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The Tidewater Jewish community was fired up on Thursday, May 3 for its annual Lag B’Omer Bash. This year’s event, hosted by the Simon Family JCC, the Young Adult Division of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, and Chabad of Tidewater, attracted nearly 200...
The ceremony began on a sunny spring morning beside a single dugout grave and a pile of dirt. On Sunday, April 15, 15 middle schoolers from Ohef Sholom Temple buried 1,000 worn-out prayer books in the Tree of Life section at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Norfolk. Everyone...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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)...
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...
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...
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...
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....
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 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....
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 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...
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....
It must be in her DNA. Leyla Sandler, LCSW, spends her life helping others, whether in her “day job” or when she has “time off.” Sandler’s “day job” is spent as an investigative social worker on child abuse cases in Washington, D.C. Her recent “time off” was spent...
The Tidewater Jewish community joins with the Jewish Community Federation of Richmond and the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington in their statements of condemnation following the Virginia State Bar’s decision to cancel their Midyear Legal Seminar...
(JTA)—Last summer our family went to southern Europe on holiday. During our stay at a hotel, our son Dylan went to the swimming pool. A short time later he came running back to the room, upset. A man at the pool had started hurling insults at him. My first instinct...
The Virginia State Bar canceled its plans to hold a legal seminar in Jerusalem, citing “unacceptable discriminatory policies and practices pertaining to border security.” The Midyear Legal Seminar trip to Jerusalem had been scheduled for November, according to the...
Dear Readers, Passover begins this year on Friday evening, April 3. Nineteen years ago, the first seder also took place on April 3. Why do I remember? My daughter, who will be 19 on April 4, was letting me know in her own gentle way that she was ready to make her very...
There have been funerals of significant Jewish business and philanthropic leaders over the years in Hampton Roads, but not of many prominent political figures who observed our faith. Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera E. Oberndorf was one of the few. The memorial service in...
It was a night of reconnecting as women from past Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project Israel trips came together at the home of Marcy Mostofsky to make mishloach manot (gifts of food between friends) for the residents of Beth Sholom Home to be delivered on Purim. The...
Want to be a better problem solver? Play chess. That’s what Hebrew Academy of Tidewater students do who participate in the Chess Club, under the guidance and expertise of local master chess player, Rabbi Michael Panitz. Rabbi Panitz, who volunteers his skills at HAT,...
Millions of Americans who live on the brink of hunger are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet as the winter’s record snowfalls hit many parts of the country. Nearly 70 percent of the households served by Feeding America report that their most common...
For the past 113 years, through several generations of change, the Relief Committee of Hebrew Ladies Charity Society (HLCS) has honored its mission of meeting the needs of local Jewish families requiring urgent financial assistance. The organization has provided food...
The Young Adult Division of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater threw the craziest Purim party in town on the evening of Saturday, March 7. Nearly 200 revelers joined in the circus-themed fun and dressed up to walk the red carpet at the Sandler Family Campus of...
Thousands of pro-Israel activists gathered in Washington, D.C. March 1-3, 2015 for the largest-ever American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference to reaffirm the broad bipartisan consensus in support of the U.S.-Israel relationship. With violence...
Documentary premieres to standing room only crowd As somber music plays in the background, the prow of a boat cuts through dark waves in the dramatic opening scene of a new documentary about the Tidewater Jewish community. A narrator’s voice begins over an illustrated...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The Obama administration’s first response to news that Benjamin Netanyahu had been reelected as prime minister of Israel appeared to be avoidance. White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Wednesday, March 18 that the president would wait...