I will be reviewing this CD sometime this week.

As I said last night, I reached 200,000 sometime early this morning.

I just noticed on my sitemeter that I am coming up on 200,000 hits. That’s unique, individual, hits per day, not overall views, which is now at almost 330,000.

I estimate that sometime tomorrow I will get that 200,000th hit. Thanks to everyone who reads this blog, I appreciate every reader. I hope you’ll continue to come back as I plan on a lot more reviews for the coming year and a lot more contests, interviews and an all around fun experience by you - the readers.

After months of promising and disappointing, Eli Gerstner has released The Yeshiva Boys Choir DVD 2. I know this for two reasons. 1) My kids are threatening a mutiny if I don’t get it “please, please Sunday Tatty, please!” and 2) Because after Shabbos ended I found three e-mails from readers who have already bought it.

The first reader was just letting me know, in case I hadn’t seen yet, Sameach put up a clip. Before I go to the next two e-mails I just wanted to give kudos to Sameach for making these previews available.

Reader # 2:

“Have you seen the YBC LIVE II DVD yet? It’s a disaster, no really, it is. The first half is great, the YBC kids are all good and the concert is nice enough. The second half is so disappointing. The Tek-Noy songs are unbearable, and more then half of the songs are not even from the concert footage. The same goes for the Chevra guys. They don’t sound like the first group, it’s very disappointing. I can’t wait to see what you say.”

Reader # 3:

“Chaim, you need to review the ybc 2 live dvd. It looks like someone bought a new digital video editing toy and used every single new graphic in the book. They special effects this dvd to death it’s so distracting, aside from the horrible effects and teknoys embarrassing segment, the dvd is nice. The chevra and ybc parts are good, but for the sake of all that’s holy and pure, skip the teknoy parts.

ps- on 2nd thought don’t skip the teknoy parts, it’s worth it to see eli gerstner dressed in a woman’s robe and wearing an old gray sheital. - yes, really.”

Thank you for writing in, as I wrote back to you in your individual emails. I want to also encourage everyone else to email me your thoughts on new CD’s or DVD’s.

As for my own thoughts on the DVD. I have not got it yet, despite my children’s cries. I’ll probably get it eventually. I should just mention that these Jewish DVDs are notorious for overusing cheesy graphics.

Regarding Teknoy - I remember back when this concert happened that people were upset with the Teknoy portion of that show because they felt they were trying too hard to copy N’Sync and they had dancers doing some, shall we say “interesting” dance moves. I heard a few people mention it felt very goyish and wasn’t right for the crowd attending the show.

Personally I think Teknoy is the worst of all of Eli Gerstner projects, with Yosis Orchestra a close second. Before all the Eli Gerstner fans start sending me hate mail let me know remind you that I have said this before, and I’ll say it again. YBC is one of my top Jewish Music guilty pleasures, despite it’s extreme cheesiness I enjoyed all three of their albums. (I even reviewed the third one here) I think they have easily knocked Miami off their perch. I loved the Menucha album and I liked 2 out of the 3 Chevra albums (the first 1st and 3rd.)

Today Judge Ira Harkavy issued his verdict on the long protracted court case between Agudas Chasidei Chabad International and Merkoz L’inyonei Chinuch against the Gabboim of the 770 shul downstairs.

Last year the judge ruled that Aguch and Merkoz are the sole owners of the 770 building including the synagogue but the Gabboim appealed and claimed that eventhough Aguch and Merkoz own the building they have no authority or any say in running the shul downstairs in 770. Due to the Gabboim’s appeal Aguch and Merkoz could not legally kick out the trouble makers and had to wait for the final ruling.

The judge did not accept the Gabboim’s any of the Gaboim’s claims and in his final and unequivocal ruling today accepted all of Aguch and Mekoz’s claims rendering them a glaring Didad Notzach.

The court has now given permission to Aguch and Merkoz to use the services of the police to evacuate anyone they see fit to force out.

