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THE JEWISH Shoftim • Candlelighting 7:27 pm • 516-622-7461
August 21, 2015 • 6 Elul 5775
Vol 14, No. 32 • TheJewishStar.com
the newspaper of oUr orthodox commUnities
By The Jewish Star Far Rockaway’s 2,100-student Yeshiva Darchei Torah will expand onto a nearby 25,000-square foot lot that is being donated by a neighbor. The owners of a nursing home next door to Darchei Torah’s 257 B. 17 St. campus, said this week that they had transferred the vacant parcel, valued at $1.1-million and located directly across Beach 17 Street from the school’s Heichal Shlomo and Kleinman buildings. The property was owned by Woodmere-based SentosaCare, the largest nursing home network in New York
State, which acquired it as part of its purchase of the Brookhaven Rehabilitation and Health Care Center. When SentosaCare’s co-founders and partners, Benjamin Landa and Ben Philipson, determined the land was not needed by the center, they “decided that rather than selling the land, we would donate it,” Landa said. The land “will allow us to significantly enhance the overall environment in which our students learn and develop spiritually, physically and emotionally,” said Darchei Torah’s principal, Rabbi Yaakov Bender. Continued on page 4
The Jewish Star / Jeff Bessen
Far Rock’s Darchei Torah will grow on new land
Yeshiva Darchei Torah will expand across Beach 17 Street, onto land contributed by the owners of SentosaCare.
So long, American pie, hello IDF Matisyahu
reinivited after BDS ax
Nefesh B’Nefesh brought 232 olim home to Midinot Yisroel this week —among them 59 young men and women (some pictured above at JFK on Monday) who left their homes, familiies and friends to serve in the Israel Defense Forces as “lone soldiers.” Among New York olim on the NBN flight were 19-year-old Ella Dahan of Long Beach (near left) and 18-year-old Zoe Vatash of Sag Harbor (far left). This week’s flight was NBN’s 54th charter. It was the second of two charters which, along with six group aliyah flights and olim arriving independently on a daily basis, will carry over 2,000 olim through NBN this summer. Since 2002, NBN and its partners brought 45,000 olim to Israel from North America and England.
By Ciaran Giles MADRID (AP) — Following a barrage of criticism, organizers of an international reggae festival in Spain backtracked on Wednesday and apologized for cancelling a concert by Jewish-American singer Matisyahu because he had declined to state his position regarding a Palestinian state. The Rototom Sunsplash festival said in a statement that it publicly apologized for canceling the concert and invites Matisyahu to play as originally planned this weekend. It said it recognized its mistake, adding that it had been the fruit of pressure by a local branch of the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), which campaigned against Matisyahu’s participation. The Spanish government had joined major Jewish organizations and others in condemning the festival’s original decision to disinvite Matisyahu, a baal-tshuvah Chassidic raeggae star turned clean-shaven rocker. Spain’s Foreign Ministry said the government understood the Jewish communities’ unease, adding that Spain opposed boycott campaigns against Israel. It reiterated its support for a Palestinian state through negotiations. Festival organizers originally said that they canceled the Aug. 22 concert because MatiContinued on page 4
NBN photos by Shahar Azran
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