“Sometimes words are inadequate.” Our cover subject, Judaic artist Sara Harwin, told me that as she explained why she chose visual art as a way to transmit the core values of Judaism. While the project she has spent the past six and half years creating is based on words, she uses imagery to help others…
Edward and Leah Hershey Congregation Shir Tikvah | Portland As the New York Times reported when we married* our courtship turned on a ballgame, snow bank and bowl of soup, but Paris and frugality played a role. “If we get engaged,” I asked as we passed the Palais de Justice at dusk, eyeing the tu-et-moi…
On March 26, 1896, Gervais, OR, “was enthusiastic over the arrival home of her native son, McKinley Mitchell” after his nomination to the state legislature as a Republican. “The people en masse met him at the depot and welcomed him with addresses and the firing of anvils,” reported the Daily Capital Journal. Although the journey…
Sara created the exhibit “to be a visual entry point to Judaism.”The project presents 18 core concepts of Judaism through an artistic lens. A Judaic artist whose ceremonial and ritual artwork is used in synagogues and homes across Oregon and around the country, Sara knows the impact art can have on understanding and emotions. “This…
Dear Helen: I have a dead father, a sick mother and a crazy sister. I promised my father on his deathbed to take care of my mother, who drinks and smokes too much and is now lying to her doctors after a severe medical event that landed her in ICU. My sister lives two hours…
Bruce Morris designed a keyboard and supplemental software so he could touch-type his Hebrew homework for cantorial school. Then, when he and his wife were studying at an ulpan in Israel, he loaned the keyboard to her to type one of her poems in Hebrew. She refused to give it back. Noting his wife, Cassandra…
Dear Editor: On April 28, 2014, for Holocaust Remembrance Day we commemorate those innocent men, women and children who were murdered in the six killing centers of Auschwitz, Belzec, Chełmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka. We mourn those who were slaughtered by the Nazis in the numerous slave labor and concentration camps, in the ravines of…
This year, commit to changing one trait that impacts your life. Dear Helen: How can I make this year better than the last one? Mostly, I hate my job. But in general I feel: Stuck Dear Stuck: After the echoes of “Auld Lang Syne” have faded, any resolutions you may have made will sound a…
During its first century, Portland’s Jewish Community Center met varying social, cultural, educational and recreational needs of Oregon natives, successive waves of immigrants and transplants from other communities across America. As the Mittleman Jewish Community Center enters its second century, it must meet the needs of a population that continues to shift and evolve. The…
In 1910 three men filed articles of incorporation for “The B’nai B’rith Building Association.” They had a grand vision. The aim was a campaign to establish “a building which is to be made a centre of Jewish communal activities” – with seed money to come from selling 2,500 bonds at $10 each. They wanted the…
