Volume 51, Issue 2

SEPTEMBER 2007

• After 43 years in business, the National Council of Jewish Women’s Council Thrift Shop at Southwest Morrison and 12th streets staged its final storewide sale beginning in September. Once profitable, the thrift shop had been losing about $3,000 a month for the past three years.  read more »

NEW YORK (JTA)—Judy Bart Kancigor is one of the rare Cinderella stories in publishing, beating the odds to earn a contract without contacts in the industry.  read more »

NEW YORK (JTA)—It’s a scramble every year, but Jews somehow manage to beat the clock getting dinner to the table on Yom Kippur eve—the most hurried meal on the holiday calendar.  read more »

NEW YORK (JTA)—In the weeks leading up to last Rosh Hashanah, the Anti-Defamation League, bowing to mounting pressure and a mini-revolt by its New England board, reversed its longstanding refusal to recognize the Armenian genocide.  read more »

Last year, American Jews who came to High Holiday services at the Chabad Jewish Center in Hillsboro might have felt a bit overwhelmed by the approximately 150 Israeli families at the services.  read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA)—In Israel, 5768 was the year of multiple peace overtures, a growing sense of urgency regarding Iran’s nuclear program and an embattled prime minister’s losing fight to stay in office.  read more »

NEW YORK (JTA)—”Open for us the gates at the time of their closing.” Worshipers conclude their Yom Kippur prayers every year with this refrain—a final supplication to be sealed in the Book of Life—during the Neilah Shearim service that closes the holiday.  read more »

Mel and Elaine Ball returned from Israel to find their travel bug had spread—to Elaine Ball’s 93-year-old mother, Malca Muskin. “You guys go everywhere, I want to go somewhere, too,” Muskin said, when they visited her at Rose Schnitzer Manor.  read more »

NEW YORK (JTA)—An undercover video shot in August at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant has raised new questions about the company’s slaughter practices and cost it the support of one of the country’s leading experts on animal welfare.  read more »

Palin to speak at anti-Iran rally

NEW YORK (JTA)—Sarah Palin will speak at next week’s Jewish-sponsored rally to protest Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the United Nations.  read more »

Lewis and Clark’s student body kicked off its fall semester in a typical co-ed fashion.

Freshmen anxiously meandered around campus, becoming familiar with the place they will call home for the next four years. Upperclassmen confidently reconnected with friends. Professors disseminated syllabi, while involved undergraduates flung flyers at fellow classmates, advertising their programs and organizations of choice.  read more »

Rabbi Lee Bycel’s keynote address on Darfur capped the community-wide Social Justice Institute held at the MJCC on Sept. 14.  read more »

Americans sometimes take liberties for granted—like the right to a fair trial and knowing why you’ve been arrested. On Sept. 11, 75 people gathered at Congregation Havurah Shalom to hear Federal Public Defender Steven Wax discuss why he believes government reaction to the World Trade Center attack seven years ago resulted in damage to these basic liberties.  read more »

Some of the world’s most exciting biomedical discoveries have originated at the Oregon Medical Laser Center, one of the top biomedical laser research facilities in the world.  read more »

On Dec. 28 an interfaith group of local Jewish, Christian and Muslim Americans will depart for Israel for a 12-day visit. Called “An Interfaith Journey of Peace to Israel and Palestine,” the trip is co-sponsored by the Oregon Board of Rabbis, Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon and the Islamic Society of Greater Portland.  read more »

Speaking about Jewish cyber-parenting, Sharon Duke Estroff, author of “Can I Have a Cell Phone for Hanukkah? The Essential Scoop on Raising Modern Jewish Kids,” said her book is a culmination of teaching at a Jewish Day School in Atlanta for 15 years and being a mom of four.  read more »

For the new development director of the Mittleman Jewish Community Center/Portland Jewish Academy, her new job is like coming home.  read more »

Meira Spivak, NCSY Portland co-director with her husband Rabbi Chanan Spivak, won the “Best of the Best” award at the chapter level during the Aug. 19-21 national conference for advisors and directors of NCSY youth groups.  read more »

Next year’s Women’s Day of Jewish Learning will be Sunday, Feb. 1.  read more »

NEW YORK (JTA)—With hundreds of world leaders, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, slated to come to New York for the annual opening of the U.N. General Assembly this month, Jewish groups will be campaigning both privately and publicly against the Iranian regime.  read more »

Portlander Ted Werbel went back to his roots in Vienna and with the help of the Austrian government walked the halls and hills where his family had lived before the Holocaust.  read more »

It was a sweltering, humid day in Bridgetown, on beautiful Barbados in the eastern Caribbean. Most visitors were thinking about Banks beer or rum punch, but I was looking for the Nidhe Israel synagogue.  read more »

Profile Theatre’s year of Neil Simon opens next month with a full production of “Fools.”  read more »

“From Krakow to Krypton” by Arie Kaplan, © 2008, Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, soft cover, $25.

