For families considering their own charitable legacy, the Mansbach story offers a model: it’s not necessary to know today exactly how a community’s needs will change tomorrow. That is what TJF provides the Mansbach family; the stability to protect the original vision, the flexibility to respond to changing needs, and the confidence to continue investing in something deeply personal to their family.

To learn more, go to foundation.jewishva.org.

Rabbi Ari Oliszewski, Temple Emanuel, Virginia Beach.

Women’s Rosh Chodesh Mizrahi Dance
Thursdays, October 15 and November 12, 7 – 8 pm
Simon Family JCC
Free. Registration required. Women only.

 Six years ago, while still in middle school, Scolnick founded Ballers Basketball after watching his younger brother, Oliver, who has autism, lose opportunities to play organized sports as competition increased. Partnering with Aid Another, he created an adaptive basketball league where children with unique abilities, including those with autism, Down Syndrome, mobility challenges, and other disabilities, could experience the joy of sports in an environment centered on inclusion rather than competition.

 Today, Ballers has grown from seven players to 40, pairing each participant with a volunteer buddy who provides one-on-one support throughout the season. For his commitment to building that community, Scolnick is recognized as an Outstanding Jewish American in Tidewater, an initiative of the Konikoff Center for Learning at United Jewish Federation of Tidewater that celebrates local Jewish individuals whose lives exemplify leadership, service, and Jewish values. 

 This is not his first recognition for creating Ballers Basketball. In 2025, Scolnick was named one of 15 recipients for the Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Award – the youngest recipient in last year’s cohort. He was also named one of the Top 100 Emerging Innovators through the Horn School of Entrepreneurship at University of Delaware.

 Now entering his senior year at Cape Henry Collegiate, Scolnick has watched Ballers evolve into something much bigger than he originally imagined.

 “What started as a program for my brother and his friends has become something that’s valuable for the whole community,” he says.

 That community is built intentionally. Scolnick works to pair players with the same volunteer whenever possible throughout the season, giving friendships time to develop. By the end of each winter, conversations extend well beyond basketball. Buddies catch up on school, favorite foods, and weekend plans.

 One pairing particularly stands out to Scolnick. One of his friends volunteered and was matched with a girl who had never played basketball. As her confidence grew each week, so did their relationship. By the season’s end, not only was the player beaming with pride, but her family expressed deep gratitude for the friendship that had formed.

 Those relationships often change the volunteers just as much as the players.

 Scolnick sees Ballers as an expression of the Jewish value of tikkun olam, repairing the world, not simply by serving children with unique abilities, but by introducing neurotypical teenagers to peers they might otherwise never meet. Many volunteers arrive with little experience interacting with people with disabilities. They leave with new friendships, greater empathy, and a broader understanding of inclusion.

 Running Ballers has also transformed Scolnick. Beyond organizing practices and recruiting volunteers, he has learned to navigate setbacks, solve problems, and adapt when plans inevitably change.

 “If one day we don’t have enough volunteers, we have to figure it out because these kids depend on us,” he says. “I’ve had to learn how to adapt quickly and keep the program running no matter what.”

 Those experiences have reshaped his understanding of leadership. Rather than seeing leadership as being in charge, Scolnick believes it means paying attention, making sure everyone feels welcome, recognizing when someone is struggling, and stepping in before a small challenge becomes a larger one.

 That philosophy stems from his relationship with Oliver, whose experiences first inspired Ballers. When asked about his parents’ belief that, as Oliver’s older brother, Scolnick has been the most meaningful intervention in Oliver’s life, Scolnick is both humbled and quick to redirect the focus.

 “It’s gratifying,” he says, “but I’m not doing this for the praise. I just wanted him to have the same great childhood and opportunities I had.”

 Part of Scolnick’s preparation for next year when he’ll be in college is considering Ballers’ future. He’s already training younger student leaders to take over the program, hoping each generation of volunteers will mentor the next. His goal is to keep Ballers going and for it to remain youth-led, giving high school students the opportunity to grow as leaders while serving others.

 Asked what success would look like 20 years from now, Scolnick says he hopes former players and volunteers will look back and realize that Ballers helped shape who they became.

