Members of the Oregon Jewish Community Youth Foundation expected about 225 teens to show up for their fund-raisining dance Feb. 23 at the Mittleman Jewish Community Center.

The Weekend in Quest Shabbaton Feb. 22-24 in Astoria attracted some 80 Jews, most from Portland and a few from Oregon’s north coast and Washington’s south coast, for an exploration of Jewish music and mainstream music arising from Jewish tradition.

Four days after their romantic Valentine’s Day wedding at Rose Schnitzer Manor, Ruth Bressler, 86, and Frank Serot, 93, were still “walking on air.”

JERUSALEM (JTA)—Irked by the slow rate of progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, major Arab players are threatening to withdraw their offer to normalize ties with Israel once a Palestinian state is established.

SAN FRANCISCO (JTA)—American Jews are adopting and discarding their Jewish identities with increasing rapidity in a country that is becoming less white and less Christian, according to a new study of religious affiliation in the United States.

Jewish Dems, GOPers trade Nader barbs

WASHINGTON (JTA)—Republican and Democratic Jews traded barbs over Ralph Nader’s characterization of Barack Obama’s Israel policy. Nader, the consumer activist, announced Feb. 24 another independent run for the presidency, saying the candidates were not dealing with what he called “off the table” topics, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

When Ugandans respectfully called them elderly, the Havurah Shalom group laughed. The 10 members from Portland’s Reconstructionist congregation felt anything but old as they mixed and hauled bricks, plastered walls and dug a latrine in the Ugandan village.

The six decades of partnership that have bound Germany and Israel may seem improbable to some in the aftermath of the Holocaust, but to Germans and Israelis it has been a relationship essential to both. Diplomats from both countries made that point recently in Portland.

The rapid rise of information and communication technology will help Jews address their most difficult challenge in centuries, according to Ariel Beery, founder and editor of New York’s PresenTense magazine, who spoke to two groups of young people in Portland on Feb. 11.

“I’m completely impressed,” said Moishe House Western Regional Director Summer Shapiro after spending four days at Portland’s 1½-month-old gathering spot for young Je

Jewish history is coming alive for Jewish students on Portland area campuses thanks to the Chabad Jewish Student Center near Reed College.

They’ve been in China for 1,000 years but Shi Lei is the first to study in Israel. Rabbi Joshua Stampfer welcomed the descendent of Kaifeng Jews at the Feb. 14 lecture at Congregation Neveh Shalom.

Bruce Goldberg, M.D., director of Oregon’s Department of Human Services since 2005, illustrated the vicious cycle of poverty in Oregon at an American Jewish Committee lunch hosted by Bob Liebman Feb. 7.

Ben and Jerry’s Portland franchise owner Bruce Kaplan earned the company’s Social Mission Award at its 2008 Global Gathering held Jan. 17-20 in Cancun, Mexico.

Much of the Jewish Oscar buzz this year focused on director Joseph Cedar’s “Beaufort” and the chances of an Israeli film picking up an Academy Award for the first time.

But it was another Jewish-themed film, “The Counterfeiters,” that ended up taking home foreign-language honors on Feb. 24.

Ashland’s St. Clair Productions in conjunction with Havurah Shir Hadash will present Shelly Mitchell’s “Talking With Angels” March 8 at at the Ashland congregation.

The current lively letters column in the Jewish Review warms my heart. I love it when this happens. This is what I would like every edition of the Jewish Review to be, a spirited forum for the airing and exchange of ideas, even with a little bite in the rhetoric now and then.

To the editor:

I did not know how to react to the “One-sided view is what is detached from reality” headline in the Feb. 15 Jewish Review (Jonathan and Ruthie Moss respond to Robert Horenstein, page 14).

Our synagogue’s finance committee meeting is just wrapping up and my cousin Marty has a look of satisfaction on his face.

Brothers Ethan and Joel Coen  won three Oscars Feb. 24 for best picture, directing and adapted screenplay for their contemporary western, “No Country for Old Men.”

Responding to the needs of parents of young children, Gan Israel Day Camp-Portland has added an extra two-week session this summer for the community’s youngest campers.

After a four-year break, Portland teenagers once again have the opportunity to participate in the JCC Maccabi Games.

The JCC Maccabi games are an Olympic-style athletic competition for Jewish teens from around the world. In addition to sports, the athletes experience home hospitality and participate in Jewish programming such as Hangtime, Munich 11 Tribute, Rachmanus and Days of Caring and Sharing. The national Web site is www.jccmaccabigames.org.

Christian and Jewish leaders gathered last month to share views on the challenges facing Israel and the world as a consequence of the assault by radical Islam and related Arab forces on Israel and the institutions of Western Civilization.

The seventh annual Oregon Jewish Museum Gala auction will “paint the town red” on Sunday, May 4, at the Governor Hotel downtown.

ANSA RUVENSKY

A memorial service was held for Ansa Ruvensky on Feb. 15 at the Gevurtz Chapel. Mrs. Ruvensky died Feb. 13 at the age of 80.

MOSCOW (JTA) —As Dmitry Medvedev swept to a widely anticipated landslide in Russia’s presidential elections March 3, Russian Jews greeted the outcome with sentiments ranging from overwhelming support for the Medvedev-Putin team to anger and frustration at the lack of real choices in the vote.

LVOV, Ukraine (JTA)—Dr.

MONTREAL (JTA)—Canadian Jewish leaders have taken up the effort to free a Canadian-Israeli businessman incarcerated for an expired visa violation in an Indian prison infested with rats and sc

LONG BEACH, Calif. (JTA)—By the time Matisyahu loped onstage for what had been billed for days as a surprise appearance at Jewlicious, it was a surprise only to festival organizers.

SALEM (JTA)—While Israel’s eyes were focused on the security threat from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Palestinian terrorists struck in the heart of the Jewish state.

NEW YORK (JTA)—Flying in the face of two decades of research that indicates that American Jews are falling out of love with Israel, a new report says that American Jews love Israel as much as they always have—and that in the future, that sentiment may grow more intense.