By Donna Gordon Blankinship, Editor, JTNews Remember the gym teacher who talked you into jumping off the high dive even though you were afraid? He works at the Stroum Jewish Community Center now, where he’s inspiring the staff and volunteers to reach new heights. Barry Sohn took over as directorContinue Reading

By Manny Frishberg, JTNews Correspondent One of the things he finds most surprising about the changing situation in the Middle East conflict, said Steve Rosen, director of Foreign Policy Issues Department for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), is that George W. Bush has adopted essentially the same conclusionsContinue Reading

By Hally Jackson, Special to JTNews After two decades as executive director at the JCC, Gary Pollock is pitching for a new team, The Moyer Foundation. “There were a number of opportunities, both Jewish communal and corporate, which came my way. After meeting with [Mariner’s pitcher] Jamie and Karen MoyerContinue Reading

By Rita Weinstein, Special to JTNews From Temple B’nai Torah’s beginnings in 1968, conducting services with a small Torah rescued from the Holocaust, through rebuilding after a devastating arson fire in 1977, TBT has led a diverse Jewish community to a place of leadership in Western Washington. Now, as theContinue Reading

By Donna Gordon Blankinship, Editor, JTNews This summer marks the 100th anniversary of Jewish camping in North America. The Foundation for Jewish Camping even sent out a big press packet about this momentous occasion. Start a conversation with a kid at Camp Solomon Schechter, however, and centennials are the farthestContinue Reading

By Joshua Rosenstein, JTNews Correspondent When recent Jewish Day School grad Joshua Niehaus left Seattle for a year in Israel on Hadassah’s Young Judaea program, he was expecting to have fun, meet girls and party. “I wasn’t even afraid,” says Niehaus. “I was just going to be a spectator, watchingContinue Reading

By Donna Gordon Blankinship, Editor, JTNews When Jay Rosenbaum’s dad made a mid-life change from the world of advertising to become a rabbi, the kids used to tease him — he didn’t change careers, he just got a new employer. Rabbi Nathan Rosenbaum was the spiritual leader of Temple BethContinue Reading

By Joshua Rosenstein, other Twelve and a half years after Tikvah House opened, the Seattle Association for the Jewish Disabled (SAJD) will be closing its group home for adults with developmental disabilities. In its place the SAJD is launching a new program called the Independent Living Project (ILP) in whichContinue Reading

By Jessica Davis, JTNews Correspondent For Jewish playwright Sharyn Shipley, this year’s Mae West Fest is an opportunity to produce the premiere of a play written especially for her mother. Her one-act joins a collection of 26 other new works by female writers, dancers, poets, performance artists and musicians, inContinue Reading

By Karen Treiger, Special to JTNews As we wound our way up through the mountains in the desert landscape, we could almost imagine that we were ascending the hills of Jerusalem. But that was not the case. We were in the Cascade Mountains on our way to Sun River, Ore.Continue Reading