By Ruti Cohenca, Special to JTNews As part of the celebration of Purim, Jews in Persia sent gifts of food to their friends — shalach manot. We have continued this tradition. This is a fun and easy mitzvah because you do some cooking and/or shopping, and then deliver treats toContinue Reading
By Emily K. Alhadeff, Associate Editor, JTNews Seventy-two hours after an earthquake devastated Haiti in 2010, Israel was the only country to have a mobile field hospital up and running in Port-au-Prince. From his home in New York, William Recant watched the relief effort take shape on TV. Recant, theContinue Reading
By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews In honor of the 90th birthday of The Jewish Transcript/JTNews, we will be hosting a number of initiatives over the next several months to celebrate this banner year, starting with the launch of our online archives. Fire up your web browser and head on overContinue Reading
By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent Tradition will always reign at Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation in Seattle. Its new rabbi, English-born Ben Hassan, whose family hails from Gibraltar and Morocco, hopes to start some new ones this year. SBH’s hazzan of 20 years, Rabbi Frank Varon, will still chant the prayersContinue Reading
By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews It took six months, $5 million, and a lot of work both in fundraising and construction to reach the moment on Feb. 8 that filled the new theater at the Stroum Jewish Community Center on Mercer Island. What was once a dark, uncomfortable room hasContinue Reading
By Emily K. Alhadeff, Associate Editor, JTNews The Feb. 7 announcement by Spanish minister of justice Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon of the introduction of a bill to offer Sephardic Jews Spanish citizenship has caused quite a stir. On one hand, the Federation of Jewish Communities in Spain has been bombarded with phoneContinue Reading
As the founding chair of Israel advocacy group StandWithUs Northwest, Basker is now a public speaker on modern Israel, its politics, government, people, and the Israel-Palestinian conflict runs Broader View — Beyond the Headlines: Context and Perspectives on Israel and the Middle East.Continue Reading
By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews Hillel at the University of Washington was evacuated Monday afternoon after a fired employee threatened to cause an explosion in the building. Police shut down streets in Seattle’s University District after receiving a call from employees about the threats. No one was injured. Police believeContinue Reading
By Emily K. Alhadeff, Associate Editor, JTNews Two things in life are unavoidable: Death and taxes. And no one wants to talk about either of them. Yet most of us have had to deal with loss, which can come with a menu of grief, shock, confusion, and conflict. This isContinue Reading
By Hillel Kuttler , Special to JTNews East Rutherford, N.J. — When Rachel Horvitz took her seat high in the corner of the end zone for Super Bowl XLVIII late Sunday afternoon, her blue Seahawks sweatshirt was rendered invisible in a sea of Denver Broncos orange. By late in theContinue Reading
By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews Activists from both sides of the issue created a line that stretched around the legislative building on Jan. 28 as state lawmakers held a hearing on Initiative 594, which if passed will require background checks on any sale of a firearm in Washington State. TheContinue Reading
By Janis Siegel , JTNews Correspondent Whether they’re roasted, honey-covered, chocolate-dipped, spicy, salted, or just raw and out of the shell, people around the world love peanuts. In the U.S., that’s especially true during heated sports matches. But Israel’s prolific and lucrative peanut crops were turning out more and moreContinue Reading
By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews Earlier this month, Andy Stern, the former president of the Service Employees International Union, came through Seattle to talk about jobs and our country’s economic future. On the heels of the inauguration of socialist city councilmember Kshama Sawant and the narrow passage of a $15Continue Reading
By Emily K. Alhadeff , Associate Editor, JTNews This is a year of milestone birthdays: The University of Washington’s Stroum Center for Jewish Studies is celebrating its 40th, JTNews its 90th, and the Caroline Kline Galland Home its 100th. But here’s one you might not know about: The Hebrew FreeContinue Reading
By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews We asked, you responded. And respond you did, in record numbers! With our annual reader’s choice poll, we’ve got the skinny on the best of the best of Jewish Washington. We slimmed down and rearranged this year’s survey, and we’ll slim down our comments asContinue Reading
By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews Rather than have us write about them, we thought we’d let our readers tell their stories: | Local educator Beth Huppin, “for her devotion to her students, young and old.” | Cantor David Serkin-Poole of Temple B’nai Torah, “champion of the disabled, fighter for civilContinue Reading
By Emily K. Alhadeff , Associate Editor, JTNews When you hear the word “Sephardic,” what comes to mind? Bourekas? A distant Mediterranean land? Swarthy Jews eating piles of rice on Passover? Sephardic Judaism is a somewhat mysterious concept to Jews around the United States, especially outside the communal pockets likeContinue Reading
By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent It might sound like one of those familiar jokes — a rabbi, a priest and an imam meet in heaven or are in a sinking boat, and so on, but when three religion ethics groups — one Christian, one Jewish, and one Muslim — gotContinue Reading
By Dikla Tuchman, JTNews Correspondent On Sun., Jan. 12, the Eastside Torah Center said goodbye to its small, too-crowded space on 156th Ave. NE in Bellevue and hello to its newly built facility at 16199 Northup Way, just a half mile up the road. The dedication of the new EastsideContinue Reading
By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews In a statement released by the University of Washington’s president, Michael K. Young, and its provost, Ana Mari Cauce, the UW has joined with more than 180 universities across the U.S. in opposing any proposed boycott of Israeli academic institutions. The announcement comes on theContinue Reading
