Check out all the details here.

A little while ago I put out a call to any Lubavitcher with a blog to contact me. So far I’ve had a great response and there are now over 15 blogs. You can vist all the blogs over here at LubavitchBlogNetwork.Blogspot.com

If you are a Chabad’sker and want to join this list, please e-mail me at lifeofrubin@gmail.com, feel free to link to this list, as it always updates whenever someone on the list updates their blog. If you want to link to the list using a banner, just take mine from above.

About time. Looks good, and they even have an English section.

For those who listen to music during the 3 weeks, everyone else, cover your ears.

Michael, a frequent commenter and friend of the blog, wrote a great post that Chaptzem just posted.

I have been wondering what to write on the Kosher Gym story, and I still will, but for now, go take a look at Michael take on it.  The post is here. He ecpands on the original post here.

Now that I’m back, another thing I hope starts returning will be the giveaways. Thanks to the people behind the Chazak concert I am excited to announce that you can win 2 FREE tickets to this show.

The Chazak concert will be on August 16th, (Motzei Shabbos Nachamu) at 10:30 PM. The show will feature Avraham Fried, Shlomo Simcha, Dovid Gabay and Benny Friedman! The only better then going to this concert is going to this concert for free!

To win these tickets please leave your name and e-mail address below, or e-mail me your name at lifeofrubin@gmail.com, you won’t want to miss this show. It’s going to be magnifico!

Click the image above for concert details, and go to MosesAaron.org to find out more about this wonderful organization. Watch this video for more information.

There were a few stories that broke over the last week that almost brought me out of my Blogcation. One of those stories was about Adam Melzer. Here is a description of Adam from an article that he wrote that has now been taken down.

Adam Melzer is a lawyer at the firm Melzer & Sullivan-Bisceglia, LLC. He is also a director of sales for Neginah Orchestra, a Jewish music concert producer, basketball coach at Yeshiva of North Jersey and JM in the AM staff member. He also has been speaking at many schools about his experience.

125,000 copies of this article were printed and distributed all over the world for the recent Siyum Hashas.

For those of you who do not know what Mr. Melzer is being accused of here is the article.

“A volunteer youth basketball coach from Teaneck convinced several local teenage boys to give him naked pictures of themselves, authorities said Monday.

Adam Melzer, 34, a married salesman, was ordered held on $50,000 bail, charged with several counts of child endangerment. An arraignment is scheduled tomorrow afternoon in Hackensack.

Four boys, aged 16 to 18, told authorities that Melzer “persuaded them to provide him with naked photos of themselves” while he was a supervisor at a youth basketball program in River Edge, where they served also volunteers, said Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli.”

Those are the details of the story. Now let’s get into a few things I’d like to discuss with regards to this episode.

1) To post or not to post.

This first issue is if I should even be discussing or posting this story.  Each time this happens, and lately it seems we are talking about this at least once a month, there are two groups.

The first group is made up of those people who want to lynch the guy. From the moment the story breaks, they have they guy convicted and are out for blood, they don’t care about anything else.

The second group is made up of people who always say one of the following two things

1) I know this guy, he is the nicest guy in the world, he’d never do this.

2) You don’t know the truth, there are details that the press hasn’t reported on, he’s being framed!

Without fail every time we get a story like this I hear both of those same two things. My first instinct is to be a part of the first group. I mean let’s face it, these are horrible crimes and if they did it they should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. These are our kids, our most precious possessions. What this person is being accused of is unthinkable.

At the same time I also feel like I need to be careful of group two’s warnings. I mean, it’s possible, sometimes the guy really is innocent. We have to remember that we don’t know the whole story, that’s true.

On the other hand, we don’t know the whole story. You get what I’m saying? It could be much, much worse. At the end of the day I decide that the story needs to be posted and we have to at elast for now, assume there is a good chance he is guilty. Of course if the story changes and new information comes out I’ll be the first one to post it and the first one to say, Baruch Hashem, he is innocent.

Sadly, as anyone who has watched a prison movie knows. There is a well known joke about there never being any guilty people in prison. Jails are filled with “innocent” people. It’s possible that every once in a while someone really is innocent, but chances are the majority aren’t.

The same goes for this story. They can’t ALL be innocent. They can’t have ALL been setup. It’s just not possible, and that is why I feel compelled to publish this. It’s my intense fear that there is a potential person out there who is committing such crimes and thinking to himself that whenever a story like this comes out everyone says “this can’t be, he was so nice, it doesn’t happen in OUR community” and that will allow that person to continue to commit these crimes hoping that when he is busted, people will always defend him.