Arie Kaplan reveals the Jewish subtexts of America’s comic book genre in his big new book “From Krakow to Krypton.”  read more »

What does it take for a Jewish artist to be accepted by the Jewish community at large? It certainly isn’t easy to get the attention of a wide audience. But some dedicated and tenacious artists never give up.  read more »

Instead of going to the movies, or hanging out with friends, 10 Jewish high school juniors and seniors spent the Saturday night, Sept. 6, gathered in Congregation Shaarie Torah’s auditorium toying with the idea of spending a year in Israel after graduation.  read more »

The language of denominational Judaism is much too limited to capture the rich variety of Jewish life. Both within and across the denominations, the labels obscure as much as they reveal. They also exclude more than they include, for where do self-described secular and atheist Jews find their place within this schema?  read more »

It’s early evening, and I find my cousin Marty in his living room, reading an article in the New York Jewish Week about American Jewish attitudes toward the current energy debate that got plenty of airtime at both the Democratic and Republican national conventions.  read more »

The new Jewish year brings with it the continuing prospect of change at the Jewish Review.  read more »

When the waiting list for Portland Jewish Academy’s childcare and preschool programs topped 50 last year, the staff started brainstorming ways to expand space.  read more »

The Jewish Women’s Circle, a group designed to unite women of diverse Jewish backgrounds, will hold “A Challah Baking Workshop,” on Sept. 22, at 8 p.m.  read more »

Freshmen ended their orientation week at Reed College with a pre-Shabbat dinner and orientation to the Chabad Jewish Student Center for Portland-area campuses.  read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA)—Joe Biden, all wrong on Israel? Sarah Palin, a Jewish woman’s worst nightmare?

Republicans and Democrats campaigning for the Jewish vote have flipped the traditional role of the vice-presidential candidate from “attack dog” to fresh meat.  read more »

NEW YORK (JTA)—The political campaign season is now in high gear as the curtain has fallen on the Democrats in Denver and the Republicans in Minneapolis-St. Paul.  read more »

How did immigrant Jews develop a remarkable, universal art form—the Broadway musical—during the process of becoming Americans?  read more »

REITER/HOLLANDER

Stephanie Reiter married Todd Hollander on June 21 at the Portland Hilton Hotel. Rabbi Cahana from Congregation Beth Israel officiated. Reiter is the daughter of Dr. Greg and Eleanore Reiter of Portland. Grandparents are Susan Gerson and Phillip and Dorothy Reiter. Hollander is the son of Steve and Ann Hollander of Scottsdale, Ariz.  read more »

“I may still be in high school, but I’ve learned that it’s not too early to make a difference in the world,” said Eugene teenager Ahaviah Bessemer after creating and running a basketball camp for Ethiopian youth in Israel.  read more »

The 2008-09 school year has begun on Portland-area campuses with a new entity in place to reach out to the estimated 1,100 to 1,500 Jewish college students in the Portland metro area.  read more »

Rarely does a U.S. Supreme Court Justice visit Portland, let alone beneath the Byzantine dome of Congregation Beth Israel. So far, it’s occurred only once in 150 years.  read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA)—If Tzipi Livni's narrow margin of victory in the Sept. 17 Kadima Party primary holds up under scrutiny, the foreign minister's next major task will be assembling a coalition government so she can become prime minister.  read more »

(JTA)—A day after Ehud Olmert formally submitted his resignation as prime minister, Israeli President Shimon Peres officially tapped his Kadima Party successor, Tzipi Livni, to form a new government.  read more »

NEW YORK (JTA)—Thousands of protesters filled Dag Hammarskjold Plaza opposite the United Nations for a rally against Iran's president, who came to town to address the General Assembly.  read more »

LOS ANGELES (JTA)—There were Hollywood stars and powerful studio heads, politicians and multinational rappers, Israeli Cabinet ministers and dancers, two dozen Israeli Scouts, a 3-D film segment, a tennis legend, comedians, resounding shofars, electronic fireworks and tables groaning with biblical fruits.  read more »

HOUSTON (JTA)—In the wake of Hurricane Ike, members of the oldest Jewish community in Texas are scattered throughout the state.  read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA)—With her primary victory in hand, prime minister-designate Tzipi Livni now has six weeks to form a government and stave off new elections. Theoretically, if she cannot form a government, President Shimon Peres could give someone else a chance before calling an election.  read more »

NEW YORK (JTA)—With speeches, fiery rhetoric and protestations of one sort of another, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his opponents in the United States faced off against each other during his latest visit to New York.  read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA)—Barack Obama has hit a wall of Jewish indecision. The American Jewish Committee survey published Thursday shows the Democratic presidential nominee still hovering around 60 percent among Jewish voters. His big problem: the undecideds.  read more »