On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Missy Sokolsky is rehearsing “Fiddler on the Roof.” Missy’s third-grade class is staging the play because lyricist Sheldon Harnick’s son Matthew is one of Missy’s classmates at the elite Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School. The year is 1978 and 9-year-old Missy is playing Yente. She is a fourth-generation native New…
Younger donors first support causes they are passionate about – rather than institutions. It is up to organizations to inspire them and show them that their support can make a tangible difference on the wider issues. For years, many in Jewish communal service have raised the issue about the future of Jewish philanthropy. They ask,…
Mittleman Jewish Community Center Fitness Manager Jennifer Harrington understands the importance of exercise for good health. “Our wide range of classes offer cardiovascular fitness along with flexibility and balance,” she says. From cycling, Zumba and water aerobics to bodypump and Pilates coupled with personal training, we provide the variety to meet individual needs.” While individual…
To mark the 90th anniversary of the very first bat mitzvah, the Oregon Jewish Museum is hosting a traveling exhibition, “Bat Mitzvah Comes of Age,” featuring the remarkable story of how, in less than a century, individual girls, their parents and their rabbis challenged and changed communal values and practice to institute this now widely…
As director of the Oregon Health Authority since its inception in 2009 and a board member of Cover Oregon, which launches the state’s insurance marketplace this month, Dr. Bruce Goldberg is at the forefront of the state’s push to ensure more Oregonians have access to affordable health care. “Two years into Affordable Care, we estimate…
In February, Oregon Jewish Life posted a survey for singles on our website as part of our effort to get to know our readers. Now we want to share the results of that survey: Single status: Never Married – 36.54%, Divorced – 46.15%, Widowed – 17.31% Age: 20-30 – 21.15%, 40-5 – 19.23%, 50-60 – 13.46%,…
Birth Jewish children are given Hebrew names in addition to their English names. The most prominent ceremony surrounding a birth in our tradition is the circumcision of the male child, performed on the eighth day after birth. The ceremony is called a brit milah, which means covenant, harking back to when Abraham entered into a…
During the first 100 years of Jewish life in Oregon, congregations emerged, merged and evolved to meet the ever-changing spiritual, life-cycle and community needs of an increasingly dispersed and diverse population (see the early history, pages 10-14). by the 1960s, Oregon’s synagogues had stabilized to include today’s Congregations Beth Israel, Neveh Shalom, Shaarie Torah, Ahavath Achim…
ROSH HASHANAH (Sept. 5-6, 2013) Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is celebrated each year on the first day of Tishrei, early in the fall. The day is a special time of rejoicing as we wish each other L’Shanah Tovah, a good year. It is also a solemn day because Rosh Hashanah is not only the…
Last February my family was about to sit down to Shabbat dinner. As we gathered in the dining room and took our seats, my then 5-year-old son, Leo, was nowhere to be found. My wife and I called out his name, and suddenly he emerged from his bedroom, running up to us with a big…
