The Tidewater Jewish Federation Grants process was created to have an impact on the Tidewater Jewish and general community by providing funding for new and innovative projects that focus on the social, welfare, health, education, community relations, and cultural...
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Scholar highlights Jewish traditions on beer and horseradish
Most people would think twice before mixing horseradish and beer. However, Josh Kulp, the rosh (head) of the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem, covered both topics during his weekend visit to Norfolk in March as scholar-in-residence for Congregation Beth El and Temple...
Eyal Rob lectures, spins in Tidewater
Co-founder of Israel’s first music television channel, Israeli journalist, culture critic, and DJ, Eyal Rob brought the Tel Aviv music scene to Tidewater last month. His visit concluded the Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s...
Not your parents’ Science Fair
For anyone who ever wondered if a Yeti coffee cup really does keep coffee hotter than other competing cups, Shayna Friedman, a fourth-grade student at Hebrew Academy of Tidewater, answered this question through her Science Fair project. On Thursday, April 17, Hebrew...
Natalie Portman explains why she won’t accept prize in Israel: It’s about Netanyahu
Natalie Portman said she wouldn’t attend a prize ceremony in Israel because of her feelings about its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and “atrocities” committed on his watch, but emphasized that she would not shun Israel itself. The Jerusalem-born director and...
RBG filmmakers hope to inspire Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s millennial fans
NEW YORK (JTA)—One of the first scenes in a new documentary about Ruth Bader Ginsburg features the Supreme Court associate justice, then 84, vigorously lifting weights, doing leg exercises and holding herself in a plank position. The much buzzed-about workout routine...
Color Run to Color War
On Sunday, April 29, BINA students turned the field at the Simon Family JCC into a new form of a rainbow. The girls had a Color Run to raise money to use for conventions and programs with other communities. Most of the student body (along with a few future students)...
Lessons quickly learned from What We Carry
The following letter was sent last month to Elena Baum, director of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s Holocaust Commission: I am writing to you from Princess Anne Middle School. I am a school counselor here and wanted to reach out to you to thank you personally...
Israel Story enthralls Tidewater audience
In May 1967, the world heard the song Yerushalayim Shel Zahav, Jerusalem of Gold, for the first time as Shuli Nathan stood on stage and sang the words written by Naomi Shemer. At the time, the Old City of Jerusalem was still under control of the Jordanians, and the...
Holly Berger Markhoff art at Stravitz Galleries Through May
A contemporary mixed media artist known for her emotive figurative and expressionist paintings, Holly Berger Markhoff’s stunning paintings are now on exhibit at Richard Stravitz Sculpture & Fine Art Galleries in Virginia Beach. Influenced by the elongated figures...
Yom Hashoah moves the community
This year’s Yom Hashoah Commemoration, honoring the victims and survivors of the Holocaust, as well as liberators and righteous gentiles, brought the community together around not just awareness and sadness, but honor and hope for the future. Yom Hashoah co-chair Elka...
Harry Graber Retirement
A Mother’s Day reflection on choices
When I was a little girl until well into college, I didn’t dream of weddings, having children or a house with a white picket fence. I wanted to be a criminal defense lawyer and live in Chicago and defend big time scoundrels. That was my fairytale. It was a bit film...
Time for Women
Dear Readers, Since Mother’s Day is celebrated in May, this month always feels like an appropriate time to focus on women. While being a mom is without a doubt one of the most rewarding, loving, exhilarating and important roles a woman can undertake, it’s not the only...
Recycling toilet water and four other Israeli answers to California’s drought
TEL AVIV (JTA)—For help facing its worst drought in centuries, California should look to a country that beat its own chronic water shortage: Israel. Until a few years ago, Israel’s wells seemed like they were always running dry. TV commercials urged Israelis to...
Thoughts on 2015 Tidewater Together speaker Rabbi Sharon Brous
Rabbi Sharon Brous was the guest teacher at the annual Tidewater Together program last month. Named one of America’s most influential rabbis by Newsweek, The Forward and The Jewish Week, she offered a prayer at President Obama’s 2012 Inauguration ceremony and...
Israeli and Jewish groups on frontline of Nepal earthquake relief efforts
After a devastating earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale hit the impoverished mountainous country of Nepal last month, killing more than 5,000 people, Israeli and Jewish humanitarian and governmental organizations assumed their traditional role on the...
