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Israel never leaves its fighters behind, but when there are no signs that a service member is alive or dead, what is the halachah? For the past four summers, Rabbi Dr. Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff stays in Kew Gardens Hills for a month with his wife Malka, speaking around the metropolitan area, meeting his former students, and fundraising for Shvut Ami, the kiruv organization in Israel serving Russian-speaking Jews.

 Despite Urgency, Our Community’s Voter Turnout Was Abysmal

  The first competitive primary election for Queens District Attorney in the first open-seat race in a generation may have made history on Tuesday – but we may not know the final results for a few days. Tiffany Cabán, a Latina woman who does not have any experience as a prosecutor, ran on the platform of closing the Rikers Island prison, decriminalizing prostitution, and refusing to prosecute charges such as fare evasion, recreational drug use, and loitering. As of this writing Tuesday night, she leads Queens Borough President Melinda Katz by about 1,000 votes, and although Cabán has declared victory, there are still thousands of mailed-in ballots to be counted, so no official winner has been named.

On his visit to Congregation Machane Chodosh last week, venture fund manager Daniel Frankenstein noticed the memorial plaques on the synagogue’s wall, with names such as Walter, Siegfried, and Irmgard. “These are German names; my grandfather was Hans and my grandmother was Hildegard. We are Yekkes,” he said. He was hosted by one of a handful of its older German-born members, longtime shul president Herbert Jaffe.

The Israeli capital city appears in the center of the historic Jewish homeland, but it is also the frontline of Jewish restoration efforts that require great personal and financial sacrifice, security risk, political will, and faith. “The former mufti of Jerusalem looked me in the eyes, man to man, and said that the Temple never existed,” said Fox News Channel host Pete Hegseth at the American Friends of Ateret Cohanim / Jerusalem Chai annual dinner in Midtown Manhattan last Thursday.

The closely watched race for Queens District Attorney still does not have a winner, with Board of Elections staffers conducting a manual recount of all the votes this week to determine the results. On the evening of Tuesday, June 25, leftist Tiffany Cabán claimed victory in the Primary Election over mainstream candidate Melinda Katz, with over 1,000 votes in the unofficial results that were announced before midnight on that day.

The Chazaq outreach organization is famous for its variety of programs, often headlined by its energetic director Yaniv Meirov. At last Sunday’s event, featuring two highly experienced business leaders, he also delivered introductory remarks but first introduced this writer to Moshe Rafailov, who came up with the event and was then entrusted to organize and promote it in the Queens community. “I had the privilege of meeting the speakers at an Olami Shabbaton. They are funders of kiruv all over the world,” said Rafailov, a third-year student at Long Island University majoring in the pharmacy program. The event, titled Building Connections in the Workplace, was hosted by the Yeshiva of Central Queens, with a dozen co-sponsoring organizations, including the Queens Jewish Link.