
Amy Spitalnick visits Cincinnati as first scholar-in-residence for Leaders in Light Institute
By Melissa W. Hunter Assistant Editor On Thursday, September 7, the JCRC of Cincinnati hosted Amy Spitalnick, the Jewish Council for Public Affair’s (JCPA) new CEO, as their first scholar-in-residence for the Leaders in Light Institute. Spitalnick first rose to...
LOCAL NEWS
Local News
By Melissa W. Hunter Assistant Editor On Thursday, September 7, the JCRC of Cincinnati hosted Amy Spitalnick, the Jewish Council for Public Affair’s (JCPA) new CEO, as their first scholar-in-residence for the Leaders in Light Institute....
Submitted by The Mayerson JCC Jewish teens from all over the world entered the FLA Live Arena in Fort Lauderdale in August. Colorful lights flashed around them, loud music hyped up the entire arena, and teens cheered from all corners — probably the...
Submitted by Congregation Etz Chaim Congregation Etz Chaim is known for doing Simchat Torah a little differently. Yes, of course we sing, dance and read from the Torah, but we also theme the evening and have shtick and food to correspond with each...
Submitted by Yeshivas Lubavitch Cincinnati Yeshivas Lubavitch Cincinnati, under the leadership of Rabbi Gershon Avtzon, has begun their 18th year of stellar chinuch (education). To celebrate this special occasion, the Yeshiva arranged — through a...
Submitted by Rockdale Temple K.K. Bene Israel/Rockdale Temple will begin its Bicentennial year on Saturday, September 30 at Tikkun Farm. The opening event will include tours of the farm, the opportunity to decorate and dedicate a pergola...
Submitted by The Jewish Federation of Cincinnati. Interview by David Harris, Chief Development Officer, Jewish Federation of Cincinnati I invited four of the Kravetz family women for an interview about who their family is in relation to their...
Submitted by The Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati Over the coming weeks, in addition to celebrating the High Holidays, we also have the opportunity to mark National Suicide Prevention Week, September 10-16. This observance, sadly, is...
Submitted by The Mayerson JCC Another day at the Mayerson JCC is coming to a close. Parents pick up their children from After Crew after an exciting afternoon of swimming, playing games, and creating artistic masterpieces. Others are...
E. Randol Schoenberg will present the first lecture in the Nancy & David Wolf Lectureship on his work retrieving Klimt’s “Golden Lady” painting, among others, after a protracted legal battle with the Austrian government. The lecture is hosted...
Submitted by Congregation Etz Chaim During the height of the Civil Rights era, Dr. Martin Luther King led a march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama. One of the people who participated in that march was Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. When...
By Melissa Hunter Assistant Editor On Sunday, September 10, the parking lot of the Mayerson JCC was transformed into an outdoor market for their 2023 Fall Market. More than 50 vendors set up booths offering everything from...
By Julia Olson Assistant Editor On Sunday, September 10, at Loveland Cemetery, Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati and the Cincinnati Judaica Fund dedicated a new installation of rescued historical plaques that represent hundreds of years of...
Submitted by JCRC Recently, the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati’s Jewish Community Relations Council learned that — on September 5 — the West Chester Tea Party hosted a speaker who disseminated numerous extreme antisemitic conspiracy theories. The...
Submitted by Jewish Family Service Over the past three decades, Leah Marcus, Director of Youth Mental Health Services at Jewish Family Service (JFS), has lost ten high school classmates to suicide or overdose. These tragic deaths underscore a...
Submitted by the JCC What color are you? Indian American Jewish artist Siona Benjamin poses that question to the Cincinnati Jewish community as she takes on an artist residency at the Mayerson JCC this September. Benjamin is excited to bring...
Submitted by Congregation Etz Chaim Synagogue Shannah Tovah to You, Me and the Bee. Congregation Etz Chaim is pleased to present a four part year long program on Bees, Eco-Judaism, Urban Farming, and Conservationism. On Rosh Hashanah we say, “Dip...
Submitted by Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati After the first Jew, Joseph Jonas, arrived in Cincinnati in 1817, Jews from many lands and ethnicities migrated to Cincinnati. Most of them were Ashkenazic Jews from Europe, but beginning in...