 If that happens, he believes the program will have accomplished exactly what he set out to do: create a place where everyone belongs.

Interested in nominating someone to be recognized as an Outstanding Jewish American in Tidewater? Visit JewishVA.org/TidewaterHeroes or contact Sierra Lautman at SLautman@UJFT.org.

 AEN is an academic organization comprised of more than 1,300 faculty members on nearly 400 campuses who combat antisemitism and advocate for open and robust discourse on Israel.

  The Faculty Changemaker Award honors AEN members who demonstrate exceptional dedication to confronting antisemitism on campus and whose actions have helped bring about positive change in their community. 

  This is not the first time Milligan has received recognition for her commitment to fighting antisemitism and dedication to teaching. In 2018 she received the John R. Broderick Diversity Champion Award from Old Dominion University. In 2020, she won the Jeffrey B. Spence Award for Interfaith Understanding from Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities. In 2023, Milligan accepted the Robert L. Stern Excellence in Teaching Award from Old Dominion University. In 2024, she was selected as one of 20 participants nationwide for Resetting the Table’s training on navigating difficult conversations about Israel and Palestine. In 2025, she earned the Shine a Light on Antisemitism Civic Courage Award for University Educators and Administrators from The Jewish Education Project. 

 “This national recognition is especially meaningful to me because it reflects work that has become such an important part of my professional and personal life: supporting Jewish and Zionist students, confronting antisemitism in higher education, promoting civil discourse, and helping create campus communities where students feel supported, empowered, and able to speak openly about their identities and their connections to Israel,” says Milligan. “I see this award not as a culmination, but as an encouragement to continue this work.”

At ODU, Milligan has worked to create a safe environment for her students. In April 2025, with initial funding from AEN, she opened the Am Yisrael CHAI Café in her office to provide Jewish students with a gathering place to find community, ask difficult questions, and talk through their experiences in a supportive environment. Her mission is to promote civil discourse on campus to create an environment where all students can speak openly about their identities, perspectives, and connections to Judaism. She has sneakers that are painted with Am Yisrael Chai and feature the Star of David, which she wears regularly while teaching and attending events. It’s just one of the many ways she truly walks the walk.

 Through Milligan’s efforts, she hopes to instill in her students the courage to connect across differences while empowering them to stay true to themselves and their identities.

 Milligan describes AEN’s faculty network as an important source of professional support and community that has strengthened her work as an advocate and educator.

“There is still important work to do,” says Milligan. “I remain deeply committed to educating about antisemitism and anti-Zionism and advocating for Jewish and Zionist students wherever I can.”

 Camp JCC hosted its very first-ever Camp Gala during Week 7, followed by the camp’s much-anticipated annual lip-sync performance. Max Chapman, a veteran Counselor in Training (CIT), served as master of ceremonies for the lip sync and did an extraordinary job with his crowd work. In Week 4, a camp carnival was introduced, complete with cotton candy, face painting, and classic carnival games. The camp also hosted its first Apache Relay race in years, which turned out to be a massive success, with the red team clinching the Color War victory that exact same week. The second consecutive Watermelon Day featured a hilarious counselor-blindfolded obstacle course, endless watermelon treats, themed crafts, and a special appearance by Captain Melon. Jewish Tidewater’s Shinshinim led a meaningful Israel Day, and the summer season wrapped up with a camp-wide cookout featuring burgers, hot dogs, and plenty of refreshing pool time.

 Teenagers took part in four Mitzvah projects throughout the summer, marking a historic first for the program. They traveled to Mutts with A Mission for a site beautification project, assisted Jewish Family Service by assembling birthday baskets for the local food pantry, learned all about air pollution and recycling at the Brock Environmental Center with Lynnhaven River Now, and wrapped up their community service by cleaning up litter across the Sandler Family Campus. The teens also enjoyed field trips to Norfolk Tides games, the Adventure Park, Croatan Beach, Owl Creek Landing, Ocean Breeze, and other local spots.

 Camp JCC is ready to keep the excitement going as School Days Out programs quickly approach. Registration opens at the beginning of September for Veterans Day, Winter Break Camp, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents’ Day, and Spring Break Camp.