To choose a heroine
Today I voted. For a woman. Today I joined the movement “Woman on 20s,” which is encouraging the president to have a woman’s face replace Andrew Jackson’s on the $20 bill. I was taken by this idea for the same reason as hundreds of thousands of Americans—It’s time. As...
Literacy: How do preschoolers develop reading skills?
Teaching literacy in preschool involves helping students develop readiness skills to read and comprehend. As early as two years old, children begin building these skills. Strelitz Early Childhood Center teaches literacy, preparing students for kindergarten and the...
Summer Institute for Jewish Living holds 40-year reunion
In the summer of 1974, 15 local teenagers experienced an amazing month-long adventure in Israel. The trip followed a month of Judaic study taught by two Brandeis University graduate students and Hebrew taught by Froike Inbar, Community Shaliach, at the Jewish...
Historical anniversaries, the struggle for racial equality and Pesach
I’ll start by sharing with you that yesterday, April 9, was a special day for Miriam and me. It was our 37th anniversary. We were married just before Pesach in 1978, and since that date often coincides with Pesach, we’ve celebrated with lots of macaroons and matzah...
When El Al flew to Tehran
9 other things you may not know about Israel’s past (JTA)—Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, falls on April 23. In honor of the Jewish state’s 67th birthday, we present, in no particular order, 10 little- known aspects of its history. 1. El Al used to fly to...
The Tom Hofheimer Medical Mission
Supporting myriad programs, including Magical Chairs, clinics and exchanges The first part of this series ( Jewish News, March 23, 2015) described how the Tom Hofheimer Fund brought Israeli reconstructive plastic surgeons to Tidewater to study with local specialists....
Pew study: Muslims to overtake American Jews by 2050
NEW YORK (JTA)—In 20 years, there will be more Muslims in North America than Jews, according to a new Pew Research Center report. The report, which was released Thursday, April 2 also found that more American Jews are leaving Judaism than non-Jews are joining the...
Ben & Jerry’s charoset and 10 more Passover ice cream ideas
A few weeks after Ben & Jerry’s founders indicated that marijuana- infused ice cream may one day join its product line, the company’s kosher-for-Passover charoset flavor has been generating buzz. In case your memories of last year’s seder are blurred by too many...
Scrambled Egg Potato Muffins for a kid-friendly Passover breakfast
Passover is bad enough without having to feed your kids, too. And breakfast during Passover can be pretty tricky: no toast, no oatmeal, no (palatable) cereal and no traditional syrup-drenched pancakes. Aside from making matzah brei every day, the options are somewhat...
Annual Book Fair transports students to a magical literary world
Hebrew Academy of Tidewater and the Strelitz preschool logged another successful event with this year’s 8th Annual Book Fair. Raising more than $6,000, the March affair was filled with great excitement, bringing students and families together over a love of reading....
YAD bowls a strike
The Young Adult Division’s Girls Night Out and Guys Night Out programs joined forces for a fun and friendly night of bowling competition on Saturday, March 21. For more than two hours, three teams of young adults went head to head to see who could make the most...
Two Israeli counselors join Camp JCC staff this summer
Two Israeli Scouts (Tzofim) will play an integral part of all eight weeks of Camp JCC this summer. These teenage girls, Hagar Sella and Shay Lopatner, are eager to join campers and counselors in Tidewater and are already working hard to be part of the Camp JCC staff....
Temple Sinai in Newport News named to Virginia Historic Register
Home of the only established Reform Jewish congregation on the Peninsula, Temple Sinai has been added to the Virginia Historic Register. At a joint meeting of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources State Review Board and the Board of Historic Resources, the...
Mary Catenaccio: Kosher Italian
Mary Catenaccio is a lively, mobile and very vocal 106-year-old resident at Beth Sholom Village. That information alone is a good enough story. However, as with many BSV residents, there is so much more to Mary. Russian Jewish immigrants, Mary’s parents moved to the...
Save one life, save a world
Dr. Ofer Merin speaks to Tidewater community Israel has long been known as a lone democracy in a region torn apart by ethnic and religious conflict. But what might be less known is Israel’s unparalleled efforts of sending medical rescue delegations to disaster zones....