The court also warned the Gabboim that they will be required to pay the astronomical amount of $500,000 if they choose to appeal the verdict a second time.

I really hope this signals the beginning of a better time for Chabad. The last Ten years has been filled with a crazy but seriously loud element taking the true wishes of The Rebbe and making a joke out of Lubavitch. It’s pained me for years to see those people taking decades of work by The Rebbe who built on 300 years of Chabad Chassidus and dragged it through the mud.

While other Chassidic Sects violently and very publicly fought with each other, ripping families, shuls and schools apart, Chabad’s leadership under Aguch tried as hard as possible to avoid just that. I know many people would have liked the violence and fighting and scandal of loud internal politics, but I think if this court battle truly does finally put an end to this madness, it was the best move.

People outside Chabad always asked me “Why don’t you just kick them out?” and now legally we can. If we would have forcibly tried to kick them out before this ruling, nothing would have been solved and it would have only torn Lubavitch apart.

would have wanted us to. We went out on Instead what has happened is that the rest of us went about our daily lives, living as the RebbeShlichus, started new Shuls in the community here in Crown Heights, started new programs, new Shiruim. The community has grown tremendously. Most of us have tuned out the most extreme of these guys.

Now, with a strong community, and a strong ruling from this court, I hope our community will takes back what was once ours.

Didan Natzach indeed!

HALLANDALE BEACH, FL [CHI] – A group of girls returning from the Publix grocery store across the street from the Chaya Aydel Seminary in Hallandale Beach, Florida after grocery shopping for a winter camp they were arranging for the local community, two of them were struck by a passing car.

The incident took place at around 10:15pm, the vehicle involved in the accident stopped and called 911, police and EMS responded within moments and began treating the two victims, and they were then transported to the Hollywood Memorial Hospital.

One of the girls, Ilana Leah bas Shaindel Rochel, was listed in critical condition, while her friend Chaya Mushka bas Mattel, was listed in stable condition. Readers are requested to keep saying Tehillim for their complete recovery.

Please take two minutes and say Tehilim.

(Source CrownHeights.Info)

Will Smith has stunned the world by declaring that even Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was essentially a “good” person.

The Men In Black star, 39, is determined to see the best in people, and is convinced the former German leader did not fully understand the extent of the pain and suffering his actions would cause during his time in power in the 1930s and ’40s.

He says, “Even Hitler didn’t wake up going, ‘Let me do the most evil thing I can do today’.

“I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was ‘good’. Stuff like that just needs reprogramming.”

Hitler’s totalitarian leadership as Fuhrer during 1934 until his eventual suicide in 1945 resulted in the persecution of an estimated six million Jews in the Holocaust, and his invasion of Poland in 1939 led to the start of the Second World War.

You know when you wake up and say “Hey I’m gonna wipe out an entire race of people”, I don’t think you can file that under “good intentions.” Wow.

The NY Times finally decided to write about Matisyahu leaving Lubavitch. But as usual the NY Times doesn’t break news, they react to it. This article is so homogenized and boring, it’s a wonder why it was even written. There isn’t even a quote from Matisyahu himself. The Jewish Week and Ha’Eretz can get Matisyahu on the phone for a quote, but The NY Times can’t?

I was contacted by the author a few weeks ago and asked about “the Matisyahu situation.” I thought I gave some very good quotes, I wasn’t harsh or mean spirited. I said some very neutral and nice things. I kept to my original stance that I don’t think he is a good role model for Lubavitch kids, but at the same time said I wish him well on his journey, and I hoped he ended up somewhere, anywhere … but SOMEWHERE. He shouldn’t go back and forth his whole life.

The author didn’t use even one of my quotes, in fact in the only reference to him speaking with bloggers he writes:

“The news of his shifting allegiances has provoked a furious response among some Lubavitch bloggers, who accuse Matisyahu of betraying a movement that nurtured him. But among Lubavitch rabbis in New York, many of whom know Matisyahu personally, reaction has been considerably gentler.”

