It’s officially eat-outdoors season – summer is here! Available now are crisp, juicy watermelon, fresh ears of corn, flats of colorful berries and tart rhubarb. Finally, after the long flavorless winter season, we have fruity-sweet locally grown beefsteak tomatoes just waiting to be thickly sliced to adorn a smoky backyard-grilled hamburger or gently layered with creamy fresh mozzarella, tangy…
Growing up in Portland attending Congregation Beth Israel, Rachel Shimshak learned the value of Oregon’s environment and tikkun olam. After graduating from the University of Oregon, she spent 16 years in Colorado, Washington, DC, and Massachusetts gaining experience and skills that now benefit her home state. Since its inception in 1994, Rachel has been the executive…
In the decades since the Holocaust, the Jewish community has pledged, “Never Again.” Yet genocide, albeit on a smaller scale, has recurred numerous times in the intervening years. “Focus on the tangible,” says Mina Rush, outreach director of Jewish World Watch, an organization that fights genocide and mass atrocities through advocacy and high-impact projects that improve the lives of survivors. “Ending genocide in Africa isn’t going…
For world-renowned chef Giuliano Hazan, family and food are as inextricably linked as home and hearth. “For me, food is the fabric that holds family together.” Having been raised in a family of chefs, young Giuliano enjoyed homecooked meals almost exclusively during his childhood. As he explains in the introduction to his latest cookbook, Hazan Family Favorites: Beloved Italian Recipes, “I was very fortunate to eat…
Where do you get “Jewish” food in central Oregon? I was told of sources for pastrami, challah, bagels – boiled and otherwise – and even kosher meals available by pre-order by the Chabad rebbetzin. And on a recent visit I discovered a chocolate and wine café owned by a member of Temple Beth Tikvah that was heavenly. If you’re looking…
When Havurah Shalom wanted to pursue a tikkun olam project in Nicaragua, many who were unfamiliar with global poverty got involved. So they teamed up with Green Empowerment, a Portlandbased nonprofit that builds renewable energy and water systems throughout the developing world. The congregation raised $40,000 to jump-start a solarpowered water system in the tiny village of El Jocote with a population of 230, including 41…
They came west during the California Gold Rush and moved north opening general stores throughout Oregon. German Jews were among Portland’s leading early entrepreneurs. They first lived near their downtown places of business. Many structures like the Fleischner Mayer building, Blumauer & Hoch and the Simon Façade still stand. Soon the merchants moved to fashionable districts like Northwest Portland. Now local…
More than 9,000 athletes from 72 countries are expected to participate in the 19th Maccabiah Games in Israel July 18-30, including nine athletes and an accommodations manager from Oregon. The Maccabiah Games began in 1932 in what was then British-ruled Palestine. Held every four years in Israel, the Maccabiah Games now are the third-largest international sporting event after the Olympics and the World University Games. The Maccabiah Games…
My father was known as Louis Glick in English and Laibl Glick in Yiddish. He was born around 1900 in Meziboz in the Russian Ukraine. When “Fiddler on the Roof ” came out, he remarked that his shtetl, where the Baal Shem Tov developed Hassidism, could well have been the model for the movie. During the first years of the Russian Revolution,…
Sitting in a coffee shop, I ate breakfast with Vera Katz. The only clue I had that she is a self-proclaimed control freak was by how hard it was to get her to agree to meet. It took months. It was on her terms. What I found was an Oregon treasure. Vera is grateful, articulate and exceedingly charming –…
