When Sharon Tarlow kicked off Congregation Beth Israel’s needlepoint pillow reunion on April 11, the women involved in the 1974 project gathered around her and smiled. Their handiwork of two dozen chair backs has graced seats along the perimeter and bima of the Byzantine sanctuary for decades. Envisioned by the sisterhood, designed by artist Janet Louvau Holt (then Jansen), and approved…
Modern Orthodox young professionals ages 26-42 are invited to Oregon June 26-July 1 for Portland’s third MoDox Outdoor Adventure Shabbaton. The first Shabbaton in 2011 drew 56 participants, with 74 young adults turning out in 2012. Portland’s third MoDox Outdoor Adventure Shabbaton already has attracted registrants from Israel, Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, New…
Marketing and dating – they’re not so different! After all, aren’t both of these about clearly communicating with another person in an attempt to forge a relationship? Let me review the 12 most persuasive words used in marketing – discovery, easy, guarantee, health, caring, money, new, proven, results, safety, savings and you – and illustrate…
When word of the Boston Marathon bombing hit the news, it riveted me and a majority of Israelis to the TV and Internet. Beyond the fact that it was clearly an important story and one that needed to be understood, the fact it occurred in the United States, in a location that many Israelis have…
Ellen Eisenberg, whose interests span everything from Jewish gauchos to Japanese internment, is excited about her newest project: writing about Oregon’s Jewish community from the 1950s on. Eisenberg, the Dwight and Margaret Lear professor of American history at Willamette University, has just been selected to write what could be called “the sequel” or a companion…
In today’s medical world, specializations dominate. Doctors aren’t just doctors; they’re endocrinologists, adolescent medicine specialists, neurologists, pulmonologists or even otolaryngologists (the fancy name for good ole’ ear-nose-n-throat docs). But when was the last time you met a garden variety GP? At Pacific Medical Group in Beaverton, family practitioners (formerly known as general practitioners or GPs)…
Rabbi Yossi Chaiton and Rabbi Alan Berg help answer the question, “What does Jewish tradition say about our responsibility to take care of our body?” Rabbi Yossi Chaiton Chabad of Oregon, shaliach, associate rabbi Portland Jewish Academy, Hebrew and Jewish studies director “Maintaining a healthy and sound body is among the ways of G-d,” but…
All of Portland was the stage for the nation’s first Food for Thought Festival, an ambitious event that fulfilled its promise. Launched on April 18, the four-day Jewish celebration and learning experience attracted 2,500 participants and raised more than 10 tons of food for the Oregon Food Bank. On opening night, 600 people converged on…
Where is Prusice (formerly Prausnitz), Poland? When did the British withdraw from Palestine? Looking for a children’s book about Passover? Need help finding a long-lost ancestor? The answer to all these questions and many more can be found in the Neveh Shalom Feldstein Library, one of the best-kept secrets in Jewish Portland. Most of the…
THE NEXT SCOTT NADELSON, A LIFE IN PROGRESS by Scott Nadelson, © 2013, Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts, Portland, $16.95, original paperback (by Paul Haist.) After the 2004 publication of his first collection of short stories, Oregon writer Scott Nadelson, a New Jersey native, still questioned whether he would ever do something worthwhile. No matter…