To learn more about Camp JCC, contact Kate-Lynn Cipolla, director of Camp, at klcipolla@ujft.org or 757-321-2306.

The concept might not immediately resonate with children, most of whom have not lived quite long enough to gain a real perspective on their place in the world. 

Nonetheless, there are myriad ways to introduce the holiday and familiarize youngsters with it in a meaningful way. Here, three Strelitz International Academy families share their approaches.

In Irina Komarovsky’s home, Rosh Hashanah is all about sweetness. She leans into the holiday’s central wordplay, calling it a “sweet new year,” and fills her table with apples dipped in honey and an array of desserts. One small, playful touch has become a family favorite: Swedish Fish, meant to symbolize being a leader.

This year, that table will look a little different. Komarovsky’s son, Palmer, nine years old and a fourth grader at Strelitz International Academy, will be joined by his soon-to-be stepfather, Nick, and four-year-old stepbrother, Luca – the family’s first Rosh Hashanah as a blended household of four.

The holiday is now a chance for the two boys to bond. Palmer has taken on a teaching role of his own, sharing his collection of PJ Library books with Luca to introduce him to the holidays their new family will celebrate together. 

Komarovsky, who was born in the former Soviet Union and immigrated to the United States as a toddler, says her own approach to the holidays shifted after she lost her grandparents and became a mother.

Growing up, she says her family didn’t always celebrate at home, but she wanted to change that – both for Palmer, and to honor her grandparents’ memory.

“I want Palmer and Luca to remember the smells of the house while Nick and I cook,” Komarovsky says. “I want them to remember the warmth around the table as we include both found family and blood family when we celebrate Jewish joy.”

Other parents point to the shofar as a point of fascination. Aly Yaary’s oldest son, Asher (who is, by his own emphatic correction, three and three quarters), has always loved music and instruments. 

When he learned that Rosh Hashanah has its own instrument to blow, he was thrilled. There was just one problem: the family doesn’t own a shofar.

Undeterred, Asher enlists his mom to “fake blow” one by making trumpet noises. He coaches her through the holiday’s four traditional blasts – tekiah, shevarim, teruah, and tekiah gedolah – and he does not let mistakes slide.

Asher is far from the only child with a shofar hyper fixation. Pati Oliszewski shares that the shofar has made Rosh Hashanah particularly meaningful to her six-year-old son, Ben.

Given that his father is Rabbi Ari at Temple Emanuel, Ben has been watching his dad blow the shofar since he was born. Last year, his parents gave him a mini shofar of his own to play at home. 

He did so well that he and two friends now take part in the official shofar blowing during services.

“It gives them a real role in the holiday rather than simply watching the adults celebrate it,” Oliszewski says.

Apart from the shofar, she highlights community as an important aspect of Rosh Hashanah. Going to synagogue and seeing everyone (especially those they only see once a year) is part of what makes this time of year so special.

“That feeling of belonging and experiencing the holiday together is something I really value and hope our children will remember,” she says.

It’s wonderfully intuitive – as participants in the ritual tear up the pieces of bread, they acknowledge their sins with a faint whisper and a prayer. Then, once repentance is made clear, the guilt-ridden crumbs are thrown into the running water, to be carried away by the currents. 

The crumbs, however, are not always carried afar. Where many Jews live, including in Tidewater, the breadcrumbs often wash up on the beach, remain floating in the lake, or are eaten by the aquatic animals inhabiting their waters.

As Joanne Palmer of the Jewish Standard, a regional newspaper serving North Jersey and Rockland, New York, recalls, “someone at our lunch fantasized about the ducks getting ready for their annual feast. ‘I know I shouldn’t eat all that bread but I can’t help it,’ she imagined a duck saying. ‘It’s so tempting. Even though it goes straight to my thighs.’” 

It’s a funny anecdote, but ultimately, there is some truth in the anthropomorphic situation posed here. Ducks, fish, and other wildlife that receive the sin-contaminated bread, in many ways do not benefit from the extra gluten cast into their waters. 

In fact, according to an article on the Chabad website, the ritual is not exactly aligned with Jewish law. “On Shabbat and holidays, one is not allowed to feed any animals that aren’t one’s responsibility and are not dependent upon him for their sustenance.” 

