Everything you need to know about SodaStream’s move
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service TEL AVIV (JTA) — SodaStream, the Israeli at-home seltzer machine company, announced last week that it would be closing its West Bank factory and moving the facility’s operations to southern Israel next year. Here’s what you need to know about SodaStream, the controversy that hasContinue Reading
Do Israelis think Netanyahu is ‘chickensh*t’? Maybe, but they like him that way
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service JERUSALEM (JTA) — An anonymous White House staffer apparently isn’t the only one who thinks Benjamin Netanyahu is shy about taking chances. A piece this week in The Atlantic magazine by journalist Jeffrey Goldberg ignited a firestorm with its revelation that an ObamaContinue Reading
Israel’s new pioneers work to transform the Negev desert through farming
By Maayan Jaffe, JNS.org In southern Israel, the next generation of Jewish pioneers is making the desert bloom. A group of young, Zionist, idealistic adults are cultivating a previously uninhabited area in the northwest Negev on Israel’s borders with Egypt and Gaza—growing tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, cauliflower, pomegranates, olives, and more.Continue Reading
Rethinking Jewish education
By Rabbi Bernie Fox, Northwest Yeshiva High School Jewish education should no longer be marketed as the foundation of Jewish continuity. I have been professionally engaged in Jewish education for over 35 years. Until recently, I believed that we should promote intensive Jewish education as the only proven means ofContinue Reading
Emet Hale Pariser
Benjamin and Brooke Pariser announce the birth of their son, Emet Hale, on August 6, 2014, at Swedish Hospital in Seattle. Emet weighed 8 lbs., 5 oz. and measured 19.5 inches. Emet’s grandparents are Iantha and Stan Sidell of Mercer Island, and Gail Pariser of Las Vegas, Nev., and PaulContinue Reading
Samuel Avram Salitra
Samuel will celebrate his Bar Mitzvah November 1, 2014, at Temple B’nai Torah in Bellevue. Samuel is the son of Judy Spunt and Richard Salitra of Bellevue, and the brother of Isaac and Aviva. His grandparents are Reva Spunt of Toronto, Ontario, and Eleanor and Joe Rodriguez of Fort Lauderdale,Continue Reading
Paige Abigail Fisher
Paige will celebrate her Bat Mitzvah November 13, 2014, at Herzl-Ner Tamid Conservative Congregation on Mercer Island. Paige is the daughter of Kimberly and Craig Fisher of Mercer Island and the sister of Drew. Her grandparents are Jeanie and Alfred Benaroya of Kirkland, Edward Fisher of Clyde Hill, and theContinue Reading
Orbach-Goldberg
Emma Orbach and Jack Goldberg announce their engagement. Emma is the daughter of Martin and Susan Orbach of Novato, Calif. Her grandparents are Donald and Carrol Cluck of Morrow Bay, Calif., and Tony Orbach of Johannesburg, South Africa and the late Glenda Orbach. She will graduate from Boston University withContinue Reading
Anne Radinsky Sharin
October 15, 1913–October 13, 2014 Anne Radinsky Sharin, born Oct. 15, 1913, daughter of Benjamin and Celia Radinsky, passed peacefully on Oct. 13, 2014 in Annapolis, Md. She would have turned 101 years on Oct. 15. Anne was born in the Ukraine and arrived in Seattle at the age ofContinue Reading
Ebola: Hitting the snooze button on a wakeup call
By Janis Siegel, Jewish Sound Correspondent The current Ebola outbreak in West Africa is now epidemic, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev virologist Dr. Leslie Lobel told the Jewish Sound. But what really worries the researcher, who has been working with three deadly viruses in Uganda for 12 years, is thatContinue Reading
White House attempts to distance itself from Netanyahu slur
(JNS.org) The White House on Wednesday attempted to distance itself from comments by an anonymous senior U.S. official who called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “chickenshit.” “Certainly that’s not the administration’s view, and we think such comments are inappropriate and counter-productive,” Alistair Baskey, a spokesman for the National SecurityContinue Reading
Welcome to our Five Women to Watch of 2014!
Every year, the Jewish Sound profiles five women in our community who are making a difference — whether it’s through business, the arts, Jewish community, social action, or the community at large. Oftentimes it’s a mix of all of these. What brings them together is their commitment to making ourContinue Reading
Music of Remembrance: Fall concert will be a night transfigured
By Peter A. Klein, Special to The Jewish Sound It may surprise some to see the words “Schoenberg” and “Romantic” in the same sentence, but it’s not a misprint. Before he invented the modernist 12-tone method of composition, the Vienna-born composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) was steeped in the late RomanticismContinue Reading
Marcie Maxwell: Making sure our kids get properly educated
By Boris Kurbanov, Jewish Sound Correspondent Our state’s schoolchildren and their parents, whether they know it or not, are relying on Marcie Maxwell to deliver. One of Gov. Jay Inslee’s key officials responsible for ensuring the state Supreme Court’s landmark 2012 school-funding McCleary decision is adhered to and funded isContinue Reading
Suzi LeVine: From Microsoft to the mountains: Our woman in Switzerland
By Diana Brement, Jewish Sound Columnist “This job leverages the amalgamation of all of the skills I’ve learned throughout my career and life,” says the Honorable Suzi LeVine, Seattle resident (on hiatus) and our country’s current ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Her varied job experience helped her earn this politicalContinue Reading
What were you thinking? When someone violates our most intimate spaces
Rivy Poupko Kletenik, JTNews Columnist Dear Rivy, I’m very disturbed by the “mikvah peeper” scandal in D.C. First of all, what is going to the mikvah about, and how does it work? Who is really in charge of the mikvah, women or men? Is there any chance a man/my rabbiContinue Reading
Ilyse Wagner: Standing up to breast cancer
By Diana Brement, Jewish Sound Columnist “I don’t get worked up over things,” says Ilyse Wagner about having had breast cancer. “The whole experience…really changed who I am and how I look at things.” She adds, “it’s not because I looked death in the eye,” as she was fortunate toContinue Reading
Leah Warshawski: An unexpected dive into the film industry
By Dikla Tuchman, Jewish Sound Correspondent Leah Warshawski did not come upon her career in what might be called a conventional sense: Instead, she stumbled into filmmaking while studying in Hawaii while translating Japanese for tourists on a boat. “I never thought I’d make films or want to make films,Continue Reading
For prospective Orthodox converts, process marked by fear and uncertainty
By Uriel Heilman, JTA World News Service NEW YORK (JTA) – Tzipporah Laura LaFianza and her family have been living as Orthodox Jews for four years now. They reside in a heavily Jewish suburb of Washington, go to shul every Shabbat and keep a strictly kosher kitchen. But they’re notContinue Reading