It’s been a topsy-turvy year for Rob Engel, who is once again an automobile dealer, pursuing the business that’s in his blood.

Engel has just opened the doors to his new dealership, Tenafly Kia. It is on the site of his old dealership, Tenafly Chrysler Jeep. In between is a story of despair and good fortune. It’s a family saga that began with escape from the Holocaust and continues with success on these shores.

A year ago in May, Rob and his brother Rick, who ran dealerships in Tenafly and Wyckoff, were abruptly told they were being dropped as Chrysler dealers. This came as a shock, because, as Rob explained at the time, they “exceeded the requirements in service, sales, and parts.”

On Passover, Shi Lei and the other Jews in the city of Kaifeng eat Chinese pancakes. It’s not exactly matzoh, “but it is unleavened,” he said.

That accommodation, and others, is emblematic of an ancient Jewish community’s effort to revive its religious traditions, eroded over the passing centuries as its members assimilated into the life of their city and country.

But the light of Judaism never went out. “We always knew we were Jewish because our parents and grandparents told us,” said Shi Lei. “They told us we are Jews, we are from Israel.”

“This information is never forgotten,” he said.

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs did not mince words. In a letter dated March 15 and addressed to its board and member agencies, the group wrote: “The Jewish community finds itself at a crossroad in our relationship with the Presbyterian Church (USA).”

At issue is a report from the church’s Middle East Study Committee. Entitled “Breaking Down the Walls,” the 172-page document — which will be presented at the group’s 219th General Assembly in July — is “an egregious diatribe against Israel,” said Joy Kurland, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of UJA Federation of North Jersey and head of the regional Community Relations Council.

The Rabbinical Council of Bergen County is urging community members to refocus their charitable giving on local causes.

The RCBC sent a letter to local Orthodox rabbis last month citing passages in the Shulchan Aruch that charity begins at home and that “the primary responsibility of tzedakah is to support the needs of our closest neighbors first.” The directive, said Rabbi Larry Rothwachs, RCBC president and religious leader of Cong. Beth Aaron in Teaneck, is in response to the growing needs within the community.

“We want to make sure that we are prioritizing properly in terms of communal allocation of charity funds,” he said. “People need to be reminded that charity begins at home. That is a halachic idea and a secular concept.”

Four Bergen County assistant prosecutors recently returned from a 10-day crash course on criminal justice in Israel. To their surprise, they found major differences between the legal procedures of the two democracies.

Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said he had been interested for some time in having his staff of 60 lawyers “learn how the administration of justice is accomplished in foreign countries, particularly in those jurisdictions where social settings would dictate a heightened awareness of the rights of both the victims and the accused.”

Last September, Molinelli and Assistant Prosecutor Vered Adoni attended a breakfast session summing up the latest round in the UJA of Northern New Jersey’s Partnership 2000 professional exchange program for emergency services personnel from Bergen County and the federation’s Israeli partner city of Nahariya.

While women’s participation in the synagogue service remains a controversial issue within the Orthodox movement, Rabbi Daniel Sperber says his writings on the subject have generally been greeted “respectfully.”

Sperber — professor of Talmud at Bar Ilan University in Israel as well as prolific author, pulpit rabbi, and 1992 winner of the Israel Prize for Jewish Studies — will speak in Teaneck later this month, advocating for greater involvement by women in communal worship.

An Orthodox rabbi, Sperber said he is trying to counter the “mistaken” idea that such participation is not halachic. That idea “is based on a lack of understanding, on a sociological situation that is no longer relevant,” he said.

Five high school grads from Teaneck, one from Bergenfield, and one from Passaic are among students finishing an academic year in the new four-story facility of the Tiferet Center for Advanced Torah Studies for Women in suburban Jerusalem.

According to co-founder Rabbi Azriel Rosner, Tiferet was founded in 2005 with the unique goal of providing a complete community for gap-year students, where teachers all live in the neighborhood and maintain an open-home policy for the 60 young women from London, Toronto, Florida, Texas, Memphis, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, Boston, and the New York metropolitan area.

The Jewish creators of the Comedy Central series “Drawn Together” have a message about a perceived affront to Israel in an Internet game based on their equal-offender series: Watch the movie before casting judgment.

Cable network Comedy Central drew fire from Israel activists because of its Website game “I.S.R.A.E.L. Attack!” — later changed to “Drawn Together: The Movie: The Game” — based on the “Drawn Together” animated reality TV series and movie. Media watchdogs such as Honest Reporting interpreted the character Intelligent Smart Robot Animation Eraser Lady — I.S.R.A.E.L. — as a slander against the Jewish state.