Oregon Hillel Foundation is one of 10 programs chosen by Hillel International to participate in the pilot program of its Excellence Accelerator, which is providing resources to help campus Hillels improve operations and increase engagement with Jewish students. The program began in December 2016 and will continue through June 2018. “The idea of the accelerator…
Vienna Moishe House founding resident Natalie Assa, 22, visited Portland to swap ideas with Portland Moishe House residents and to share her Jewish journey growing up in Bulgaria. Natalie was in the United States to accompany two Austrian teenagers to the BBYO International Convention and extended her stay at the request of Jessie Bustamante, Moishe…
Three years ago my father-in-law, now 96, traded his bicycle for a recumbent trike. Freed from the fear of falling and breaking a hip or shoulder as he had seen friends do, he continued his cycling adventures. But the heavier cycle and different muscles needed to pedal made climbing hills a slow, tiring process. Concerned…
Paul Golin, executive director of the Society for Humanistic Judaism, will be in Portland May 5-7 speaking on the future of liberal Judaism, intermarriage and separation of church and state (see box). He will participate in three presentations while visiting Portland’s Congregation Kol Shalom. Paul says that the Saturday afternoon panel discussion promoting a secular…
More than 200 people turned out for an April 4 town hall meeting on dealing with the increase in hate crimes. The gathering was held at the Mittleman Jewish Community Center, one of more than 100 JCCs and other Jewish organizations that received bomb threats, all of which were hoaxes. Though an American-Israeli teen was…
Founded in 1988 to secure women’s rights to pray and read Torah at the Western Wall, Women of the Wall has become not only a battle for women’s status and pluralism in Israel, but also a role model for women seeking parity in other countries and religions. “This is a marathon and we still have…
When Linda Cohen decided to do 1,000 mitzvahs to work through her grief over her father’s death, she had no idea the concept would launch her on a career as an author, speaker and kindness consultant. She recently launched “The Economy of Kindness,” a program designed to teach businesses how to cultivate kindness in their…
When Jonathan Cohen moved to Portland, potential employers saw his diverse skills as a lack of focus. While earning a degree in aerospace engineering from Penn State, he worked on a farm near campus and later volunteered on an environmental farm. He did an internship working on wind turbines at the National Renewable Energy Lab…
The recent donation of materials about Luba Tryszynska, “The Angel of Bergen-Belsen,” adds an important message to the collection of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. “As important as it is to know about man’s capacity for evil, it is also important to know man’s capacity for good,” says Judith Cohen, the museum’s chief acquisitions curator….
Anyone who follows the news is probably aware that hate crimes and scapegoating “the other” has been on the rise in recent months. “The climate in the country has emboldened extremists, so the rise of anti-Semitism is alarming,” says Bob Horenstein, community relations director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland. “But hate crimes against…
