The lasting impact of Ed’s last column
By Ed Harris, Jewish Sound Columnist Life is all about changes — including this column — as it will be my last one. It turns out I may have played a very small part in hastening the Jewish Sound’s demise. This is not because of the obvious suspect — insipidContinue Reading
‘J Street Challenge’ film draws criticism from J Street rabbis
By Avi Goldwasser, Special to The Jewish Sound In response to Rabbi Anson Laytner’s article “Challenging ‘The J Street Challenge’” in the March 12 Jewish Sound, it was disheartening to read Rabbi Laytner’s critique of ‘The J Street Challenge,’ a film produced by the non-profit educational organization Americans for PeaceContinue Reading
Will Netanyahu’s campaign rhetoric cause further estrangement with Washington?
By Ron Kampeas, JTA World News Service WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Obama administration’s first response to news that Benjamin Netanyahu had been reelected as prime minister of Israel appeared to be avoidance. White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Wednesday that the president would wait until Netanyahu had beenContinue Reading
5 takeaways from the Israeli election
By Uriel Heilman, JTA World News Service (JTA) – In the United States, the magic number on Election Day is 270, the number of Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency. In Israel, it’s 61, the number of seats needed to capture a majority in the 120-seat Knesset — andContinue Reading
Call for unity on right, hardline rhetoric propel Netanyahu to decisive comeback
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service TEL AVIV (JTA) — This city’s Rabin Square was full of young men wearing large knit kippahs and women in long skirts and long sleeves cheering as right-wing politicians declared their opposition to Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank. On Sunday night, whenContinue Reading
Exit polls: Zionist Union, Likud neck and neck at top
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Exit polls in Israel showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party neck and neck at the top with the center-left Zionist Union led by Isaac Herzog. The two parties had 27 seats each, according to the polls by the Channel 1 and Channel 10 television stations. ChannelContinue Reading
Europe’s undercover yarmulke journalists
By Gabe Friedman, JTA World News Service (JTA) — Sending a yarmulke-wearing man out with a hidden video camera to document anti-Semitism on the streets of Europe, particularly in Muslim neighborhoods, is quickly becoming a journalistic trope. First, in January, a reporter wearing a kippah walked around the heavily Muslim neighborhoodContinue Reading
For Passover, a clergy couple’s vegetarian seder menu
By Marshall Weiss, JTA World News Service (The Dayton Jewish Observer/JTA) — Vegetarian food brought Cantor Jenna Greenberg and Rabbi Josh Ginsberg together. The two met as students at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, when a classmate organized a singles dinner at a kosher vegetarian restaurant in Chinatown.Continue Reading
Research for medical rarities — done with a kickstart
By Janis Siegel, Jewish Sound Columnist This latest research study from Tel Aviv University is pioneering because it’s one of a handful of studies in the world to have successfully used crowdfunding to finance the research. The study is also counter-intuitive and atypical because TAU scientist, Dr. Noam Shomron, theContinue Reading
One family’s thousand-year history, from Spain to Seattle and back again
By Barbara Winkelman, Special to The Jewish Sound Vivian Blum has a story to tell. It starts in Spain in the 900s, moves to Turkey in 1492, when the Jews were expelled from Spain, and lands in the United States in 1909, where it remains to this day. Soon thereContinue Reading
#Seder2015 hopes to bring millennials to the Passover table
By Ryan Torok, L.A. Jewish Journal Millennials, what are you doing this Passover? If you’re not sure, perhaps look to Seder2015. Seder2015 is the latest brainchild of Michael Hebb, 39, a self-described “food provocateur” who last grabbed national attention for launching “Death Over Dinner,” a movement that brought people togetherContinue Reading
Crunching the childhood lessons of Passover
By Edmon J. Rodman, JTA World News Service LOS ANGELES (JTA) — What did I really learn at the seder table? That is, besides discovering that the white horseradish was way hotter than the red and that my very worldly uncles couldn’t read a word of Hebrew? It’s a questionContinue Reading
Navah and Eden Ben-Meir
Navah and Eden, twin girls, were born to Natton and Talya Ben-Meir of Jerusalem, Israel, on March 1. Navah was born at 4 a.m. and weighed 3 lbs., 8 oz. Eden was born at 4:04 a.m. and weighed 3 lbs. Both babies are healthy, but will remain in the hospitalContinue Reading
Two local cookbook authors have new books
By Diana Brement, JewishSound Columnist “Just look on the cover,” was Rachel Almeleh’s response when I asked what her favorite recipe was in her just-published cookbook, “A Legacy of Sephardic, Mediterranean, and American Recipes.” There, a plate of lightly browned bourekas, plump with potatoes and two kinds of cheese, temptContinue Reading
Rediscovering you
By Rabbi Mark Spiro, Living Judaism Obese Ohio man found fused to chair he sat in for 2 years A morbidly obese Ohio man was in the hospital Tuesday after police found him fused to a chair he had not moved from in two years and were forced toContinue Reading
Challenging ‘The J Street Challenge’
By Rabbi Anson Laytner, Special to the Jewish Sound After the Washington Coalition of Rabbis, the umbrella body for non-Orthodox rabbis in our state, wrote a letter criticizing the showing of “The J Street Challenge” here in Seattle because it potentially would sow seeds of mistrust among Jews here, weContinue Reading
Twenty years in film, coming to a theater near you
As the Seattle Jewish Film Festival gets underway, here are more small reviews to get you to the latter part of the week. You can find more of our reviews online at jewishsound.org, and you’ll find ticketing information for all of the films at www.seattlejewishfilmfestival.org. These are the venues: SIFFContinue Reading
Confidence in Israel must begin at a young age, says prominent prof
By Janis Siegel, Jewish Sound Correspondent Kenneth Stein has learned a few things about his students. The professor and history scholar from Atlanta’s Emory University, who spoke to a crowd of over 50 Seattleites at Hillel at the University of Washington, said that during his 37 years of teaching IsraelContinue Reading
A temporary rabbi will stick around for the long haul
By Joel Magalnick, Editor, The Jewish Sound Nobody had planned for things to work out this way. But you might call it a happy accident that Rabbi David Lipper and the congregation to which he’d been assigned as an interim rabbi decided to remove the “interim” from his title. “IContinue Reading