By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist It’s a purple garden in a purple house. The purple house is real. It’s Ruz Gulko’s home in Bellevue and a local landmark. The purple garden — Gan Argamam in Hebrew — is a metaphor and the name of the Jewish lab, or experimental school,Continue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist I recently received an e-mail from Amy Gray. She told me my closets were dusty. How did she know, I wondered? She really wasn’t being rude. The e-mail was actually for clients and friends of Empty Your Nest Professional Organizing (www.emptyyournest.com). Amy has been inContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist Northwest Yeshiva High School grad Gilah Kletenik spent eight weeks this summer on an Orthodox Union-sponsored Congressional internship program in the other Washington. Gilah discovered the program when she was a Lieberman scholar in high school, a related OU program. She learned to be aContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist On a quiet dead-end street in Seattle’s Madrona neighborhood, Zachary Self and Aaron Walker-Loud have set up shop, doing that enviable thing: blending professional work and the art they love. In a combination recording studio and music school, Zach mixes sound in the basement whileContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist Many readers may remember the Bar and Bat Mitzvah twinning program of the 1980s, which paired Soviet Jews denied the right to practice their religion with young Americans who were becoming Jewish adults. The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous has spun off on this ideaContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist Although Rabbi Anson Laytner has served in a variety of professional positions in Seattle over the years, and is currently the director of the Greater Seattle chapter of the American Jewish Committee, he’s had a long standing avocation as a member of the Sino-Judaic InstituteContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist Lysa Adams is determined to raise money to fight the auto-immune disease lupus and set a record at the same time. On August 17, 18 and 19, Lysa and more than 70 other skydivers will jump out of four planes over the skies of WesternContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist Jewish Day School faculty member Nance Adler has been awarded a Legacy Heritage Jewish Communal Scholarship for summer study at the Conservative Yeshiva of United Synagogue in Israel. The Conservative yeshiva summer program in Jerusalem provides an opportunity to study the classic texts of Judaism,Continue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist I interviewed Rachel Berry by e-mail while she was en route to China to begin a round-the-world trip. “This is a dream trip that my best friend from college and I have been planning for a number of years. We started off visiting my familyContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist Miriam Bensky and I have something unusual in common. When I asked her recently where she grew up, she answered “Asia.” Much to her surprise, I answered, “Me, too!” It turns out Bensky and I are both Foreign Service “brats.” Her dad is still workingContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist If you watch the National Geographic channel’s “Is It Real?” series, you may have seen Steven Blum in the segment on feral children. You probably wouldn’t have recognized him, however. He was wearing a long black wig, a loincloth over shorts and was covered withContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist Seattle Jewish community activists Alice and Art Siegel were honored last Friday for their long-standing involvement and contributions to the African-American Jewish Coalition for Justice, along with Thad and Lois Spratlen. The recognition came during the AAJCJ’s first annual appreciation lunch, held at the RainierContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist North Seattle resident Jill Cohen got to use a few of her 15 minutes of fame when she was quoted in the April 9, 2007, edition of People magazine. The quote concerned Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Presidential hopeful John Edwards, and her announcement that sheContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist The media have cast lobbyists and lobbying in a negative light lately, from the Jack Abramoff scandal to questions of whether lobbyists should be able to buy legislators lunch. (No!) But what is life like for a lobbyist “on the ground?” To find out IContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist There’s no doubt that Phil Levin is passionate about his job. This enthusiasm is one reason the board of the Seattle Aquarium gave him their conservation research award, donating $10,000 to the aquarium’s research center in his name earlier this year. A community ecologist, conservationContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist Freelance writer Michelle Goodman has been sharing her experience and advice with other self-employed writers for a long time, so it was logical that her first book be The Anti 9-to-5 Guide: Practical Career Advice for Women Who Think Outside the Cube. The book launchesContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist Deborah Rosen of Mercer Island has been nominated to serve as a national vice-president of the American Jewish Committee. She’ll be formally elected at the AJCommittee annual meeting in Washington, D.C., this May and will be the first Washington state resident to serve as aContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist Long-time Seattle resident Meta Buttnick was honored in her home state of Alaska in November. The occasion was a fund-raising dinner to benefit the nascent Alaska Jewish Historical Society Museum and Community Center, a project of Rabbi Joseph Greenberg of Chabad in Anchorage. Ninety-three-year-old ButtnickContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist For Sol Sylvan, it all started with a party. A family reunion, that is. In the process of preparing for the 1995 event, “a first cousin of mine wanted to find members of the family we hadn’t heard from in a while,” explains Sylvan, whoContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist Diana Brement JTNews Columnist For their many years of support of Pacific Lutheran University, Kurt and Pam Mayer of Tacoma recently received a special recognition award from the university. Kurt recently concluded 10 years of service on the school’s board of regents, the only JewishContinue Reading