Submitted by Congregation Etz Chaim Synagogue Join Congregation Etz Chaim as we welcome and prepare for 5784, the New Jewish New Year with a New tradition. On Tuesday Night, September 12, we will be traveling as a synagogue caravan from our...
Leo Harold Munick, age 92, passed away peacefully surrounded by family at his home in Wyoming, Ohio on August 21, 2023. Born on June 29, 1931, in Malden, Massachusetts, Leo’s passion for life and spirited determination were characteristics...
Submitted by Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati JCGC is a unique burial organization and a national model, performing burials for all denominations and overseeing 23 diverse Jewish cemeteries in our area. The oldest of them, Chestnut Street...
NATIONAL
National
(JNS) — Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2000 novel “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,” which describes two Jewish cousins’ collaboration on comic books, is at the center of a lawsuit filed on Sept. 8 against OpenAI,...
(J. Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — Two months after proclaiming that July would henceforth be known locally as “American Christian Heritage Month,” the board of supervisors in El Dorado County, California has reversed course....
(JTA) – Stan Polovets, an oil industry executive who used his wealth and connections to help establish one of the most prestigious awards in the Jewish world, has been accused of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman he took out on a date. The...
(JTA) – A middle school teacher in a district outside Houston, Texas, has been fired reportedly for reading a sexual passage from Anne Frank’s diary out loud to eighth-grade students, the district told local news. The passage came from a...
(JNS) — A faculty group contacted California Gov. Gavin Newsom to air its grievances in response to efforts by Jewish and other organizations to remove antisemitism from proposed public-school curriculums. The Sept. 8 letter from the...
(JTA) — After months of icy relations, President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met face to face for the first time since Netanyahu’s return to office late last year — with both appearing eager to convey that the...
(JTA) — At least two more synagogues in the United States evacuated their congregants over the weekend following bomb threats, the latest in a series of such calls that have put dozens of congregations on high alert heading into the High...
(JTA) — Advocates for Jewish women who say their estranged husbands are abusing them by refusing to assent to a religious divorce are cheering after a New Jersey appellate court overturned a ruling against a woman in that state who used...
(JNS) — Three measures opposing violence and human-rights abuses perpetrated by the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. On Tuesday, the Combat Rampant Iranian Missile Exports (Fight CRIME) Act...
(JNS) — Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is defending the co-chair of his campaign in New Hampshire, who posted that “Israel is an apartheid state.” “This is such a dumb game the media and shallow career politicians play,”...
(JTA) — A Rosh Hashanah celebration at Vice President Kamala Harris’s official residence was a celebration of American Jewish success that included a reminder of the threats Jews still face. Douglas Emhoff, the second gentleman, began by...
(JNS) — A leaf (folio) from a Hebrew manuscript of Psalms, which dates to early 10th-century Syria, or maybe Israel. An Esther scroll written on deerskin, likely from 18th-century Iran. A fragment from a 14th-century Spanish Bible that...
(JTA) — A portion of the stained glass that survived the 2021 arson of an Austin, Texas synagogue has been rebuilt into a three-dimensional eternal flame that will be installed in the social hall of the synagogue’s building next week. While the...
(JTA) — A South Florida Jewish community center has landed in the middle of the state’s culture wars after canceling a talk by an author whose novel focuses on race in America. The Mandel JCC in West Palm Beach had booked Jewish author...
(JTA)— Days after Elon Musk threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League for billions of dollars and amplified a hashtag spread by white supremacists, the ADL’s CEO praised Musk’s business acumen but called his behavior “frustrating” and...
(JNS) — U.S. President Joe Biden nominated Jacob (“Jack”) Lew on Tuesday to serve as U.S. ambassador to Israel. Washington insiders told JNS last month that Lew, who was seen as a frontrunner to replace Thomas Nides in the position, knows his way...
(JTA) — Vivek Ramaswamy appeared on the podcast of an influencer known for his broadsides against the Jews, including accusing them of owning “almost everything,” in the upstart Republican presidential candidate’s latest dustup involving...
(JTA) — The man who killed three Black shoppers at a Florida Dollar General on Saturday carried a gun that had a swastika on it, according to police in Jacksonville. The shooter, who died by suicide inside the store, left behind multiple...
(JTA) — California Jewish groups applauded a letter from the state’s education board saying that high school courses meeting an ethnic studies mandate must avoid “bias, bigotry, or discrimination against any person or group of persons.” The...
