For the past two years, the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland hosted an Israeli shaliach (male emissary) and shlicha (female emissary) to serve the Jewish community. This year the shlicha will be based at the Greater Portland Hillel. Shiran Halfon arrived in Portland Sept. 1, and will be here for a minimum of one year…
You may know Phyllis Lang as the wise Queen Guinevere in Sleeping Beauty, or the artist who creates amazing Narnia masks. Her work with the Northwest Children’s Theater has ranged from handling props to playing Lady Montague. But along with a lifelong interest in theater, Phyllis has a mission based on her experience overcoming a…
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…
In words that form images of light and darkness, waters receding from the firmament and stars separating day and night, the hebrew Bible (torah) describes the separation of the seventh day from all the others. this is the Sabbath – the day G-d desisted from the work of creation. the hebrew word Shabbat comes from…
Nationally and locally, the organized Jewish community has striven to embrace and engage an increasingly diverse and diffuse population. The so-called big Tent approach has been spurred in part by Jewish population studies, such as the 1990 national study that revealed a 52% intermarriage rate and the 2008-09 Portland study that found an astonishing 47,500…
For more than 150 years, Jewish life in Oregon has been characterized by dreamers, doers and those devoted to a cause. The pioneer Jews who came to the Western Frontier sank deep roots. Those first Oregon Jews, who came from Germany in the mid-1850s, often lived in other places in America before finding their way out West….
The greatest 20th century leader, who looked eye to eye with the greatest evil of the world at that time and did not blink, understood very well the tactical and strategic danger of lies to open democratic societies. In his typical fashion, Winston Churchill said, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth…
No, you are not imagining it. The shofar will be calling Jews to New Year services earlier this year. The earliest the first day of Rosh Hashanah can fall is Sept. 5. It happened in 1899 and again this year. Since days begin at sundown of the previous day, Erev Rosh Hashanah services are Wednesday…
