Ambassador Ido Aharoni spoke at Ohef Sholom Temple as part of the Community Relations Council of the United Federation of Tidewater and community partners’ 8th annual Israel Today series on Wednesday, May 8. As a member of Israel’s Foreign Service for 25 years, and as...
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Temple Israel holds first Women’s Seder
After a great deal of thought, discussion, planning, negotiating, shopping, cooking, and implementing—not to mention the counting, hard boiling and peeling of no fewer than 96 eggs—Temple Israel held its first Women’s Seder on April 24, 2019. TI member Shirley...
Armed Forces Shabbat at Ohef Sholom
Congresswoman Elaine Luria was Ohef Sholom Temple’s guest speaker for Armed Forces Shabbat on Friday, May 17. She spoke of her experience commanding combatant ships in the Navy, and how this, along with her strong Jewish upbringing, led her to her current position...
More than pain, this book is also about lifestyle
Outsmart Your Pain! The Essential Guide to Overcoming Pain and Transforming Your Life Lisa Barr, MD Illustrations by Tim Sovine Synergy Health Quest, LLC, 2018 ISBN 13: 978-1-7320011-0-7 In the opening pages of Outsmart Your Pain!, Lisa Barr, MD, says, “The science of...

How stuttering helped me accept and embrace my adversities
Growing up in Toronto, I could have seemed like an ordinary kid. But there was something that made me sharply stand out. I stuttered. A lot. It began when I was three years old. My parents were told to ignore it—as “merely a stage in a child’s speech development,”...
Holocaust victims and survivors remembered by City of Virginia Beach mayor
Elie Wiesel poignantly stated, “to forget the Holocaust is to kill twice.” Thus, “we must bear witness [for] the living and the dead.” As Lisa Bertini, Holocaust Commission chair, said at the annual Yom Hashoah commemoration on May 1 at Temple Israel, “…for the...
Shalom Tidewater welcomes new and old to Jewish community
New to Tidewater? Lived here all your life, but are looking to get more involved? The United Jewish Federation of Tidewater would like to offer a special welcome. Through Shalom Tidewater, Carly Glikman, outreach manager, personally delivers welcome information and...
Amy Weinstein is new director of philanthropy at Beth Sholom Village
The new director of philanthropy at Beth Sholom Village is familiar to many people in the Hampton Roads Jewish community. Amy Weinstein spent six years at United Jewish Federation of Tidewater as director of the Young Adult Division, then two years as director of...
How Jewish organizations train people to prevent shootings like the one in Poway
(JTA)—Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein said his Chabad of Poway could not afford to hire an armed guard. Had it been able, or if the government had helped the synagogue bring in one, he believes the deadly attack there Saturday, April 27 could have been averted. “If I had the...
New York Times says its controversial cartoon shows ‘numbness’ to anti-Semitism
The New York Times editorial board said in an editorial published Tuesday, April 30, that the newspaper’s publishing of “an appalling political cartoon” is “evidence of a profound danger—not only of anti-Semitism but of numbness to its creep.” The newspaper also...
HAT’s Science Fair 2019
Fourth and fifth grade students at Hebrew Academy of Tidewater spent myriad hours of study and planning to prepare for the school’s recent Science Fair, the capstone of weeks of hard work. Almost 100 visitors attended this year, along with HAT’s familiar and dedicated...

In re-electing Netanyahu, Israelis chose stability
(JTA)—After the smoke clears from this contentious Israeli election, which amounted to a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tenure, the question remains: How did he win again? As Israel’s former U.S. Ambassador Michael Oren said, “Our economy is...
YAD’s leadership dinner with Matti Friedman
Past, present and future leaders of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s Young Adult Division (YAD) gathered to hear the Community Relations Council’s Israel Today speaker Matti Friedman, and enjoy dinner and cocktails on Tuesday, May 10. YAD offers different...
Father’s Day
Dear Readers, In honor of Father’s Day, we asked a few daughters and sons who work with their dads to write a couple of paragraphs about the experience of spending their adult lives alongside their fathers. The responses were incredibly passionate, respectful,...
Three Jewish takeaways from Bernie Sanders’ run for president
(JTA)—Hillary Clinton is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. But that’s not the end for Bernie Sanders, by far the most successful Jewish presidential candidate in American history. The Independent Vermont senator is defiant and says he’s taking the fight...
From the Hal Sacks Jewish News Archives
June 23, 2006 Cantor Jennifer Bern-Vogel of Ohef Sholom Temple sang the National Anthem to open the Tides game at Harbor Park. Attendance that night was 8,606, including 118 from Ohef Sholom as part of the Men’s Club Annual Tides Picnic. June 7, 1996 The board of...