In the decades since this moral dilemma has been posed, alternatives such as frozen peas and river-friendly grains have been championed by Jewish environmental organizations. The Jewish environmental organization Repair the Sea (Tikkun HaYam) has pushed the conversation a step further by introducing a new kind of Tashlich ritual that suggests cleaning up pollution in waterways rather than producing more. 

Created in 2018 by Rabbi Ed Rosenthal, Reverse Tashlich is essentially an organized trash clean-up through a Jewish lens. 

Rooted in the Jewish value of Repair the World (Tikkun Olam), the concept of Reverse Tashlich is maybe just as intuitive as its traditional counterpart. It was spearheaded at Ohef Sholom Temple for the last two years by Andrea Trank, the temple’s Sisterhood president.

Having worked for the Sierra Club and lobbied on behalf of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Trank is extremely aware of the environmental crisis of the 21st century and the importance of Tikkun Olam.

“There’s a lot of young people that have a huge concern for our environment,” Trank says. “To me, this is a very physical way to demonstrate your care and repair of the world.”

Ohef Sholom’s Rabbi Rosalin Mandelberg agrees. “It is a creative and good way of reimagining an old tradition for a new day,” she says. “And though it isn’t a replacement for the traditional ritual of casting one’s sins away, it calls upon Jewish communities to do something just as important – be good stewards of the planet.”

The idea began as a joke when Rabbi Rosenthal, founder and CEO of Tikkun HaYam, was explaining the tradition to members of Scooby Jew, the Jewish scuba-diving club he created at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla. One of them pushed back.

“There’s already more than enough human sin in the water,” the student said. “Why don’t we take some of it out instead?”

Rosenthal took the challenge seriously. He recruited five students, and together they pulled about 75 pounds of debris out of the mangroves along Eckerd’s mile and a half of waterfront. 

The next year, the group grew to 10 students, eventually prompting Rosenthal to take the concept off campus and reach out to synagogues across the Tampa Bay area. 

“I was really surprised at the response,” he says. “It showed me that there’s an interest, but there was no vehicle in the Jewish world to raise awareness of it.”

Almost a decade later that response has scaled well beyond Tampa. Last year alone, 320 teams in 31 countries participated in reverse Tashlich events, including a Newport News-based chapter already serving Tidewater.

“When you combine the awareness of the mitzvah and recognize it’s fulfilling the mitzvah,” Rosenthal says, “an ordinary action like a beach cleanup becomes a holy action — no different than going to synagogue.”

The concept has strong roots in religious values, drawing heavily on Bal Tashchit, the biblical prohibition against needless waste. Rosenthal also points to Tza’ar Ba’alei Chayim, the prohibition against causing needless suffering to animals.

“It’s very bad for the fish,” Rosenthal says of the use of bread for Tashlich. “It’s not their normal food.” But he doesn’t ask people to abandon the traditional ritual altogether. 

Instead, he recommends observers use pebbles and seashells – things already native to the water. Seashells are made of calcium carbonate, a compound that the ocean is increasingly starved of by rising acidity.

As Rabbi Rosenthal says, “We in the Western world take water for granted, because it’s the most common substance on the planet… in Hebrew, our tradition refers to it as mayim chayim — living water. The water is alive, and it gives life. It sustains life. Without it, we die.”

 What did I accomplish during the year that has passed? Where did I fall short? Whom did I help? Whom did I hurt? What needs to change? 

 But beneath all these questions lies another, more fundamental one: 

 Who am I? 

 The easiest answers are usually the most immediate: our names, professions, accomplishments, relationships, and responsibilities. We introduce ourselves by describing what we do, where we live or to whom we belong. 

 These things are important, but they are not the whole story. Jobs change. Titles disappear. Success comes and goes. Even the roles we treasure most may change with time. 

 Rosh Hashanah invites us to look beneath those temporary descriptions and encounter the deeper self—the soul that remains when the titles and achievements are stripped away. 

 Jewish tradition suggests that this soul is formed through relationship: our relationship with family, with community, with other human beings, and with God. 

