By Rivy Poupko Kletenik, JTNews Columnist Dear Rivy, Every year, my children come home from Hebrew School telling me that their teachers told them that they should not go “trick or treating” on Halloween, and that Halloween is not for Jewish children. I tell them that there is nothing wrongContinue Reading
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 Rivy Poupko Kletenik, JTNews Columnist Dear Rivy, Around January 1 every year there is a lot of talk about New Year’s Resolutions. Do we Jews have anything like that at Rosh Hashanah time? Though we have the whole repentance, t’shuvah thing happening, which is far more intense and introspectiveContinue 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 Rivy Poupko Kletenik, JTNews Columnist Dear Rivy, As we prepare to dip that apple in honey and to get into gear for major honey cake baking, I wonder about the theme of sweetness at this time of year. Rosh Hashanah is a time of judgment, introspection and somber reflection.Continue 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 Rivy Poupko Kletenik, JTNews Columnist Dear Rivy, My father recently passed away and I find myself saying the Kaddish prayer on a daily basis. Even after reading it over many times, I still don’t understand the connection between it and the death of my father. I hear Kaddish saidContinue 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 Rivy Poupko Kletenik, JTNews Columnist Dear Rivy, I am pretty new to Judaism, taking a few classes here and there, and often find that it’s all about thinking and intellectual arguing. I’m not such a left-brain person and I struggle with the Torah’s emphasis on intellectual pursuits. My trulyContinue 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 Rivy Poupko Kletenik, JTNews Columnist Dear Rivy, After seeing the movie The Secret I purchased the book and have become very drawn to this approach to life. Friends have suggested that the whole Secret phenomenon is not only ridiculous, but a not very Jewish attitude to life. What doContinue 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 Rivy Poupko Kletenik, JTNews Columnist Dear Rivy, As we process the horrific shootings in Virginia Tech I, cannot help but wonder about the Jewish approach to this kind of senseless loss of life. Why were these people killed? Was this their fate? Why does God allow these kinds ofContinue 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
