The New Jersey Jewish community entered 5767 still reeling from the Second Lebanon War, and continued to support Israel by raising funds and visiting the country to support its battered North and the beleaguered town of Sderot on the border with Gaza. But a number of local and global concerns also grabbed the attention of New Jersey's Jews, from intensified efforts to free three kidnapped Israeli soldiers to progress on a new Jewish community campus.

Below are just a sampling of some of the top stories of the year:

Marking another milestone in the move toward creating a central Jewish address in the region, the Jewish Community Campus Development Council of United Jewish Federation of Princeton Mercer Bucks paid in full for the site of the proposed new Jewish Community Campus of Princeton Mercer Bucks. The $3.1 million transaction was completed on June 1, just two days after the JCC of the Delaware Valley closed on the sale of its Ewing property to Ewing Township and Mercer County. The schedule is currently on track to get the campus project under construction by sometime next spring on the 80-acre site bordering Clarksville-Grovers Mills Road in the Princeton Junction section of West Windsor Township.

In the wake of the closing of the JCC's facility and campgrounds in Ewing, the Abrams Day Camp/Teen Travel Camp of the JCC found a new home on the Lawrenceville campus of Rider University this past summer, with more than 300 youngsters enrolled. The camp is expected to remain at Rider for the next two or three summers — depending upon the progress in completing the proposed $28.5 million Jewish Community Campus of Princeton Mercer Bucks. The target date for the opening of the campus is spring 2009.

Har Sinai Hebrew Congregation broke ground for its new home on a 9.2-acre site off Route 31 in the Pennington section of Hopewell Township. Since the 360-family Reform congregation left its historic temple in Trenton in the winter of 2006, work has gone forward on the renovation and reconstruction of a 12,000-square-foot, two-story office building that anchors the congregation's new campus on Pennington Road. When completed, the building will house Har Sinai's administrative offices and a state-of-the-art nine-classroom religious school. It will also include a 2,200-square-foot addition at the back of the building to house a social hall, an activities center, and a chapel that will serve as a temporary sanctuary.

In January, not long after Har Sinai left its stately old synagogue on Bellevue Avenue in Trenton, Congregation Brothers of Israel closed the doors to its Greenwood Avenue synagogue, bringing an era of Jewish community in Trenton to an end. Even as Brothers of Israel marked the end of its 51-year-history in its modest shul, members were looking forward to writing a new history in their new home on Washington Crossing Road in Newtown, Pa. The Greenwood Avenue synagogue is being converted into a senior health care center in association with the Trent Center senior housing facilities on the Greenwood Avenue campus.

On the eve of leading a trade mission to Israel in mid-April, Gov. Jon Corzine suffered severe injuries in a chain-reaction traffic accident on the Garden State Parkway. Corzine will reportedly reschedule his mission to Israel as soon as he is able to travel. The focus of the mission will be to promote trade among businesspeople in New Jersey and Israel — particularly in the areas of biotechnology and stem cell research.

After serving as Corzine's chief counsel, then the state's attorney general, Stuart Rabner of Caldwell was appointed in June as chief justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court. Kenneth Zimmerman, executive director of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, was named chief counsel for Corzine.

In April, June Walker of Rockaway, former national president of Hadassah, became the chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which coordinates pro-Israel White House and foreign policy lobbying for the leaders of 50 Jewish organizations.

Steven Goldstein, the Teaneck rabbinical student who has led lobbying efforts to legalize gay and lesbian marriage in New Jersey, was named by Corzine as a member of the state's Civil Union Review Commission. The 13-member body will monitor the state law, enacted this year, that allows civil unions as an alternative to marriage for same-sex couples.

New Jersey had 244 anti-Semitic incidents in 2006, down from 266 in 2005. The Anti-Defamation League annual audit, released in March, reported 1,554 incidents against Jewish individuals or community institutions in the United States, a 12 percent drop from the 1,757 reported in 2005.

In a groundbreaking move last April, New Jersey hosted a daylong conference, New Jersey Unites Against Hate, at the State House Annex in Trenton under the auspices of the Office of the Attorney General. More than 100 activists representing 44 civil-rights and human-relations organizations from across the state were on hand for the all-day summit — the first of its kind in New Jersey. Then Attorney General Rabner keynoted the program.