(JTA) — A Rhode Island judge has ruled in favor of a historic New York City synagogue that is seeking to remove the leadership of the congregation that meets at another historic synagogue building — Newport’s famed Touro Synagogue. The...
JNS Feed
JTA Feed
INTERNATIONAL
International
(JTA) — Germany has banned a neo-Nazi group after raiding the homes of its leaders across the country, in a move the government said “sends a clear signal against racism and antisemitism.” The Hammerskins, a local spinoff of a group founded...
(JTA) — A United Nations committee designated a group of medieval Jewish buildings in Erfurt, Germany, as a World Heritage Site on Sunday. UNESCO, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, also gave the World Heritage...
(JTA) — A newly uncovered letter provides the strongest evidence yet that Pope Pius XII knew about the Nazi extermination of the Jews as it was happening, the latest in a series of recent discoveries that have transformed the debate over the...
(JTA) — A long-awaited final report has arrived in the investigation of a leading German Reform rabbi and his partner after allegations of abuse of power and sexual harassment against them erupted last year. Clocking in at 806 pages, the...
(JTA) — The way things stand now, Mexico is headed to elect its first woman president next year. The two leading candidates in the polls for the 2024 election are Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico City’s former mayor, and Xóchitl Gálvez, a senator...
(JNS) — Over 40 countries and delegations joined a high-level meeting at the United Nations on Monday aimed at injecting new life into moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. The meeting, dubbed a “Peace Day Effort,” was the initiative of...
(JTA) — The U.S., Israeli and Ukrainian governments have all called it an extremely dangerous voyage into the heart of an ongoing war. But despite the warnings, tens of thousands of Jewish men and boys are expected to travel to Uman, Ukraine, for...
(JTA) — Ruth Hannah has lived in the Australian coastal town of Mallacoota for more than 30 years. The 72-year-old daughter of Holocaust survivors knows of only one other Jewish person in her town, which has a population of 1,183 people. Known for...
(JTA) — Rabbi Akiva’s daughter was destined for death on her wedding day, at least according to the star-gazers. So the early Jewish sage seemed resigned to his daughter’s fate. But on the wedding day, Rabbi Akiva’s daughter offered a poor...
(JTA) — The first kosher delicatessen to open in Ireland in over half a century is proving a surprise hit among Dubliners since it opened its doors in March — and not only among Jews. Located in the southern part of the city, Deli 613 has been...
(JNS) — Canada recognized the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism in 2019, and Ontario adopted it in 2020. However, many school boards in the province have opted not to adopt the definition. “They have...
(JNS) — Through meticulous research, Leigh Dworkin helped his cousin Stacey identify people in family photographs she owned. Now the two meet regularly in London, where he lives, and New Jersey, where she lives, during meetings of the...
(JTA) — Libyan Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush has been fired and has fled to Turkey following a meeting last week with Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen. Libya and Israel do not have diplomatic relations, and when he first announced the...
(JTA) — Six decades ago, shortly before Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Rabbi Joachim Prinz called for racial equality in an address that began with the words, “I...
(JTA) — Plans to turn Hitler’s birth house into a police station have turned a small Austrian town upside down. The local administration of Branau announced Monday its concrete plans to put the building to practical use, promising to house a...
(JNS) — Dutch forensic investigators have identified the remains of a man executed by the Nazis in the Netherlands eight decades ago as that of a Jewish resistance hero after locating a cousin in Australia, investigators said on Wednesday....
(JTA) — Earlier this month, the small Jewish community in the British city of York celebrated the arrival of a new rabbi, its first since the city’s Jewish community was nearly wiped out in a pogrom in 1190. Or so they thought. Just weeks...
(JNS) — The European Court of Human Rights, which has jurisdiction over more than 46 countries and whose rulings are legally binding on all 27 member states of the European Union, is facing calls to re-examine cases involving Jews after its...
(JTA) — A Russian court has extended the pretrial detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich for another three months. In a hearing on Thursday at Lefortovo District Court that was closed to press, a judge ordered Gershkovich to...
(JTA) — Police are seeking witnesses to a violent act of vandalism early Tuesday morning that destroyed windows at the headquarters of a foundation that manages multiple Holocaust memorial sites. The Foundation for Memorial Sites in Lower...
