Rabbi Eli's Blog

Chabad on Campus UK celebrated the festival of Shavuot in style hosting traditional all-night Torah study sessions ‘Tikun Leyl’ at eleven campuses across the UK, from Edinburgh to Brighton. The higher than expected turn out took place despite the holiday falling out in the middle of exam period for many students.

South Kensington

At Chabad of South Kensington serving Imperial College, a total of forty five people came through the Chabad House on campus over the festival. Thirty students attended all night classes on the first night, given by students from IC, who spent time preparing the classes and making hand outs. In addition, fifteen students attended the torah reading of the Ten Commandments on Wednesday before sundown fu… Read More »

Oxford Chabad Society hosts Sobibor Revolt Survivor Thomas Toivi Blatt, 83, to address 500 across the UK

For pictures click here

Oxford Chabad Society hosted this week one of only five living survivors of Sobibor extermination camp, Thomas Toivi Blatt, at the David Slager Jewish student centre in Oxford.

The lecture was called the Esther Jacobs memorial lecture in her memory, who was killed is Sobibor in 1942 when she arrived on one of the transports from Holland.

The event brought the atrocity of Sobibor alive, as the evening brought together the survivor of the revolt in Sobibor, Toivi Blatt, together with the grandson of Esther Jacobs who died in Sobibor, Robert Slager.

The event began with an ad… Read More »

Oxford Chabad Society has arranged a viewing in Oxford of a rare early printed Hebraic work written by the Jewish ancestor of the new British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Elia Levita was a Jewish 15th century grammarian, who was born in 1467 in Neustadt, Germany, and a good part of his livelihood came from translating and copying Hebrew manuscripts. In 1509 he moved to Rome where for thirteen years he enjoyed the patronage of Cardinal Egidio de Viterbo who supported him while he immersed himself in Hebrew learning.

In 1527, Levita landed a comfortable job in Venice at the printing house of Daniel Bomberg, printer of the celebrated Bomberg Talmud, as a corrector.

In 1540, at the invitation of the printer Paul Fagi… Read More »

Baroness Vivien Stern launched an annual lecture for the Oxford University Chabad Society on Human Rights with a lecture entitled ‘Does Britain Still Care about Human Rights’.

The lecture was introduced by Rabbi Eli Brackman, director of the Oxford University Chabad Society, with a talk on Human Rights and Judaism.

Baroness Stern spoke about her work in preserving the values of human rights in the UK. She said that she is optimistic about the future of human rights in the UK and that despite the fact that it has come under a lot of pressure recently with the threat of terrorism it has withstood the test and held its ground. The Baroness finished her lecture by saying that human rights in the UK is fragile and p… Read More »