Editor’s note: Oregon Jewish Life recently wrote about the effort to mandate Holocaust and genocide education in Oregon. By Janice Weinman Anti-Semitism has been called the oldest form of hatred. In America, we are now witnessing a horrifying escalation of anti-Semitic violence, such as cemetery desecration, vandalization of Jewish schools and synagogues and inflammatory anti-Zionist…
By Harvey A. Schwartz The touchy feely phrase “What you believe becomes your reality” is making the rounds of pop psychology. People who claim uncommon wisdom promote this phrase as the road to everything – from financial well-being to a fulfilling sex life. Here’s an ominous thought. What if you believe, as many folks now…
ADL: 60% more anti-Semitic incidents in 2017 than in 2016 By Rabbi Barry Cohen Have we ever found ourselves in a place we never imagined … in a dangerous place we never expected to be? This week’s Torah portion, Vayeitzei, describes how our patriarch Jacob in his youth found himself in such a place, after…
Editor’s Note: Holocaust survivor Alter Weiner was struck by a car and killed in Hillsboro Dec. 11, 2018. PHOTO: After testifying before Oregon’s Senate Interim Committee on Education Sept. 25, Holocaust survivor Alter Weiner meets Gov. Kate Brown. When Alter Weiner was a teenager during the Holocaust, the Nazis killed his family and his…
By Randy Kessler, StandWithUs Northwest executive director, Oct. 27, 2018 StandWithUs staff and board members around the U.S., Israel, Canada, the UK are shocked and heartbroken by today’s savage anti-Semitic act of mass murder in Pittsburgh, at the Tree of Life synagogue during a baby naming ceremony. Our international community mourns with the Pittsburgh community and the family…
PHOTOS (from left): Dr. Aviva Halamish, Professor John Efron and Dr. Timothy Snyder. The community is invited to three April programs coordinated by The Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies at Portland State University. The month of programs begins April 9 with the 2018 Lorry I. Lokey Program “Not What You Think: The Role…
Staff at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education have spent the past six months settling into their permanent home in the Pearl District – and that means filling the new positions that come with the larger building. For the museum’s education department, that means finally hiring a full-time educator and filling an…
Shortly after serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, my father (z”l) received a job offer from a chemical manufacturer in Pennsylvania only to have the offer rescinded when the firm discovered he was Jewish. He ended up making a living as a bookkeeper in his native Portland, where, until the 1970s, there…
The alarming 86% rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the United States was addressed at Hadassah’s 2017 National Assembly in St. Louis in July, announced Ellen Hershkin, national president of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc., the nation’s largest Zionist women’s organization. In a strongly-worded Combating Anti-Semitism policy statement 2017, Hadassah: Calls on all nations and international bodies to establish…
PHOTO: A SUPER University of Washington event on campus to commemorate the Nakba contained a sign saying, “Nakba, the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine.” Another sign read “Stolen Land.” Taken all together the signs demonize both Israel and Jews. Source Credit: SUPER UW Facebook Page (May 16, 2016) Nearly 100 more incidents of anti-Semitism…