ISRAEL
Israel
(JNS) — A Palestinian resident of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip was arrested in Tel Aviv on Thursday in possession of two knives, in the second such incident in as many days. The 60-year-old suspect was detained after security guards at the Central...
(JNS) — The Israel Defense Forces and Defense Ministry on Tuesday revealed for the first time its new main battle tank, equipped with advanced sensors and artificial intelligence capabilities. Nicknamed “Barak” (“Lightning” in Hebrew), the...
(JNS) — Rabbi Yigal Levenstein, one of the heads of a military preparatory academy in the town of Eli in Samaria, required police protection after he was attacked and chased in Tel Aviv by irate protesters on Tuesday night. In footage of the...
(JNS) — An Israeli was lightly wounded in a car-ramming attack at the Qalandiya crossing between Jerusalem and Ramallah on Thursday. Magen David Adom emergency medical personnel treated the victim, a civilian security guard in his 30s, for injuries...
(JNS) — Israeli archeologists have discovered an ancient workshop for the manufacture of stone utensils just outside Jerusalem, the Civil Administration’s Archaeology Unit announced on Monday. The workshop, which experts said dates back to the...
(JNS) — The Israel Land Authority, which manages the country’s public lands, on Wednesday approved “unprecedented” discounts on residential land in the Negev and Galilee, the first step in a government plan to settle the sparsely populated regions....
(JNS) — Nearly 50,000 Jews ascended the Temple Mount in Jerusalem during the Hebrew year 5783, according to the Beyadenu movement, a Temple Mount activist group that monitors Jewish visits to Judaism’s holiest site. A total of 49,000 Jews...
(JNS) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that a normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia could not come at the expense of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Speaking on the “Pod Save the...
(JNS) — A tense exchange took place between Israel’s High Court of Justice and member of Knesset Simcha Rothman during Tuesday’s hearing on the “reasonableness law” as the latter told the court it had no right to intervene in the law, and...
(JNS) — Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science have successfully created complete synthetic models of human embryos using laboratory-grown stem cells, according to an official release from the Institute. The synthetic embryos were...
(JNS) — An Israeli Border Police officer was wounded during a counterterrorism operation in Judea early Thursday, the IDF said. The policeman was transported to a hospital after suffering light injuries while conducting an arrest raid in the...
(JNS) — A ransomware hacker group on Wednesday published patient data stolen from Israel’s Mayanei Hayeshua Medical Center. The “Ragnar Locker” group followed through on a threat to release the sensitive information gathered in the...
(JNS) — Israel’s High Court of Justice on Thursday rejected a request to recuse Court President Esther Hayut from hearing petitions against the “reasonableness” law. Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee Chairman Simcha Rothman on Monday...
(JNS) — A peace deal with Israel is a clear Saudi interest and will likely lead to further accords with additional Muslim countries, the acting American ambassador to Israel said Thursday. The remarks by Stephanie Hallett, the chargé d’affaires at...
(JNS) — Archaeologists in Jerusalem have discovered a 300-meter (985-foot) portion of a Second Temple-era aqueduct, the longest such continuous stretch ever found in Israel’s capital, the Israeli Antiquities Authority announced on Monday....
(JNS) — Israel’s Health Ministry on Tuesday banned swimming at three beaches, including two in Tel Aviv, until further notice after water quality tests yielded abnormal results. The ban applies to the Nordau and Hilton beaches in the...
(JNS) — An official document from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem urges Palestinians from “the occupied territories” to apply to the Yad Hanadiv doctoral scholarship program. The scholarships, in the sum of 8,000 shekels (about $2,100)...
(JNS) — The 128 Israelis whose flight from the Seychelles was forced to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia on Monday night arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport on Tuesday afternoon. They spent Monday night at an airport hotel in the Red Sea...
(JNS) — Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) will travel to the United States next week for high-level meetings in Washington, his office said on Tuesday. Lapid will meet with senior officials at the White House and the State...
COLUMNISTS
Columnists
(JTA) — For Jews and baseball fans, [last weekend] was one of the most important weekends of the year. Yom Kippur, Judaism’s holiest day, began Sunday evening. That day also kicked off the final week of the MLB regular season, when the fight...
I am returning home from a three-day family vacation in New England with four of my five sons and their families. It was a great get-away: beach time, pool time, sumptuous sweets like whoopie pie and apple cider donuts, coupled with lots of Moscow...
