham, is split and given away, hers to her synagogue and to Israel, his to the workers as bonuses.

The pair’s hard work has paid off; last year they opened a second franchise, on Flatbush and Sixth Avenues in Park Slope.

Because of a contract dispute, Mr. Habib and Ms. Gluck are in the process of selling the stores back to Dunkin’ Donuts. And when their doughnut days are done, they plan to continue working together.

“She’s Jewish and I’m Muslim,” Mr. Habib said. “That doesn’t stop us from creating a business.” [NY Times] Vosizneias.com

Study claims Jewish poverty rate in the U.S. is higher than in Israel

 

Every day at 6 P.M. 72 Jews come to the Ezra Center in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. They come to eat dinner. Although the meal is provided by a respectable caterer and served in a place called Uptown Cafe, this is unmistakably a soup kitchen.Many of the diners are elderly immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Others are homeless people living in the Jewish community center’s basement, released prisoners, illegal aliens, including Israelis, and the poor. “We found abysmal poverty,” says Anita Weinstein, founder and director of the Ezra Center, which provides social services to some 4,000 needy Chicago Jews living in the area. The Ezra Multi-Service Center (MSC) is a collaborative project of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago (JUF) and is administered by the Jewish Community Centers of Chicago (JCC). It was founded 23 years ago for distressed middle-class Jews who lost their jobs in the recession.

“We asked ourselves, if this could happen to middle-class Jews, what was happening to other people?” says Weinstein.In addition to some 7,000 middle-class Jews who needed help, some 3,000 Jews were receiving welfare. “We discovered an entire community of poor Jews of all ages who have been living here for a very long time,” she says.Today many of the needy are elderly, including Holocaust survivors, large ultra-Orthodox families and minimum-wage earners. “It’s harder to be poor today,” says Weinstein.One of the main problems is shelter. Some Jews live in cars. The disability stipend is $623 a month. Rent, even for a modest room, is at least half of that. The federation provides homes for some 800 homeless people, about half of them Jews, in five buildings it rents in Uptown. About a third of them have jobs.Steven Nasatir, JUF / Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago president, says one of every five Jews among Chicago’s 270,000 Jews is poor or almost poor according to the federal government’s definition. He says there are no figures for the general poverty rate among Jews in the United States, but according to the federations’ umbrella organization, the UJC, 15 to 20 percent of American Jews are poor.

In fact, the Jewish poverty rate in the United States is higher than that in Israel. In Israel 24 percent of the population is considered poor, but about half is not Jewish.

New York also has a high rate of Jewish poverty. “Usually the words ‘Jewish poverty” are seen as a contradiction in terms, says William Rapfogel, CEO of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty. “It’s not. More than a quarter of the members of the world’s richest Jewish community live close to the poverty line.”

A survey conducted for the federation five years ago showed that 350,000 Jews in New York City and state live close to the poverty line. The highest poverty rate is in Brooklyn. Ultra-Orthodox families make up 27 percent of those living below the poverty line, 23 percent are Russian speakers under the age of 65, 21 percent are Russian speakers over 65, 13 percent are non-Russian speakers over 65 and 16 percent are unemployed or handicapped.

The poverty line for a family of three is set at an annual income of $15,000 but in New York and other large cities it is adjusted to the higher cost of living and set at $22,530.

For every 100 housing units the community builds for the poor, mainly with state funding, there is a waiting list of 6,000, Rapfogel says. The apartments are raffled among the eligible recipients. Ha’aretz

The largest Dreidel in the world

Basking Ridge, NJ – The largest Hanukkah dreidel in the world stands 18-feet tall in front of the Chabad Jewish Center in Basking Ridge, generating stares and smiles from passers-by.

The dreidel has become a local landmark during the holiday season, rising over the busy intersection of Valley Road and King George Road.

“Hanukkah celebrates the victory of a rag-tag band of Jewish freedom fighters in a struggle against their Syrian-Greek oppressors more than 2,000 ago”, explained Rabbi Mendy Herson, director of Chabad of Greater Somerset County. “The Hellenists tried to outlaw Jewish spirituality, to take the soul out of Judaism. Tradition tells us that Jewish children would study the Torah in hiding. When anti-Jewish forces would find them, they would take out little tops – dreidels in Yiddish – and pretend they were just playing a children’s game. Hence the worldwide practice of playing with dreidels on Hannukah.” [courieronline]Vosizneias.com

Passaic N.J. Flipped over car Main and Brook with no one around

Passaic N.J.  At 2:57AM Their was a flipped over car on Main Ave and Brook Ave with no one around. Passaic Fire,Police and Hatzolah E.M.S all on scene and no one in the area driver fled away. The driver must have crawled out the window that was a half a block away.Car was towed to Police head quarters for investigation.