 The Torah teaches, Lo tov heyot ha’adam levado—“It is not good for the human being to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Family is not merely an accessory to life. It is one of the principal places in which the soul is formed. It is where we first learn to give and receive love, to disagree, to forgive, to make sacrifices, and to care for someone beyond ourselves. 

 Family, of course, is not only biological. There are families we inherit and families we create. There is also the extended family of the Jewish people—a people bound together by memory, responsibility, and a story that began long before us and, God willing, will continue long after us.

 A beautiful midrash (Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:4) teaches that when God prepared to give the Torah at Mount Sinai, God asked the Israelites to provide guarantors who would ensure its continuity. The people first offered their ancestors and then their prophets. Finally, they said, “Our children will be our guarantors.” 

 God accepted. 

 The message is powerful: Jewish identity cannot survive only as a memory of the past. It survives when we place it into the hands of the future. Our children become our guarantors when they see that Judaism matters to us—not only in what we say, but in the lives we lead. 

 Faith forms another part of this deeper identity. 

 The Torah says: “The word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may do it” (Deuteronomy 30:14). Faith is not necessarily found in dramatic miracles or perfect certainty. It can live in prayer, gratitude, doubt, and even complaint. 

 After all, complaining to God may itself be an expression of faith. It means that somewhere within us, we still believe someone is listening. 

 The Talmud (Ta’anit 25a) tells a remarkable story about Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa, a man who lived in profound poverty. In response to his prayers, Heaven granted his household one leg from a golden table. Later, however, his wife dreamed that in the World to Come everyone else sat at complete tables while theirs was missing a leg. Rabbi Hanina prayed again, asking that the golden leg be taken back. 

 The story is not teaching us that poverty is inherently holy or that material needs are unimportant. Judaism does not romanticize suffering. Rather, it challenges us to consider how we measure abundance. 

 Pirkei Avot offers a different way of measuring abundance: “Who is rich? The one who rejoices in what they have” (4:1). 

 True wealth is not determined only by what we possess. It is also found in the people we love, the values we transmit, the good we bring into the lives of others, and the ability to recognize blessings before they disappear. 

 At the end of life, Pirkei Avot teaches, neither silver nor gold accompanies us. What remains are our acts of Torah and kindness. 

 What we accumulate eventually belongs to someone else. What we plant within another person can continue growing for generations. 

 This brings us back to the shofar. 

 The central mitzvah of Rosh Hashanah is not simply to blow the shofar, but to hear its voice. This year, because the first day of Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat, we will wait until Sunday to fulfill that mitzvah. Perhaps the waiting itself can prepare us to do more than hear a sound. Perhaps it can prepare us to receive its message. 

 The shofar has no vocabulary and offers no explanation. It speaks through breath, broken notes, and silence. 

 The tekiah is whole and confident—the sound of the person we hope to become. 

 The shevarim is fractured—the sound of disappointment, grief, and the awareness that something within us needs repair. The teruah trembles—the sound of a human being struggling, searching, and refusing to give up. 

 Finally, we return to the long, unbroken sound of tekiah. Yet it is not the same sound we heard at the beginning. We have passed through brokenness. We have acknowledged our imperfections. The final tekiah is not the sound of innocence, but of resilience. 

 The shofar does not ask about our résumé. It does not ask how impressive we appear to others. It asks whether we are awake. 

 Are we present for the people who need us? Are we transmitting Judaism to the next generation? Do our actions reflect the values we claim to hold? Are we so busy building a successful life that we have forgotten to build a meaningful one? 

 Perhaps our identity is not something we discover once and possess forever. It is something we create through every relationship, decision, and act of responsibility. 

 This Rosh Hashanah, when we finally hear the shofar, may we allow its voice to become a mirror. May it remind us that we are more than our titles, possessions, successes—and even our failures. 

 And when the new year asks, “Who are you?” may we be able to answer: 

I am a soul still growing. 

I am part of a family and a community. 

I am responsible for what I transmit to those who come after me. 

I am connected to God, even when I question, struggle or complain.

 I am a member of Am Yisrael. 

And I am ready to begin again. 

Shana Tovah! 

Rabbi Ari Oliszewski, Temple Emanuel Virginia Beach