(JTA) — Iran’s weightlifting federation banned one of its athletes for life after he shook hands and posed for a photo with an Israeli athlete at an international competition in Poland. Mostafa Rajaei finished second in his category at the...
This first book is a new edition of a guidebook to all things Cincinnati. “100 Things To Do In Cincinnati Before You Die,” by Rick Pender After three years of canceled events and closed venues, more of our favorite activities are happening again....
I just turned 76 years old. Constantly adjusting to the aging process can be an energy sucker: Clutching the bannister when going down the stairs — no more bounding up and down effortlessly. Ditto for getting out of bed. The operative word...
"Shelf Life" by Martin Sneider The lucrative world of high fashion women’s shoes is the setting for this Jewish family saga. Max Feldman is the patriarch of the family and the owner of the Fratelli Massimo luxury shoe store chain. Though...
I really feel alone. I think most of my contemporaries are kicking back their feet: Leisurely going through their days. Taking an exercise class. Traveling to Israel. Lunching with their tribe. Doing something totally frivolous at whim. And here I...
“The Women of Rothschild,” by Natalie Livingstone Several clichés may come to mind when thinking about the Rothschilds — the epitome of wealth and power, a banking dynasty, and at one time, the richest family on earth. Yet we would relate almost...
I just got back from spending seven days in Italy. My bank of miles allowed me to travel free to Europe in Premium Economy. (You get “special amenities” and your seat is right behind First Class or Business.) I paid for my trip back to the United...
(JTA) — Jews in Australia have seen their community prosper in many areas, from business to the arts to the highest levels of government. But there is one arena that Aussie Jews have not featured prominently in: Australia’s biggest sport,...
Casting Lots : Ancient Hebrew Divination Magic, by Elisheva Nesher Depending which translations and scholars you consult, casting of lots is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible between 40 and 50 times. A few of those references are Joshua 7:14, where a...
(JTA) — Around 4,000 Jewish Argentines showed up to cheer on Israel at their first appearance in a FIFA World Cup tournament in over 50 years, at times chanting songs in Spanish. But their festive mood changed after a Palestinian flag...
If you have been to Israel and traveled between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, you likely missed it. If you’re going to Israel and plan on traveling between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, stop at kibbutz Gezer. Why? Because you will be able to see the Israeli...
By Michael Ganson Ohio has a new “hands free” law for electronic devices such as cell phone, tablets, etc. that went into effect on April 3, 2023. The new law prohibits the use of all handheld electronic devices while driving. The new law is very...
By Iris Ruth Pastor Mother’s Day is over, but my intense feelings about my mother follow me as I go through my days. Hence this column. I hated my mother. I hated my mother, especially when I was 13 and she adamantly refused to allow me to shave...
By Sheryl Pockrose With all the devices and electronics available, it can be a challenge to get children interested in traditional books on paper. A bedtime story or reading together as a family provides an experience that can’t be replaced by...
He was a man on a mission. “My first day at Northwestern, I called the office of the student newspaper, The Daily Northwestern. That night, I covered the match between the Northwestern women’s soccer team against DePaul.” Charlie Goldsmith...
By Iris Ruth Pastor I never thought it could happen, but it did. Studies show that as people age they get happier. How can this be? We have more health-related issues: High blood pressure Faulty hips and knees begging for replacement ...
By Sheryl Pockrose The Meyersons of Meryton, by Mirta Ines Trupp Jane Austen’s novel “Pride and Prejudice” is so well-known that there is a genre of historical fiction just for sequels to it written by modern authors. “The Myersons of Meryton” is...
JUDAISM
Judaism
Efrat, Israel – “Remember the days of yore, understand the years (shenot) of each generation.” Deuteronomy 32:7 Are we commanded to study world history? Certainly, I would say, on the basis of the simple meaning of the verse cited at the head of...
Efrat, Israel – “And [Nehemia] said to them, ‘Go, eat delicious foods and drink sweet beverages, and send portions to whoever has nothing prepared, for [Rosh Hashanah] is holy to our Lord. And do not be sad, for the joy of the Lord is your...
Efrat, Israel – “For this commandment that I have commanded you today is not concealed from you, nor is it far away.” [Deut. 30:11]. How often it is that we — and people we know — say, “I can’t help it. It’s in my nature to get angry.” Or, perhaps...
