The ethical side of the kashrut industry has been under a microscope in the wake of the 2008 immigration raid at the Agriprocessors plant, which led to a fraud conviction for the company’s former CEO.

Now, a task force within the Rabbinical Council of America has issued its Jewish Principles and Ethical Guidelines to “promote and safeguard ethical corporate policies and behavior, and encourage socially responsible activities in kosher food production,” according to the organization. The task force, headed by Rabbi Asher Meir, research director of the Business Ethics Center of Jerusalem, included rabbinical experts in business ethics, law, and kosher supervision.

Lt. Amit Shuker served for six years as a company commander in the Israel Defense Forces.

Visiting the United States during the second intifida, he saw “a huge gap of understanding and knowledge” between what was going on in the field and what the media were reporting.

In response, Shuker — who will speak to the men’s club of Temple Emanuel of the Pascack Valley on Sunday, Feb. 7 — created a multimedia presentation setting the record straight.

“I try not to get into politics,” said Shuker, who now lives in the United States. “The main reason for the presentation is to explain to people the different threats Israel faces.”

Many synagogues have a “yahrzeit wall” where families can dedicate plaques in memory of loved ones. A South Jersey synagogue extended the concept to memorialize Holocaust victims. And that inspired the New Jersey Holocaust Education Commission to develop a virtual statewide Wall of Remembrance.

“The commission members thought the synagogue’s wall was a wonderful idea for survivors, and we started to talk about building such walls around New Jersey,” said Paul B. Winkler, executive director of the NJHEC. “But we realized that was impossible. So we decided to do it on the Internet.”

People have always been fascinated by twins, asking questions such as, “Do you feel each other’s pain?” and “Can your parents tell you apart?” But, says Abigail Pogrebin — author of “One And The Same: My Life As An Identical Twin And What I’ve Learned About Everyone’s Struggle To Be Singular” — books about twins have tended to miss the “nuances” of twinhood.

“The issue is more complicated than most existing books suggest,” said Pogrebin, who will speak at the Kaplan JCC on the Palisades on Feb. 11.

Focusing on twins’ individual identities, Pogrebin — twin sister of New York Times culture writer Robin Pogrebin — interviewed more than 50 sets of twins, “asking them to tell the truth about what this experience was like, about having a partner from the very beginning” of their lifetime.

Forty young men from a Beit Shemesh yeshiva met 40 young men from the Israel Defense Forces’ Dragon artillery battalion last Thursday.

The yeshiva students, including Eli Sklarin of Teaneck, had come to take part in the Sklarin family’s donation of 100 hydration packs (“shlukerim”) to the battalion. The soldiers, including 21-year-old former Teaneck resident David Englard, were mostly 18 and 19 like their visitors from Yeshivat Reishit Yerushalayim, a post-high school program.

“At the beginning, the two groups were standing apart awkwardly,” said Marc Prowisor, who facilitated the donation on behalf of One Israel Fund. “I described the project and then the company commander asked his guys to take the boys around and show how they live and what they do. You started seeing them getting closer, having conversations. You saw chemistry happening right before your eyes, even before the equipment was given out.”

The dedication Sunday of the Russ Berrie Family Health & Recreation Complex at the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly marked a major milestone in JCC history.

In January 2007, the JCC launched a Gift of Community Capital and Endowment Campaign to support renovations and program enhancements. The Berrie Foundation gave the campaign a $2 million challenge grant, and the JCC has named its new fitness center in recognition of the Berrie family. The modern two-story facility features new exercise rooms, a spinning room, family changing suites with private facilities, new lockers, and an expansion of the JCC’s original fitness space to double its previous size, where members can take as many as 60 free group exercise classes each week.

JERUSALEM – Two weeks before the European Figure Skating Championships in Tallinn, Estonia, in mid-January, Israeli skater Tamar Katz was sick in bed and going crazy.

Though she had qualified already in international competition for the 2010 Winter Olympics, the tougher standards of Israel’s Olympic Committee required that Katz finish in the top 14 in Europe to punch her ticket to the Winter Games in Vancouver. Katz said that while she felt weak before leaving for Estonia, she felt good when she took the ice.

But Katz made a mistake in her performance, missing her triple lutz-double loop combination, the highest scoring element in her program. She finished 21st — half a point away from qualifying for the finals, where her free-skate routine might have propelled her into the top 14.