They call it Judaism in a suitcase. And it's a good description when Rabbi Yossi Matusof opens up his bag and starts to pull out all the items he and fellow Rabbi Chaim Itkin are hauling with them all over Alberta.

IDF soldier Matan Cohen, serving at Shimshon base in the lower Galilee, climbs into the trailer of a 16-wheeler truck to wrap tefillin on his taut, tanned forearm, opposite the black beret tucked into his epaulets. He will be on leave at the end of the week and off to Sri Lanka for a two week break.

An interview with Rabbi Yankie Denburg, Chabad of Southwest Coral Springs:

The 2011 JCC Maccabi games concluded Thursday, August 18, in Philadelphia. The games are designed to provide Jewish athletes the world over the opportunity to share their heritage and customs in a competitive athletic settings.

As Ari Walters and Benyomin Klipper switched on a power saw and tore through the tip of a ram’s horn, about 18 Hebrew school pupils at Chabad of Augusta looked on with awe.

Every morning, 11-year old Mendel Vilenkin wakes up with a kippah on his head. He climbs down from his top bunk, sits next to his bed and pours water over his hands, alternating three times in a ritual washing — known as negel vasser or “nail water” — to begin the day of service to God. Eight-year-old Shmuel also knows the morning rhythm.

For the kosher traveler, vacationing often requires more careful packing and planning. Outside of well traveled Jewish destinations, kosher restaurants—prevalent and popular as they are—are still few and far between. And staples like glatt kosher chicken, meat, and even dairy products (of strict kosher certification standards) are not readily available in local supermarkets.

One year after they opened Chabad of Agoura Hills in 1986, Chabad officials decided to hold a Chanukah festival at an Agoura Hills mall. They put up a menorah and, soon thereafter, received an anonymous phone call demanding its removal.

As the world watched hard-line Communists make their last-ditch effort 20 years ago to reclaim control of the fracturing Soviet Union, a young Rabbi Berel Lazar was due to return to Moscow. Lazar, a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary who was then rabbi of the Russian capital’s Marina Roscha district, had been in New York attending to his wife and newborn baby. The August coup of 1991 – known popularly as the Putsch – began a day before their scheduled return.

They are not seeking spirituality, but the 400 young professionals who filled the trendy Splash club in downtown Boston Tuesday night know how to enjoy a good party.