The most precious and costly commodity in Manhattan is space. Because of this spatial deficiency, even some of the city’s finest restaurants are no more than glorified nooks. The expense is simply too great for most establishments to maintain, especially in certain neighborhoods where the cost of space borders on excessive. So when I say to you that Milk Street Cafe, the new kosher restaurant located at 40 Wall Street, takes up no less then 23,000 square feet, it should tell you in no uncertain terms how seriously owner Marc Epstein takes the business of building a successful restaurant. more

Calendar for the week of July 15, 2011 more

The Chabad of Oceanside has a home and it opens immediately. Purchased on June 30, the 17,000-square-foot building will serve a variety of programs for the 11-year-old Chabad outpost. more

The festival of Sukkot was around the corner, and I realized I had no way to get a set of four species (arbah minim) in time for the festival. We were actually in Lebanon at the time, and as the only kippah-wearing soldier on the base, I knew I was on my own, and the thought of having no set of ‘arbah minim’ was really depressing. more

This coming July 29, the 27th day of Tammuz, will mark the first yahrtzeit of one of the most brave, dynamic and prominent spiritual and moral leaders in our time, Rabbi Yehuda Amital, of blessed memory. more

The 2012 Election is still sixteen months away, but the discussions about whether President Obama will be able to retain the same large portion of the Jewish vote as he did in 2008 remains an obsession with the mainstream media. more

On July 9, flags fluttered and military bands marched though the dust-covered streets of Juba, capital of South Sudan, the world’s newest recognized independent nation. Among the messages of congratulation, the Israeli message spoke of full cooperation, while hinting at the social and economic ties between the two states. more

On Monday afternoon, eight-year-old Leiby Kletzky left his Borough Park summer camp for a three-block walk to his mother. He disappeared into the streetscape and thousands of Jews mobilized to search for the boy. The massive search brought together the Shomrim, Chaveirim, Hatzolah, NYPD and FBI, and some 3,000 additional volunteers from as far as Lakewood, to find Kletzky, even as thousands more prayed for his safety. The search ended with a gruesome find of body parts stuffed into a trash container in Park Slope on early Wednesday morning. more

The liberals call them conservatives And the hard liners call them leftists The free thinkers call them close-minded And the open-minded call them Reconstructionists The traditionalists … more

It seems as if the straw has broken the camel’s back. According to multiple sources, Democrats of the Jewish faith are waking up to the fact that Barack Obama is not a friend of Israel. And many of them are considering holding back their campaign donations and their votes back from the President’s re-election campaign. Giving further credence to the reports, the re-election campaign is taking additional steps to “spin” the administration’s Israel story to make it seem more favorable to the Jewish State. more