Efrat, Israel - For I have come to the land which the Lord swore to our forebears to give to us. Deuteronomy 26:3 When the individual Jew brings the first fruits of the Land of Israel to the Holy Temple on the Festival of Shavuot, he...
Efrat, Israel – When you go forth to battle…and you see among the captives a beautiful woman and you desire her…. When a man has two wives, one the beloved and the other the hated…. If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son… (Deuteronomy...
Efrat, Israel – You shall appoint judges…[who] will not pervert justice…. Justice, justice shall you pursue… You shall not plant for yourselves an Asheira [tree used for purposes of idolatry according to Rashi and Ibn Ezra] near the altar of the...
Efrat, Israel – “You shall smite, yes smite, all of the inhabitants of that city by the sword…and you shall burn entirely with fire the city and all of it spoils to the Lord your God, and it shall be an everlasting desolation (tel); it shall not be...
Efrat, Israel – “And now Israel what does the Lord Your G-d ask of you, only to revere the Lord your G-d and to walk in all of His ways, and to love Him and to serve the Lord your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul. To observe the...
Efrat, Israel – ‘Comfort you, comfort you, My People’ (Isaiah 40:1) The Shabbat after Tisha B’Av is known as the Shabbat of Comfort, a phrase taken from the first verse of the prophetic reading from Isaiah. Additionally, a most fascinating...
Parshat Devarim - Deuteronomy 1:1 - 3:22 Efrat, Israel – “Zion shall be redeemed because of her moral justice and her children shall return to her because of her compassionate righteousness” (Isaiah 1:27). The Shabbat before the bleak day of...
Efrat, Israel – This week’s double portion records how the Jews finally cross the Jordan River on their way to conquer the Promised Land. The tribes of Gad, Reuven and half the tribe of Menashe possess a great multitude of cattle, and “paradise”...
Efrat, Israel – Fanaticism, particularly when garbed in the clothing of myopic fundamentalism, rarely evokes in us a sympathetic bent. How could it, given its association with an uncontrollable zeal and violence for the sake of heaven? But...
Efrat, Israel – “I see it but not now; I look at it, but it is not near. A star has stepped forth from Jacob and a scepter-bearer has risen from Israel; [Israel] will pierce and vanquish the nobles of Moab….” [Num. 24:17]. The interaction of Jew...
Efrat, Israel – “And Korah, the son of Yitzhar, the son of Kehat, the son of Levi took Datan and Aviram, the sons of Eliav… and they rose up in confrontation before Moses…” (Numbers 16:1, 2) “And Korah, the son of Yitzhar, the son of Kehat, the son...
Efrat, Israel – “And the Lord spoke to Moses saying ‘send forth for yourself men to explore the land of Canaan…” (Num. 13:1-2) The great sin of humanity was Adam’s disregard of G_d’s command not to eat the fruit of knowledge; the great sin of...
Efrat, Israel – “The nation was ‘kvetching’ evilly in the ears of the Lord, and the Lord heard, and His anger inflamed.” (Num. 11:1) Why is there a marked difference between God’s reaction to the complaints recorded here in the Book of Numbers...
Efrat, Israel - Few passages in the Bible are as well known as the Priestly Benediction. In Israel, the kohanim (priests) rise to bless the congregation every morning, while in the Diaspora Ashkenazi Jews are permitted to include this special...
Numbers 1:1- 4:20 Efrat, Israel – “Count the heads of the entire witness-congregation of Israel” (Numbers 1:2) The Book of Numbers opens with a most optimistic picture of a nation poised for redemption. The Israelites have been freed from Egypt...
OBITUARIES
Obituaries
(JTA) — Mary Ann Stein of Bethesda(JTA) — Mary Ann Stein of Bethesda, Maryland, who as the founding president of The Moriah Fund supported human and civil rights in the U.S. and Israel and causes that included women’s rights and reproductive...
Henry Perry Mentle died on September 3, 2023 in Boca Raton, Florida. Henry was born in 1949 to Edith and Philip Mentle and grew up in Bronx, NY. He was a die-hard Yankees fan and grew up near Yankee Stadium. Henry studied Aerospace Engineering at...
