Andrea Stolowitz’s great-grandfather kept a journal for his descendants after escaping to New York City in 1939 as a German Jew. Using her German-Jewish great-grandfather’s diary, Lacroute Playwright-in-Residence and three-time Oregon Book Award-winning playwright, Andrea created “The Berlin Diaries,” the autobiographical story of Andrea’s quest to untangle her family’s history. The record keeps as…
November is Jewish Book Month – in time for the Hanukkah gift-giving season. Sponsored by the Jewish Book Council, this annual event highlights the Jewish community’s contribution to the world of publishing. The following are some titles we wanted to share. KIDS BOOKS It’s a Mitzvah! by Julie Merberg, illustrations by Beck Feiner, Downtown Bookworks…
Photo: Oregon Holocaust Memorial. Photos courtesy of Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education. Six Oregonian women – five of them Holocaust survivors and one the daughter of a survivor – gathered in 1994 to discuss creating a Holocaust memorial in Portland. It would honor all their lost family members and also the multitude…
The Oregon Jewish Museum is looking for a few more “History Detectives” – people who can unlock the stories behind OJM’s “mystery photos.” An earlier story on some of the museum’s unidentified images (“Mysterious Images,” Oregon Jewish Life, November 2013) helped Anne LeVant Prahl, OJM’s curator of collections, identify some of the mystery photos. And…
Oregon’s Jewish settlers may or may not have studied the Talmud’s precepts, but they definitely took Rabbi Hillel’s advice to heart. During the state’s first century – and especially during its first 50 years – Oregon Jews made impressive contributions to political and civic life. While those contributions continue into the present day, with Sen….
Harry Glickman – one of the founders of the Portland Trail Blazers, the team’s president from 1987-94 and now president emeritus– is one of many local athletes and sports promoters featured in the Oregon Jewish Museum’s blockbuster summer exhibit In the Game: Oregon Jews/Oregon Sports. The exhibit closes on Sept. 30. A new exhibit by…
Oregon’s Jewish pioneers may have come to the far reaches of the frontier, but they, too, remembered their traditions. Almost as soon as enough Jewish men came to a town to constitute a minyan, they began organizing, at least for major services. Although the earliest Jewish settlers in Oregon, according to most accounts, were Jacob…
Recent research at the archaeological site of Motza in Israel’s Judean hills unearthed evidence that sophisticated carpentry tools first appeared at the same time as increased agriculture and the establishment of permanent settlements. During the Neolithic Age (approximately 10000–6000 BCE), early man evolved from hunter-gatherer to farmer and agriculturalist, living in larger, permanent settlements with…
The expulsion of Jews from European countries was common throughout the Middle Ages. Spain’s expulsion or forced conversion of Jews in 1492 is the most infamous, but others had set the stage: England in 1290, France in 1306, and Warsaw, Sicily and Lithuania in 1483. Various regions of Italy expelled Jews in different years, but…
“What’s up, Doc?” The man behind that question may be Oregon’s best-known Jewish export to Hollywood. Mel Blanc, “The Man of 1,000 Voices,” spoke for Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Sylvester the Cat, Tweety Bird and hundreds of other animated characters for Warner Brothers studios and other producers over a career spanning six decades….
