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Beginning with a pop and a fizz, the Society of Professional’s Pour wine event gathered local Jewish professionals and friends at the Hilton Virginia Beach Oceanfront on Sunday, March 5. Overlooking the ocean, participants were led through progressive Kosher food and...
April 13, 2007 At the recent B’nai B’rith Youth Organization’s International Convention held in Houston, Texas, Virginia Council BBYO received an International Programming Award for the Lost Boys of the Sundan program held last fall. April 11, 1997 In an article by...
April 3, 2017, Passover Section
There is a midrash that, when standing at Sinai to receive the Torah, each person received their own personal revelation but responded in one voice, saying, “Na’aseh v’nishma”—“We will do and we will hear.” It is in that exquisite moment that we became one People....
As if Israel Today’s Mishy Harman’s performance wasn’t captivating enough, the event last month also included a presentation by Sheena Jeffers and Jennifer Chapman, founders of Story Exchange, a community engagement project aimed at sharing human experiences via art....
Mitch Albom, author of The Five People You Meet in Heaven, once wrote, “There’s a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking.” Mishy Harman, the...
The fifth commandment is clear. “Honor your father and mother,” as is the reason, according to the Torah (Exodus, Chapter 20). “So that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your G-d gives you.” If that’s true, then we all gained a few more years on this...
Thursday, March 30, 5:45 pm The Westin, Virginia Beach Town Center Created in the spring of 2015 as a constructive response to the racial violence and civil unrest that took place in Ferguson and Baltimore, Hands United Building Bridges is comprised of Jewish,...
March 20, 2017 Camp Section
Sporting a street-smart bravado and phosphorescent red hair topped with a black fedora, little could hide Samantha Montgomery’s (a.k.a. Princess Shaw) raw edgy talent and endearing awkward vulnerability. The special guest and singer songwriter received a standing...
Baltimore native Marty Mandelberg moved to Norfolk in June 2005 with his wife, Rabbi Rosalin Mandelberg. He immediately went to work at PayDay. For Ohef Sholom Temple’s Religious School, he became the eighth grade teacher, focusing on the Holocaust. He also began...
Originally from Boston, Dorothy Zimmerman moved to Tidewater in 1982 for a job with a psychiatric hospital. She immediately immersed herself in the community—often seen at Chrysler Hall and wherever else art and theater were taking place—and became active in her...
“This year’s trip to New York was fabulous. It changed my perspective on Judaism and I had an awesome time,” says Hannah Yarow, a student at Maury High School. Since 2002, the Norfolk Kollel has annually taken Jewish teens to New York for a weekend to never forget....
Temple Israel’s Outreach Program is not your mother’s outreach. The newly launched series of events that are part of the innovative program are mostly offsite, not necessarily religious, yet still provide a context that shows the warm and welcoming nature of the...
The word my mother, Linda Gissen, sculpted so beautifully, for every congregant to see and be reminded: REMEMBER. Remember the Holocaust. As very young Jewish children, our hearts and minds were indelibly ingrained with images and histories of the Holocaust. We were...
I recently returned from attending my first AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington D.C. I admit that I was overwhelmed by the experience and find it almost impossible to describe the amazing amount of knowledge and emotion I was exposed to at the conference. I can’t...
The annual “Varsity vs. Veterans” charity basketball game to benefit the athletic department of Yashivas Aish Kodesh (YAK) was held in the Jaffe Gym on the Sandler Family Campus on Thursday, March 7. A great crowd supported the cause and took their chances at winning...
It was fishnets and hamentashen as the Temple Israel Players presented their annual Purim spiel to an (almost) SRO crowd last month Temple Israel’s congregation knows to expect the unexpected on Purim: for the past several years, the Players have enriched each Megilla...
The Jewish Museum and Cultural Center continues to present quality educational and cultural arts programming to celebrate and highlight the Jewish legacy and contribution to Tidewater. Sunday, March 3, concluded the successful 2012-2013 lecture series: A Minority in...
NEW YORK (JTA)—We have a love-hate relationship with boundaries. We hate being confined or told what to do. Boundaries limit our individuality, intrude upon what we want to do and sometimes feel like an arbitrary obstacle to getting what we want. For children, limits...
The Beth El Religious School’s eighth and ninth graders listened to Ethiopian refugee Maly Jackson tell her remarkable story on Sunday, Feb. 3. Ethiopian Jews are descended from King Solomon and practice biblical Judaism, which means they do not celebrate Chanukah or...
March is Social Work Month, a time when Jewish Family Service of Tidewater recognizes and salutes its social workers and case managers. The profession of hope—fueled by resilience and advocacy, social workers daily help millions of struggling people dream differently....
Morgan Morrison is a first-year academic advisor for students in the College of Arts & Letters at Old Dominion University. She gave birth to her first child, daughter Chloe, in April 2012. She remembers how tough it was when deciding what to do for childcare. “I...
After years of repression eroded all signs of Jewish life, one organization stepped in after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and recreated a dynamic educational network that spans nine countries, includes 56 projects in 38 locations and serves more than...
If the smiling faces and warm greetings of B’nai Israel Congregation members weren’t enough to make guests feel welcome at a movie screening held at the shul on Monday, Feb. 18, the sight and smell of bags filled with freshly made popcorn convinced moviegoers they...
A team from Temple Israel spent an afternoon volunteering at the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia on Monday, Jan. 21. After a brief introduction and instructional video, the group, which ranged in age from 13 to 75, assisted with quality assurance by assessing...
Rabbi Arthur Ruberg delivered this Shabbat sermon at Congregation Beth El on Feb. 15, 2013 This has been an eventful week in the life of our country and in the world. There are so many topics I could address today. Of those, I’ve decided to talk about the Pope. Maybe...
The matinee showing of Six Million and One brought a crowd of more than 200 to view a moving documentary about the struggle of the second generation after the Holocaust, children of survivors, who cope with the emotional legacy of their parents’ suffering. Pete...
NEW YORK (JTA)—One of the proudest moments of Ed Koch’s life came during a trip to Israel in 1990, in the midst of the first Palestinian intifada. Koch had recently left City Hall after 12 years as mayor of New York City and was touring Jerusalem when a Palestinian...
A little known fact is that Old Dominion University (ODU) sponsors a Jewish book club. What makes this Jewish Writers’ Book Club unique is that it is often facilitated by ODU professors, focuses largely on writings by women authors, and at times meets with the...
In its 20th year, Jewish Family Service’s Chanukah Gift Program asked the community to contribute gifts, gift cards, and money during this past Chanukah holiday to help local Jewish families in need. JFS received donations from individuals, families, groups,...
“We want to work together, we want to communicate together and we want to build and strengthen our community together! We want to do it, we need to do it and the technology is there to do it, so let’s move forward and finally do it! Let us build a community data base...