When she wanted to lose weight in her 20s, Jessica Gatke would hop on the treadmill and “starve myself.” As a child, Jessica was a gymnast for eight years and competed in springboard diving in high school. She was used to being lean. But when her daughter Miriam was born three years ago, Jessica found…
Portland teen Yosef O’Brien has begun an elite education program in Israel for students gifted in science. Yosef, 14, is the only U.S. student in this year’s Anières Elite Academy program. Other than one student from Canada, the 30-student class is made up of teens from the former Soviet Union. Anières, a program for gifted…
Photo: A bat mitzvah party in Ashland. PARTY PLANNERS BLC Events 02380 SW Military Road Portland, OR 97219 503-310-4467 blcevents.com BLC Events is an event concierge and planning company. We handle all sorts of events including weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs and corporate parties. We are best known for our creative ideas, unique touches and attention to…
About a year after his parents divorced, 6-year-old Brian Bendis arrived at the Passover seder clutching his drawing of Spider-Man and announced that he would be “the artist of Spider-Man.” His mother is amazed at how close he came to predicting his future. Today at 48, Brian doesn’t illustrate Spider-Man, but he does write the…
Two years ago, at the urging of friends who enjoyed his homemade, seasonally inspired ice cream sundaes, stay-at-home dad Jared Goodman decided to offer a dessert pop-up in his dining room. From that humble beginning, Goodman has expanded to offer monthly dessert pop-ups, Sundae Cycles on six Jewish holidays, a Pedal Parlor roving ice cream…
A summer internship in Washington, D.C., was an eye-opening experience for Portlander Talia Berniker, now a sophomore in the Robert D. Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon. The daughter of David & Susan Berniker, Talia participated in the Machon Kaplan Summer Internship Program of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. The RAC assigned Talia…
Robison Jewish Health Center received the highest possible overall rating of five stars in U.S. News & World Report’s fifth annual Best Nursing Homes, the day before the senior campus it sits on broke ground for a new, even better senior living home. Robison, which is part of the Cedar Sinai Park campus in Southwest…
For the 11th time in the past 15 years, White Bird will bring an Israeli dance company to perform in Portland. L-E-V (“heart” in Hebrew) will perform at 8 pm, Oct. 15-17 at Lincoln Hall, Portland State University. Walter Jaffe and Paul King co-founded White Bird, a Portland-based dance presentation and commissioning company, 18 years…
Rabbi Michael Cahana and his Impact Project Group developed “Business for Culture and the Arts,” a training platform for future arts group board members. The BCA group was, from left, Michelle Glass, Allison Rowden, Rabbi Cahana and Parna Mehrbani, as well as in photos held by Cahana Jessica Getman (left) and Emily Teplin-Fox. In 2003…
On Aug. 15, Rabbi David Kosak became the third senior rabbi of Congregation Neveh Shalom since the congregation was founded by the merger of two Conservative synagogues in 1961. Rabbi Kosak considers it a bonus that the congregation has such a rich history with its previous leaders. “The way to succeed is to follow successful…
