Jewish & World News

A record number of 55,000 Jewish households in the New York area will require assistance this Passover, according to William E. Rapfogel, executive director of Metropolitan Jewish Council on Jewish Poverty. “We will also require an additional $500,000 of financial assistance to victims of Sandy,” said Mr. Rapfogel. He emphasized that this was “on top of the $800,000 of financial assistance given to other needy Jews.

Israel - The Counter-Terrorism Bureau has instructed Chabad centers and Jewish communities in several sensitive countries to boost security and go as far as hiring local security companies to guard the mass Passover Seders planned during the Jewish holiday. In some countries there are even preparations to have hikers conduct security checks at the entrance to Passover Seders in order to verify the identity of the participants and prevent the infiltration of a hostile element.

The Russian Jewish Congress and one of the country’s leading Internet companies are partnering to deliver free matzah to Moscow's Jews. The collaboration with the online marketing giant Vigoda.ru will allow the Jewish organization to send 2 million emails on Thursday offering the matzah for the cost of delivery -- an offer RJC hopes will help introduce the Passover staple to the homes of young professionals who otherwise would not receive matzah.

A global Shi’ite terrorism network made up of Iranian Quds Force operatives and Hezbollah continues to target Israelis overseas, the National Security Council’s counterterrorism bureau warned on Wednesday, ahead of the Passover vacation season. Twenty-seven countries have been designated by the bureau as being under a travel alert of varying severity.

Israelis may not realize it, but during Passover, their water comes not from the Kinneret, but from underground wells. “It has been like this for years, and will continue this year,” said MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism). In a letter to Gafni, Alexander Kushnir, the chairman of the Israel Water Authority, said that this year, as in years past, the Authority would stop pumping water from the Kinneret into the National Water Carrier three days before Passover. Instead, the Authority will pump water from underground wells into the water system.

Just a month before Passover, prices for chicken are rising again. This week, poultry producers and marketers sent new price lists to retailers. "Globes" obtained a copy of the Milouoff Ltd. price list, which shows that the price of fresh chicken was raised by 8.2% to NIS 15.80 per kilogram, before VAT, as of Monday.

The buzz in the kosher food industry is that there will be some price increases for many items, particularly those affected by significantly higher commodity prices. But even if there is some uncertainty whether such price increases will be applied across the board, one thing is for certain – the cost of handmade Shmurah Matzoh continues to rise. Shmurah refers to “matzah made from wheat which is guarded from the time that it is harvested."  Due to the seriousness of avoiding any chametz on Pesach, shmurah matzah is meticulously safeguarded to make sure it does not come in contact with water.  The wheat is reaped before the sheaves have completely dried out, the kernels are carefully examined to make sure that there are no grains which have split or that are sprouting, and the harvest is carefully supervised to make sure that it does not become damp until it is ground into flour. Because of the painstaking process of producing shmurah matzah, price per pound r...

A group of volunteers is hard at work making sure elderly and low-income Jewish families have enough kosher food for Passover. The Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty is kicking off it's annual food package distribution today. Thousands of packages are put together at the Met Council's warehouse in East Flatbush, and taken to distribution locations across the five boroughs, where they will be given to those in need.

Warren Buffett, the world's third richest man, is known for his sharp grasp of international finance and his ability to sniff out a good deal. His instincts did not fail him last month when he symbolically bought the chametz of a rabbi in his home state of Nebraska. The billionaire agreed to buy the leavened bread of the Omaha community from Rabbi Jonathan Gross, in accordance with the Jewish tradition.

A team of volunteers started the Passover season earlier this month packing goods for delivery to Jewish soldiers around the country and serving overseas. From Afghanistan to Kuwait and Qatar to Germany and Japan, priority mail is delivering boxes assembled at a warehouse in New Jersey that include everything men and women in uniform need for a Passover Seder, including kosher grape juice, special handmade matzah, Haggadahs and a complete Seder plate. That’s more than 800 bottles of grape juice and 150 pounds of handmade matzah, plus 500 pounds of regular matzah paid for by donation that in the space of a week, travelled through an assembly line before heading to submarines, ships and bases around the globe.

Two days after the terrorist attack in Toulouse, and just weeks after attacks and attempted attacks on Israeli targets in Georgia, India, Thailand and Azerbaijan, the National Security Council's counterterrorism bureau released a travel advisory Wednesday saying Hezbollah and Iran still want to kill or kidnap Israelis abroad. While the counterterrorism bureau routinely releases travel advisories at this time of year -- before Pessah, Yom Ha'atzmaut and Lag B'Omer -- this time it prefaced the advisory by saying that Hezbollah and Iran are continuing their efforts to carry out attacks. Hezbollah is seeking vengeance for the killing of its commander Imad Mughniyeh four years ago, and Iran blames Israel for the killing of three nuclear scientists.

The Passover story unfolds grimly: Enslaved in Egypt, the Israelites toil in bondage for hundreds of years. Moses, a Jewish shepherd, calls for his people to be freed; when the reigning Pharaoh refuses, God unleashes a barrage of brutal plagues—lice and locusts, diseased beasts, the slaying of every first-born Egyptian son.