The other part of this is that people need to know this happens. I have about 500 readers per day, and I hope every single one of you reads this and keeps this information in their heads. It’s important to watch out for potential situations like this. Make sure your kids schools have proper background checks. If there are any “stories” out there be a little vigilant and make sure they are investigated. Don’t shrug your shoulders and move on, sadly our community is under attack by all kinds of immoral criminals.

We need to be aware that these things happen.

The second thing I wanted to discuss about this was the lack of talk about it on the internet. I’ve been in direct talks with a few other Jewish Blogs and Jewish News sites and I’m really shocked by the silence online. There was only ONE other blogger that wrote about this story. It’s appalling. When Yona Weinberg, a bar Mitzva teacher in Flatbush was arrested there was a lot of discussion on it. Why was everyone so silent about this?

I sincerely hope it has nothing to do with him being involved in the Jewish Music business. I think people want to shy away from “high profile” people doing bad things because it will cause some kind of Chillul Hashem since everyone knows him. To me you don’t cover up a story just because the guy is well known. Just the opposite, it’s important to know, just because someone is well known doesn’t mean they don’t commit crimes.

I really do hope that I don’t have to keep writing about this. To imagine that someone that I heard on the radio playing Jewish Music was possibly asking kids for pictures of themselves is tragic on so many levels. It’s enough already, I really do hope somehow in the end he is innnocent, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I wish it didn’t happen, and I hope, as a community we can better prevent this from happening.

Last weel during my Blogcation I was very busy on Twitter. One of the questions I posed there was “What is more Jewish, a Kosher Bagel shop or a Kosher Deli?”, Hesh at Frumsatire was kind enough to ask the question on his blog. Read the details here. Feel free to leave a comment below with your answer.

I would say things are bad when something like this happens and people just shrug thier shoulders as if it’s a normal daily event.

Police got a call Saturday afternoon about 3:00pm of a vehicle that rolled over a few times on Route 42 and crashed into a bungalow at Friendship Bungalow Colony on LaVista Drive.

The car that missed a turn-off was driven by a drunk 16-year-old boy, who extracted himself out of the vehicle, and start running away, while Yiddish music was still blasting out of the vehicle. Hatzolah responded and was immediately on the scene.

Police gave chase, caught up with the teenager and arrested him.

Hey, if I may take the route of the Reb Levi Yitzchok of Berditchiv, and try to look at the positive side. At least he was listening to JEWISH music! Ha ha.

What are the Roving Rabbis? They are Bochurim, young Lubavitch men who are past Yeshiva, usually either in the middle of Smicha, just starting Smicha, or have just finished Smicha. They go to communities where there is little or nothing in the way of Jewish services.

Here is the official description from the Chabad.org website.

Each summer, Merkos L’inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, dispatches hundreds of rabbinical students to small Jewish communities around the globe. Rabbinical students and young rabbis spend their summers on the road, sharing their passion for Jewish life and bringing Jewish awareness and observance wherever they go.

These dedicated students, chosen for their rabbinic proficiency and people skills, vie for the honor of assisting the most faraway and isolated communities. These summer assignments also afford them with an invaluable on-the-ground experience in Jewish outreach and a unique appreciation for the diverse needs and colorful makeup of our nation.

Believe it or not, this is something that I personally did for two Summers. It’s an amazing experience. When you talk about Jewish Outreach, this is the basic of the basics. I met people who had never had a Bris or a Bar Mitzvah, never opened any Jewish book, didn’t even know what Shabbos was. The only thing they knew about Jews was that they watched Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments once a year (usually on a Friday night.)

For the first time ever, Chabad has orginzized these Bochurim in a way one could only do over the internet.

They are now blogging about thier expriences whereever they are.

It’s an incredible blog, because you can see them touching the lives of thousands of Jews, in real time. I strongly urge you to check it out, it’s very inspirational. RovingRabbis.com

First of all, I’m back. Didn’t want to wait till Monday because I have a pretty heavy post written already for Monday and I figured I’d start off with a few smaller things today.

By now we all know about the Yeshiva Student who stole Barack Obama’s prayer note from the Western Wall and gave it (sold it?) to an Israeli Newspaper. First he gave it to the Yediot Achronot - but to thier incredible credit they refused to print it, so the guy went to the Maariv, who apparently will print anything.