I have to wonder if the author told Shea Hecht what “the bloggers” were saying, and in a PR move to keep HIS relations with Matisyahu positive, asked the author to change the focus of the article.

When I spoke with the author, he seemed very interested in the angle “what the regular people in the community” thought. But in the end all we got really were sanitized quotes from well known talking heads in the community.

I wonder what took so long for this story to get published at all since I was first contacted over two weeks ago.

How badly must this story have been butchered in editing and that he left out all the bloggers quotes and the angle of what “normal” (i.e. not Shea Hecht) thought of this Matisyahu development.

Speaking of Rabbi Hecht again, how about this ditty.

“I see him in the neighborhood, on the street and in synagogue, and people don’t even know who he is,” Rabbi Hecht said. “He wasn’t really appreciated from the inside of Chabad. He was more of a bridge to the outside.”

Whaaaaaaat?? People don’t even know who he is?? You have GOT to be kidding me. That’s a complete joke. I personally have seen Matisyahu cause scenes on Kingston Avenue, the Mikvah, in shuls on a weekday morning, etc, etc. People know who he is, this isn’t Williamsburgh. I mean, seriously, what are these guys trying to pull? Even in those MTV Online interviews you see young kids coming over to him asking for autographs.

I also completely disagree with the other talking head in Lubavitch’s quote:

Rabbi Jacob Goldstein, the longtime head of Community Board 9, agreed. “No one’s ever called me over in shul and said, ‘Hey, Goldstein, did you hear Matisyahu bailed out?’” he said. “He’s looking elsewhere, and that’s that.”

Maybe they didn’t call him, but let’s not pretend people didn’t talk about this, come on. There are 142 very passionate comments at CrownHeights.info, people were talking about it.

Based on these two guys quotes, it’s very obvious to me, the focus of this story changed from an informative, investigative piece on a very real, emotional issue. To a puff piece from Lubavitch talking heads, making it all seem like we’re all kumba ya, laddi da, smiles and handshakes.

One thing is certain, people feel both ways, but there is definitely a large contingency of Lubavitchers who feel as though we were “dissed” by Matisyahu, used and abused, and now he is just doing whatever he wants because his success has gone to a place where he thinks he’s above not just one community (i.e. Crown Heights) but all organized religion.

From day one, Matisyahu had the opportunity to make this about himself and his music. He dragged Chabad and The Rebbe into it, and then after he became famous he chose to drag Chabad into it again by repeatedly saying some very tactless, moronic statements. He could have just chose to be a mentsch, keep quite, do his thing. But he didn’t, and THAT is what upsets guys like me. Did Chabad benefit from Matisyahu “being” Chabad? You better believe it, but he was no different then 50 other celebrities to come and go through Chabad over the last 60 years. He’s gone and there will soon be another. Chabad Chassidus is bigger then Matisyahu, please.

The issue guys like me take with him is not his actual departure from Chabad, but his vapid quotes in regards to dealing with the issue. It was quotes like “we only still live in Crown Heights because my wife likes it here”, something I think is degrading to both his wife and residents of Crown Heights. How about just being a mentsch, is that so hard? When you say you feel “boxed in” that implies someone or something is holding YOU back. That shows that he doesn’t find any fault within him, but within the thing boxing him in. “Chabad” is holding HIM back from growing spiritually. That’s what bothers me.

If he feels like he isn’t connecting with Chabad Chassidus, then that means he isn’t relating to it or he can’t connect with it. It’s something that has been around for 300 years and affected millions of people. So there isn’t anything wrong with Chabad Chassidus, in as much as there is something wrong with being Chofetz Chayim or a Satmar Chassid (or Stolin/Karlin). But instead of saying, “after a few years I realized I wasn’t connecting with Chabad Chassidus in the way I felt I should …” he chose to say he felt “boxed in.”

Just to sum this up, my issue is with him not knowing when to speak with respect, tact or class for an orginization, that just as much as they benefited from him, he benefited from them as well. In this case, the chicken did come 300 years before the egg.