(Cleveland Jewish News via JTA) — Violet Spevack, whose popular society column ran in the pages of the Cleveland Jewish News for nearly 50 years, died Sept. 7. She was 107. Spevack, who started writing “Cavalcade” on March 5, 1965 — six months...
HOFFHEIMER, Minette G., age 96, passed away on September 7, 2023, beloved wife of the late Arthur Hoffheimer Jr., devoted mother of Craig (Debra) Hoffheimer, Roger Hoffheimer (Steve Mei), James (Karen) Hoffheimer and Mark Hoffheimer, loving...
(JTA) — Claire Golomb was 10 years old and living in Frankfurt, Germany when, early one morning, there was a loud knock at the door. Nazis had come to take her father away. She, her mother and her older sister soon fled to Holland, where...
Stewart L. Horn, 87, of Cincinnati, Ohio, passed away on August 18, 2023. He is survived by his sons Bradley (Heather) and Douglas (Jennifer) Horn, and his grandsons Dylon and James. He is also survived by his brother Jerry (Dee) and his...
With sadness, the family of Shelley Sandra Ingber (née Nadler) announces her passing on August 14, 2023, in her home in Montreal, Canada. Beloved mother to Avital Ingber, Dorit (Michael) Corwin, Tamar Ingber (Avi Starr Glass), and Arielle...
(JTA) — Cantor Philip Sherman’s biggest audience might have been for his role as a judge on the Netflix series “Orange is the New Black.” But his most prominent role was as one of New York’s most in-demand mohels, performing, by his own...
(JTA) — Louise Levy, who was the oldest living resident of New York State and a participant in a genetic study of long-living Ashkenazi Jews, died July 17 in Greenwich, Connecticut. She was 112. “Throughout her long life, which spanned two global...
(JTA) — David Leitner, one of the most famous lovers of falafel in a country full of them, has died at 93 in Israel, the country that became his home after he survived the Holocaust as a young teen. Leitner’s death comes nearly a decade after his...
(JTA) — I was just out of college when I got a freelance assignment from a small entertainment magazine to interview a rising comic named Pee-wee Herman. Of course that wasn’t his real name, but the man-child persona — one part Howdy Doody,...
(JTA) — “My grandfather was a true son of Jerusalem,” a granddaughter, Tamar Ariel, wrote in a tribute posted shortly after his death. “Born just outside of Jerusalem in the Palestinian Mandate in 1925, the youngest of 6, and raised on King...
Stuart Tobin, 80 of Cincinnati, Ohio passed away on July 4th of Leukemia surrounded by his family. Born on July 6, 1942, Stuart was the oldest child of Bertha and Harry Tobin. Growing up in Cincinnati, Stuart loved playing baseball, the...
(JTA) — In an essay she wrote in June, Marlena Spieler reminisced about her grandfather’s neighborhood in San Francisco in one long, exuberant sentence: It was basically a small shtetl transplanted to San Francisco, with delis redolent of pickle...
(JTA) — Alan Arkin knew he was going to be an actor from the age of five. “Every film I saw, every play, every piece of music fed an unquenchable need to turn myself into something other than what I was,” he wrote in his 2011 memoir, “An Improvised...
(JTA) – The moment when Sheldon Harnick realized that his new musical might be something special came when he sang the lyrics he had just composed for a new song: “Sunrise, Sunset.” He was sitting in the basement studio of his friend and...
Rita Harkavy Edlin, of Atlanta, GA, passed away on June 24, 2023 at the age of 94. Born in Brooklyn, NY and raised in Cincinnati, OH, Rita was a devoted wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Rita graduated from Walnut Hills High School...
Jeffrey Ganson Elkus, age 39, passed away June 11, 2023, beloved son of Steve and Nancy Elkus, dear brother of Bradley (Sarah) Elkus, and devoted uncle of Noah Elkus. He is also survived by many loving aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. Services...
(JTA) — Robert Gottlieb, the legendary literary editor who shepherded into print and best-sellerdom such 20th-century classics as Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22,” Robert Caro’s “The Power Broker” and Chaim Potok’s “The Chosen,” died Wednesday at age 92....
(JTA) — Hundreds of thousands of mourners crowded into Bnei Brak Tuesday for the funeral of Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, head of the Lithuanian Ponevezh Yeshiva and one of the most influential religious leaders in Israel. In addition to running...