There are a few different layers to this. 1) Yediot Achronit deserves a ton of credit for not doing this, they figured out that by NOT publishing it they could probably get more good press then by publishing it. Let’s face it, I don’t for a second think they didn’t know SOMEONE would publish it. But by refusing to be the paper that does they end up looking great in all the news stories singling them out as NOT the ones who published it.

2) This shows an incredible amount of low class by Maariv. I don’t care if this is the most reckless and dangerous politician in the world. The man deserves at least the basic decent of privacy. Especially at the holiest site in the world. I am shocked that someone could be so disgusting as to steal this paper. Some people are only finding fault with the paper for publishing it, or JUST the guy who stole it. But I think they BOTH deserve equal shaming here.

3) There is the serious Chillul Hashem factor here that needs to be discussed. Firstly, it was a YESHIVA student who did this, so we know he was a Frum guy. This is a huge Chillul Hashem. Not just to Obama, but to the entire world. The entire world is thinking that Obama goes, leaves a personal note to G-D (!) and some religious Jew steals the note and violates one of the most sacred privacy’s.

The entire world is wagging their fingers at Orthodox Judaism right now. We should all hang our heads low in shame.

Now let’s take it to a more personal level. Obama himself has to now be thinking lower of religious Jews. Of all the things that happen to him and are said to him this has to be the worst and most disgusting. I didn’t have a problem with the men screaming “Jerusalem is not for sale!” to Obama, because while they do look like screaming bafoons, it is an important message and Obama should see and hear these guys up close and personal should he end up in the White House. Let him think back and remember the anger and passion in those voices.

But - there is a line, yelling things at Obama and violating a privacy between him and G-d is just way way way over the line. I really hope that Obama doesn’t think badly now of Frum Jews, but would you blame him if he did?

The last thing have to say on the matter by no means makes light of what I said before, but it is just an observation. Do you think that Obama wrote what he wrote thinking that just in case soemthing like this does happen he will look good? I mean let’s face it, politicians don’t go to the bathroom without a team of people teling them what is going to make them look good or bad. Sitting in Church and saying a silent prayer to G-d is one thing, no one can hear your thoughts so no one could ever violate them like this. But putting a piece of paper in a wall always leaves the possibility open that someone COULD see it.

At the very least I have to wonder if he wrote such a “simple” yet humbling note in the off chance someone would see it. I doubt he was going to write “g-d, please make me president of the united states” on a paper that could be seen by human hands one day. I’m just thinking out loud here, because I hate being made a mark. So if some team of people helped him write this in the off chance that someone actually read it one day I hate for my feelings toward him to have been manipulated in anyway.

I’d like to think that he’s a decent guy and what he wrote really did coem from the heart. It doesn’t mean that makes him any bettter of a choice for president. But it means it intends well.

For those of you who are new readers, about twice a year I take at least a week off from blogging. It’s usually once in the Winter and once in the Summer. So this is my Summer Blogcation. I will be off from posting, from today until next Monday.

If you are also a blogger then I can’t strongly recommend the same thing. It’s a great way to recharge your batteries. Sometimes even though I love this blog it can get a bit draining to always have stuff to post. Especially since I’m not being paid for this, it’s just a hobby. (Hint, hint, please donate on button on the left, even a couple dollars!)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not whining, I really do love blogging, but I found that taking this time off keeps me fresh and gets me excited to come back. I’ll still be around, commenting on other blogs, reading all the websites and I’ll still be available via e-mail - I just won’t be posting for the next week.

While I’m away make sure to read about the J-Blogger convention happening in Israel next Month. All the details are here.It’s sponsored by Nefesh B’Nefesh.

One final note, I’m gathering a list of all the Lubavitch bloggers. You don’t have to be strictly blogging about Lubavitch things or issues. I’m just looking to make a definitive list of bloggers who are Lubavitch. Sort of like a Lubavitch Blog Network. If you run a blog and are Lubavitch e-mail me for details at lifeofrubin@gmail.com

That’s it, I’ll be back on the blog Next Monday.

It’s not really much of a surprise, it’s the same lineup every year. As is now part of the “tradition” the show will feature Avraham Fried, Shlomo Simcha, Dovid Gabay. The only change is that they are adding Benny Friedman! (first Chazak, next Hasc????)

The show will be held August 16th, 2008 at 10:30 PM.

See here for more details.