I wasn’t going to say anything about that Jewish Week article because I thought it was already at the point that I can’t be nice anymore, so I just kept quiet. But when I was contacted by the NY Times to respond, and after 3 weeks of wondering what happened to this story, I see this article, I had to say something.

Sorry, out of town for a bunch of meetings, I’ll be back late Thursday.

Don’t forget to enter the contest for those free concert tickets!

Is this the next Yossi Green classic?

More on this here at BlogInDm’s. It’s sad to see frum people singing this type of music at weddings. The only question I have is if the people at the wedding know where it comes from, or they just don’t care.

On the new CD from Yitzy Schwartz (The 2nd Dance) there is a 45 second track of Beyonce’s Crazy Train (see here, scroll down). They use to steal old music, now they are stealing it straight from today’s top hits on Z100. I wonder if Jay-Z got a credit on The 2nd Dance CD Booklet.

(HT Gruntig)

Sports Illustrated dubbed him “The Jewish Jordan” in 1999 for his prowess on the high school basketball court.

Eight years later, Tamir Goodman, an Orthodox Jew, has signed a contract to play pro ball for his hometown Baltimore Nighthawks, a franchise in the new Premiere Basketball League, which makes its debut in January.

Goodman — a six-foot-three, 180-pound guard who wears a kipa and tzitzit while he plays — averaged more than 35 points per game in his junior year at Baltimore’s Talmudical Academy. He was awarded a scholarship from the University of Maryland, but quit when the team refused to accommodate his Shabbat observance. Instead, he attended Towson University in Maryland, but left after disputes with the basketball coach.

Goodman moved to Israel, where he played for Maccabi Tel Aviv and Maccabi Givat Shmuel, a situation made difficult because of high expectations and a series of injuries.

The Nighthawks have promised to honor Goodman’s religious commitment, a key point in his signing with the fledgling league. They have designed their schedule so he will miss only two home games.

Goodman spoke with NJ Jewish News via telephone after a press conference announcing his signing with the Nighthawks.

NJJN: So how does it feel to be back in your hometown?

Goodman: Very good, thank God. I’m very excited. I can’t thank the Nighthawks enough for making this possible and working everything out with Shabbos. Every Jewish kid should now know that you can be a pro basketball player or a professional in any field without doing it on Shabbos.

NJJN: So what made you decide to return to the States to play?

Goodman: It’s a new professional league with a new attitude and a new motto, and that’s really what attracted me the most. It’s going to be like sports was 25 or 30 years ago: camps and clinics, family-friendly, hardworking. It’s going to be pure basketball.

Read the rest of the story here.

Here are two new videos of Benny Friedman. Here are the pictures from that show.

In the first video the quality is awful and the audio is hard to hear but it’s still easy to get the picture. As they say in Hollywood, This kid is gonna be huge.

This one though is very very interesting. It’s a a mix of ten minutes from a Simchas Beis in Arizona, this past Succos. Maybe it was online before but I didn’t see it. The first 4 or so minutes is nice, but then at about 4:10 Benny starts singing Father Don’t Cry and then leads into Krentiz from 8th Day! It’s pretty good.

Here is the new information for the rescheduled Queens College concert.

January 5, 2008, Queens College at 8:45 PM. Due to scheduling conflicts the show is now
Yaakov Shwekey, Shalseles Jr., Michoel Pruzansky and Simcha Levenstein. We will exchange tickets for everyone who purchased tickets for the postponed concert or give a refund. This can be accomplished by calling 718-261-4130. There will also be some “surprises” at the show.

The first contest winner will still be getting his tickets, but they have generously decided to let us give away two more tickets. So if you want to be entered in the raffle, leave your name and email address in the comment section of this post. If you would like to enter via email, send me an email at lifeofrubin@gmail.com. Please include your name and email address so you can be contacted if you win.

(source)

You can watch video from one of the attackers defending himself. It’s shocking what this kid says.