By David Chesanow, JTNews Correspondent For Temple Beth Hatfiloh in Olympia, the High Holidays will be extra special this fall: after going for a year without one, Washington State’s only Reconstructionist congregation again has a full-time rabbi. Rabbi Seth Goldstein, 30, who assumed the pulpit on July 1, has beenContinue Reading

By Joel Magalnick, JTNews Correspondent When late-night radio talk show host Erin Hart was offered the chance to visit Israel, she jumped at the chance. “I’ve always wanted to go to Israel, since I was a child,” she said. Hart, whose weekend show on KIRO-AM radio is considered to beContinue Reading

By Jessica Davis, JTNews Correspondent “All of my work is kind of a self-analysis — a search for my Jewishness,” says artist and Seattle native Leonard Piha. Piha grew up in Seattle’s Mount Baker neighborhood and attended Congregation Ezra Bessaroth. Now, at age 49, he lives in Athens, Ga., aContinue Reading

By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent This list was compiled with the help of Don Hood and Graham Shutt, booksellers and well-read intellectuals at the University Village Barnes & Noble bookstore: The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis Leon R. Kass (Free Press, $35.00) Lauded as an impressive work based on yearsContinue Reading

By Diana Brement, JTNews Correspondent A number of recently published children’s books provide fun for kids and parents as they learn about Jewish holidays and prayers. Prolific local author Joan Holub, who has authored a number of books on Jewish and non-Jewish holidays, and many other subjects, has written ApplesContinue Reading

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By Diana Brement, JTNews Correspondent It is the greatest story every told, and there’s always a new angle or twist to explore. In The Miracles of Exodus, (HarperSanFrancisco, hardcover, $24.95), British physicist Colin J. Humphreys offers scientific detective work to explain the mysteries and phenomena of the Exodus. Humphreys describesContinue Reading

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By Emily Moore, JTNews Correspondent Jews love fish. They have always loved and honored the place fish has held in the culture. Many old, beloved Jewish recipes have become fixtures in the diets of the general population. Did you know that Jews were largely responsible for the advent of fishContinue Reading

By Manny Frishberg, JTNews Correspondent Film critic and talk-radio host Michael Medved joined his wife and co-author Diane for a recent pubic appearance in Bellevue. The couple, touting their most recent book, Saving Childhood, spent more than an hour talking about their contention that since the 1960s, modern American societyContinue Reading

By Louis Pasek, Special to JTNews Thirty-four teens from the Stroum Jewish Community Center will be representing Washington State in this year’s Maccabi Games. These young athletes will compete in six different sporting events: girls’ volleyball, boys’ basketball, boys’ soccer, swimming, dancing, and tennis. The boys’ basketball team (ages 15-16)Continue Reading

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By Louis Pasek, Special to JTNews The talk, called “Reporting Back From Palestine,” occurred June 25 at a small gathering place near Seattle Center. Approximately 25 attendees, mostly between the ages of 30 and 55, sat in a small conference room. Various literature had been set out, including a seriesContinue Reading

By Joel Magalnick, JTNews Correspondent The rabbinical student knows all about surviving domestic violence. So does the housewife, who, for the first time, stood in front of a crowd of more than 450 to tell her story about how she escaped her abusive marriage. These testimonials launched a three-day symposiumContinue Reading

By Rita Weinstein, JTNews Correspondent Congressman and presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) made several stops in Seattle July 18 and 19 to share his progressive message. The Jewish Transcript spoke with him as he toured Tent City when it was housed in the parking lot of Temple Beth Am. Transcript:Continue Reading

By Naomi Pfefferman, other LOS ANGELES — “I’m a ‘Marx Brothers anarchist,’” filmmaker Jordan Susman said. “It’s the sense of having a flower squirt water into the eyes of authority.” The tone pervades his debut feature, The Anarchist Cookbook, which revolves around a “latter-day Marx brother,” Susman said. Puck GoldContinue Reading

By Victor Wishna, Special to JTNews Most Bar Mitzvah boys have to settle for fountain pens and savings bonds. When Adam Levy became a man at 13, however, he walked away with a new Gibson ES-335, still considered one of the finest electric guitars ever made. Twenty-three years later, theContinue Reading

By Manny Frishberg, JTNews Correspondent For as long as people have been able to communicate, there have been storytellers. Language may not have been invented for the telling of tales around the primordial campfires, but that has surely been one of its most enduring uses. Even today, when we haveContinue Reading

By Jessica Davis, JTNews Correspondent In 1945, almost 60 years ago, Jewish nurse Edith Heinemann Harris met Maxine Haynes, the first African American nurse to be hired at Providence (now Swedish) Medical Center in Seattle. “She looked to me so beautiful and she was all alone,” said Harris about Haynes.Continue Reading