Israeli dignitary welcomed by NJ State Senate March 21

On April 29, 22-year-old Stephanie Prezant of Haworth lost her life in a rock-climbing accident in upstate New York. While the community, however, is mourning the loss of this beloved young woman — whose safety equipment failed while climbing the Trapps Cliff area of the Mohonk Preserve — they also are remembering the joy she brought to others.

“She was very funny, always trying to make people laugh,” said longtime friend Anna Kaminsky, from Englewood Cliffs. “I’m glad that at the funeral, people were able to capture that.”

Conducted by Rabbi Mordecai Shain, executive director of Lubavitch on the Palisades, the funeral was held on May 1 at the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades.

In the late 1800s, seeking funds to build Alabama’s Tuskegee University — then Tuskegee Normal School — the author and educator Booker T. Washington went up north to solicit help from known philanthropists. Among them was Chicago resident Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck, and Co.

“A lot of northern philanthropists were looking to help out with education in the South,” said Tracy Hayes, field officer and project manager for the Rosenwald Schools Initiative of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

In the end, she said, Rosenwald’s contribution would help not just Tuskegee, but the cause of public education throughout the south — and the nation as a whole. Through his efforts, some 5,000 schools were opened for African American children, some of which still function today.

If leadership means to see a problem where no one else does, and then take the initiative to solve it, Ben Sagerman is definitely a leader.

The 17-year-old high school junior loved the experience of outdoor prayer he experienced at the Union for Reform Judaism’s Camp Eisner — and wanted to make that experience possible for his fellow congregants at Temple Avodat Shalom in River Edge.

So he built an outdoor sanctuary, a small ampitheater, in an empty space on Avodat Shalom’s property.

A firebomb attack on a synagogue in Rutherford is being investigated as an attempted homicide and a hate crime, Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli announced on Wednesday.

“You’re looking at 40 to 50 years in prison,” said Molinelli, addressing the “person or persons who are doing this act” at a Wednesday afternoon press conference.

“Turn yourself in and end this now,” he said. “We will ultimately solve this crime and make arrests.”

Around 4:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, several Molotov cocktails were thrown at Congregation Beth El, an Orthodox synagogue on a quiet residential street in Rutherford. One entered the second floor bedroom of the congregation’s rabbi, Nosson Schuman, and ignited his bedspread.

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Rep. Anthony Weiner resigned and apologized in the wake of a scandal in which he lied about sexually explicit exchanges on social media outlets.

“I am here today to apologize for the personal mistakes I have made and the embarrassment that I have caused,” Weiner (D-N.Y.) said at a news conference Thursday at a home for the elderly in Brooklyn where in the past he has announced his intention to run for office.

WASHINGTON – From accolades like “compelling” to accusations like “Auschwitz borders” to radio silence, to label the Jewish response to President Obama’s speech on Middle East policy as diverse understates matters.

The very breadth of the Middle East policy speech — 5,600 words and covering the entire Middle East and decades of history — helps explain the wildly divergent responses from Jewish groups and opinion shapers, even among some who are otherwise often on the same page.

One could as easily pick out points for Israel — slamming the Palestinian Authority’s pact with Hamas as well as its bid for unilateral statehood — as one could the demerits — for many, the most explicit endorsement of the pre-1967 lines as the basis for future borders by any American president.