Southeastern Virginia: Chesapeake • Norfolk • Portsmouth • Suffolk • Virginia Beach
Archives
Dear Readers, While the holidays feel a bit tardy this year (you know how they’re never on time…), it is still hard to believe that it’s the season again for apples and honey and shofar calls and sermons and holiday meals. And, for reflections. We asked some folks for...
This past Wednesday, September 11, marked 79 years since a rejected refugee ship arrived on Tidewater’s shores, sparking a battle of wills that reached all the way to the White House, and the narrow rescue of 81 refugees fleeing the horrors of Nazi-occupied Europe....
Prior to coming to Old Dominion University, I taught at Elizabethtown College in central Pennsylvania. It was there that I met one of my dearest friends, also named Amy, who is one of the college chaplains. When she told me that she was taking her students on an...
Last September, a room filled with members of our community joined together to kick off our 2019 Community Campaign and Arts + Ideas season. The results? An accelerated campaign with a significantly increased level of community support and our ability to meet...
On Sunday, August 18, United Jewish Federation of Tidewater took the first step in creating a coordinated community book burial. This came in response to Rabbi Michael Panitz, who contacted UJFT with a need to bury Temple Israel’s unused Holy books. The act of burying...
Is the suffering of others our own? How do we make emotions explicit and use them positively to teach? Why is it so difficult to accept certain facts? How can history be controversial? These were just a few of an abundance of framing questions that educators...
“My life is a journey of blessings. I am always growing through open-minded, whole-hearted living and am grateful to have the freedom to express love without fear.” —Elyse Tapper Cardon Elyse and David Cardon’s home life is a visual reflection of their love of each...
In some homes, art sits center stage, which is why we’ve made it the focus of this section. Elyse and David Cardon’s Virginia Beach home, for example, is all about expression—art, fun, function, music, entertainment, and love. Artists Jodie Frieden, Abbie Korman, Ivor...
Ask anyone to describe Robert G. “Bob” Liverman, and it’s not long before you’ll hear the word “mensch.” “He’s always doing good things for the Jewish people. He’s always been a mensch, a wonderful human being and Jew,” says his great-nephew Kirk Levy. Liverman, who...
Having the best week of their lives, the members of Team Virginia Beach represented the Simon Family JCC very well at the 2019 JCC Maccabi Games & ArtsFest in Detroit, Michigan, August 4-9. Beyond making many new friends from around the U.S. and the world, the...
If you ever asked my husband Kenny or me if his daughter Mallory would go on a Birthright Israel program—without her family – we would have just laughed and shrugged it off. We wouldn’t even dare to dream such a thing. Mallory has Fragile X syndrome which affects her...
Jewish Holidays 5780 All holidays begin at sundown on the evening before the date listed. Religious Holidays 5780 Rosh Hashanah September 30–October 1, 2019, Jewish New Year Yom Kippur October 9, 2019, Day of Atonement Sukkot October 14–20, 2019, Feast of Tabernacles...
Thousands from across Tidewater joined the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and Simon Family JCC at the Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus to celebrate Israel’s 71st year on a bright, sun-filled day. Israel Fest 2019 was packed with authentic Israeli food, music,...
The 33rd day of the Omer was celebrated this year with beautiful weather and people from all congregations together at the Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus. As in past years, DJ Silver provided celebratory Israeli and Jewish tunes...
Celebrated on the third Sunday in June, Father’s Day was made a permanent national holiday by, you’ll never guess, President Richard Nixon, in 1972. Who knew? Father’s Day is usually filled with cards, gifts, and cookouts…though some dads get lucky and, like most moms...
This past Memorial Day, my family and I went to a few of the local Jewish cemeteries in Tidewater to place American Flags on the graves of those who have, “borne the brunt of battle.” Ever since we moved to the area, some seven years ago, we have made this a family...
The Holocaust Commission of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s month-long 2019 Elie Wiesel Visual Arts exhibit officially closed on May 31. The annual Elie Wiesel Competitions for students include visual arts and writing. TowneBank and the Simon Family...
Exchange program between Eastern Virginia Medical School and Bar-Ilan University Medical School Providing high quality community healthcare services to patients at risk both in America and northern Israel is among the major learning insights of medical students...
Healthcare impacts us all in one way or another. That’s probably why there’s seemingly no limit to articles and shows on the subject, and why we do this section each year. Our first article on page 18 introduces three young Israeli medical students who are...
The College of William and Mary was chartered in 1693. Since then, Jewish life on campus has been difficult, if not scarce, at times. Students got together, met on occasion, tried to find rooms to gather in for holidays, and held occasional social events. Over the...
This year’s Yom Hashoah Commemoration, which honors the victims and survivors of the Holocaust as well as liberators and righteous gentiles, brought the community together to move forward with tolerance and remember those who have fought for justice and fallen to...
This trip will leave you with more questions than answers. That’s what our guide, Avi Marcovitz, told our group as we gathered in Warsaw’s airport. By we, I mean the 23 young adults from across the U.S. and two from South Africa, who had come to Poland to participate...
Nearly 100 community members cycled through the Leon Family Gallery on the Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus on April 30 to tour the exhibit, Home: Lens on Israel, with David Schizer, CEO of the American Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). Home showcases JDC’s impact...
On May 7, in the rainbow glow of a giant Chihuly sculpture at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Virginia Beach, the Women’s Cabinet of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, held its annual Spring Lunch and Installation. Janet Mercadante, outgoing chair,...
While April 1, 2019 wasn’t your typical April Fool’s Day filled with children’s pranks, laughter abounded at a merged UJFT Women’s Cabinet and Women’s Young Adult Division event, hosted by Leora Drory. For the first time, United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s...
Through The Jewish Agency for Israel’s Shlichim (emissaries) program, two Israelis are spending the summer at the Simon Family JCC’s JCamp. Always a special aspect of camp, each year, Shlichim learn about life in Tidewater, as well as about other parts of the U.S....
JCamp’s new director, Eliana Rohrig, has spent a lot of time at camp—as a camper, counselor, and division head—primarily at Camp Ramah in Nyack, N.Y. She spent a semester studying at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, served on Chabad’s General Board in Binghamton, N.Y....
Just as watermelon and humid nights are perfect pairings, so too, are summer days and campers. But, while summer shows up each year, ready or not, attending camp takes some planning—which explains why this section is called, Getting Ready for Summer. Each year, I...
The annual Stein Family College Scholarship of the Tidewater Jewish Foundation was awarded to Faith Rose White, a soon-to-be graduate of Norfolk’s Maury High School. White is the 11th recipient of the four-year scholarship of up to $10,000 per year that is provided to...
Andrew Nusbaum and Eric Miller departed Norfolk on March 31 to attend their first study mission with the National Young Leadership Cabinet in Russia. The National Young Leadership Cabinet, an elite leadership-training program of the Jewish Federations of North...
Ambassador Ido Aharoni, Israel’s longest serving consul-general in New York, overseeing the operations of the Jewish State’s largest diplomatic mission around the globe, will be in Tidewater as part of Israel Today. Israel Today: Wednesday, May 8, 7:30 pm, Ohef Sholom...
The Helen G. Gifford Foundation was established in 1997 with a mission to support local Jewish organizations, the arts, and art education. A lifelong area resident, Helen was born in Portsmouth to Belle and Issac Goodman, owners of The Famous, a women’s fashion store....