By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist Northwest Yeshiva graduate Yishai Mizrachi-Varon (2005) has been in Israel this summer as a fellowship recipient of the PresenTense Global Institute. A Baruch College student in New York, Yishai has been working in an unpaid internship at Shemspeed, a Jewish world-music recording label and promotionContinue Reading
By Rivy Poupko Kletenik, JTNews Columnist Dear Rivy, Have you noticed the amount of cooking shows on TV? What is this? Have we as a society become obsessed with food? Frankly, how many ways can there be to prepare our victuals? Enough already! The hedonism is getting beyond any basicContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist 1 “Mr. Grosskopf is going to Hungary!” At least that’s the way it was reported in the halls of Seattle’s Roosevelt High School this spring as word spread of the Language Arts teacher’s upcoming year abroad. An article in the school paper informed me thatContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist “Why Rwanda…?” is probably what most people think when they find out Shelly Anne Rosen is making a second home in that African country, even if they’re too polite to say it. The Seattle native — whose family has lived here since about 1912 —Continue Reading
By Rivy Poupko Kletenik, JTNews Columnist Dear Rivy, Is the world coming to an end? The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is the latest Pandora-like circumstance to plague mankind. Except Pandora opened her box out of curiosity while BP drilled the depths of the sea with greed andContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist Local families whose kids attend Camp Ramah in Ojai, California may like to know that Portland native Rabbi Joseph M. Menashe will become the camp’s next executive director, succeeding Rabbi Daniel Greyber. Rabbi Joe has been associate rabbi at the Conservative Congregation Shearith Israel inContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist It was my kids who spotted Maxx Yamasaki’s name in the Seattle Times. (Yes! My kids read the newspaper!) “Hey, we went to camp [Kalsman] with him!” they said, pointing to the page. Maxx, the son of Aleen Kaplan Yamasaki and Psuguhito Yamasaki, was oneContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist Olympia resident Danny Kadden has taken over the executive director position of Interfaith Works in Olympia. JTNews readers may know Danny from his work on Holocaust reparation in the state insurance commissioner’s office, which he still does. Danny heard about the new part-time position throughContinue Reading
By Rivy Poupko Kletenik, JTNews Columnist Dear Rivy, My husband and I have just moved back to Seattle. I am a native Pacific Northwestener and as such get great joy from being outdoors. Not so for my New Yorker husband. It is only despite many an objection that I amContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist When Judith Shahn isn’t teaching at the University of Washington School of Drama’s Professional Actor Training Program, she works on public speaking skills with professionals of all sorts through her business, Vibrant Speaking. She recently taught an “Empowering Your Voice” class to lawyers at aContinue Reading
By Rivy Poupko Kletenik, JTNews Columnist Dear Rivy, Knowing that your father has just passed away I thought it would be timely to ask about the mirrors in a house of mourning. I recall the practice of covering all the mirrors in the house from my childhood, when my parentsContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist All Bar and Bat Mitzvah kids are special, but Andrew and Esther Schorr of Mercer Island can be allowed a little leeway in thinking their son, Eitan is even more special — in fact they call him their “miracle baby.” In 1996 Andrew was diagnosedContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist Bellevue residents Nathan Hemphill and Jonathan Newman, both age 16, put together a team this year to compete in the Big Climb for Leukemia and Lymphoma. They called their group Seattle Stride and made the 1,311-step climb up the Columbia Center on Sunday, March 21.Continue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist Lice Knowing You. No, that’s not a typo. It’s Nancy Gordon’s new lice-removal salon on Mercer Island. After running a mobile business for three years, “I decided to go to the salon model for a variety of reasons,” she says. Customers asked for it, sheContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist The 11 Washington State youth who participated in Nesiya’s six-week summer program in Israel are busy finishing up the year of community service that program requires. Local coordinator Joy Maimon told me that the community service component distinguishes Nesiya from other Israel travel programs forContinue Reading
By Rivy Poupko Kletenik, JTNews Columnist Dear Rivy: Every year, as the seder gets to the point of opening the door for Elijah, it reminds me of the yearly squabble that would ensue when we were kids about who got to open the door. It was always my older sister’sContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, Jewish Sound Columnist We Washingtonians are a bookish lot (Seattle once again has topped the list of most literate U.S. cities, according to a survey by Jack Miller, the president of Central Connecticut State University). This results not only in a lot of book reading, but aContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist Rabbi Harry Zeitlin is one of those multi-faceted, multi-talented people — photographer, musician, composer, plus he runs a small teaching synagogue, Beit Ha’Ari. Located above a small suite of offices in Seattle’s Wedgwood, we met there for a widely digressing interview earlier this month. “AsContinue Reading
By Rivy Poupko Kletenik, JTNews Columnist Dear Rivy, Thinking about the story of Esther often leaves me deeply confused and disturbed. Though the holiday of Purim is festive and celebratory with a seemingly happy-ever-after ending, elements of the story give me great pause. There are questions that seem to resurfaceContinue Reading
By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist Matt Lemchen, BBYO program director for the Evergreen region of Washington, Oregon and Northwest Canada, was recently awarded the International BBYO Arnie Weiner Award for Professional Excellence in Furthering the Principles of AZA and BBG, BBYO’s young men’s and young women’s divisions. The award isContinue Reading