Donald Trump’s anti-Semitism controversies: A timeline
NEW YORK (JTA)—Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is facing growing accusations that his campaign is countenancing anti-Semitism— if not encouraging it outright. Trump’s foreign policy slogan, “America First,” echoes the World War II -era...
One dollar goes a long way at United Jewish Federation of Tidewater
“Charity is not something we wait to do when we feel like it. We know if we wait to be inspired the inspiration may never arrive,” says Karen Jaffe, chair of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater Annual Campaign. “So we perform acts of righteousness, whether or...
It’s all Come Together
Year-long Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus renovation project is complete For the past 12 months, the sounds of children’s voices and clacking keyboards mingled with those of hammers and drills in the classroom hallways, offices and common areas at 5000 Corporate...
Health Care in the Jewish community
Israeli-developed HyGIeaCare® Center now open in collaboration with Gastrointestinal & Liver Specialists of Tidewater A new HyGIeaCare Center, where patients experience simple and easy bowel prep on the same day as their scheduled colonoscopy, recently opened at...
And the winner is… Brian Cohn, 6th grade student
For the fourth consecutive year, Tidewater students had the opportunity to learn some “cool facts” about Israel and share what they learned by creating original works of art. The 4th Annual Israel Poster Contest, sponsored by the Community Relations Council of the...
The Simon Family JCC celebrates its Biennial Meeting as its staff merges with the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater
Wednesday, June 15, 7 pm The United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and Simon Family JCC are merging. Starting in January of 2016, JCC leadership initiated a plan for the Center and UJFT to combine resources, creating a stronger staff to support both the Federation and...
Local Lions of Judah welcome Jeannie Opdyke Smith to Tidewater
Yom HaShoah speaker Jeannie Opdyke Smith came to Tidewater a little early to meet with a special group of women. Thirty local Lions of Judah (Jewish women advocates and donors of $5,000 or greater to the UJFT annual campaign) met for lunch with Smith to hear in an...
Respect and hope mark community’s 2016 Yom Hashoah Holocaust Day of Remembrance gathering
From Wendy Juren Auerbach’s heartfelt welcome on behalf of the Holocaust Commission of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater to Jay Klebanoff’s respectful closing remarks as UJFT president, Tidewater’s 2016 Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Day of Remembrance was a...
Hebrew Academy students write pen pals in Kiryat Yam
Snail mail. Almost a lost art form, yes? Not for Hebrew Academy of Tidewater students. The sending and receiving of hand-written letters with new Israeli pen pals has become a fun way to broaden world perspectives, develop their cognitive and creative abilities and...
Six ways Israel is counting its blessings on Independence Day
TEL AVIV (JTA)—When Israel entered its 1948 War of Independence, the coastal city of Rishon Lezion was a hardscrabble farming settlement with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants. As waves of immigrants inundated Israel in its founding years, many were settled in temporary...
Choose Life
Most rabbis have the luxury of building relationships with their congregants that grow and change over the course of decades. They get to see their congregants’ life cycle events, be with them during times of joy and grieve with them during times of sorrow. The...
From the Hal Sacks Jewish News Archive
May 19, 2006 The Women’s Cabinet Outreach Committee of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, co-chaired by Judy Rubin and Ellen Peck Rosenblum, held two tours of the Chrysler Museum focused on works by contemporary Jewish artists. May 24, 1996 Ada Michaels, who...
Naro Expanded Cinema’s presentation of The Occupation of the American Mind: Israel’s Public Relations War in the U.S. skews the truth
On Wednesday, May 4, the Naro Cinema presented The Occupation of the American Mind: Israel’s Public Relations War in the U.S. This film is an extremely skewed propaganda piece for the ‘Israel as evil occupier camp;’ those who believe Palestinian suffering is primarily...
Preschool hoop house full of hope Enriching the lives of little seedlings
A visit to the Strelitz Early Childhood Education Center’s garden reveals some changes. In fact, some rather sizable changes—an eight-foot tall caterpillar, to be exact. Situated next to the garden beds in the back yard of the Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus, the...
Seder at Strelitz
On Tuesday, April 19, the Strelitz Early Childhood Center held an educational and fun Model Passover Seder. Preschool parents were invited to attend with their children. Together, parents and children sang Passover songs, tasted Passover foods, and the children...
Rabbi Arthur Z. Steinberg
February 7, 1938–April 10, 2016 Rabbi Rosalin Mandelberg delivered the eulogy for Rabbi Arthur Z. Steinberg at Ohef Sholom Temple. An abbreviated version follows Heart-broken and sorrow filled, as we gather to remember our beloved Rabbi Arthur Z. Steinberg, we reflect...