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November 10, 2010

The Water Network: Jonathan Greenblatt mixes commerce and giving

If you can count on a Starbucks on every corner, you can also count on finding a bottle of Ethos water inside. They are the plainly packaged bottled waters promising that, simply by purchasing one, you can help make a global impact. Ethos ensures that 5 cents from every bottle sold in the United States (10 cents in Canada) will go to improving both the water supply and sanitation standards in developing countries. To date, those pennies have created a combined pot of more than $6.2 million. The money flows from the stores into the Ethos Water Fund (part of the Starbucks Foundation), where it is distributed in grants to various nonprofit, water-focused organizations. One grant, for example, paid to build a gravity-fed water system in a rural, mountainous region of Honduras. Newly installed pipes now bring water from rain and natural springs to the homes of people in need, as well as to their community center. Locals, for the first time, have hygienic latrines and a basin with a spigot.

Do Jews give less in the recession?

While economists say the recession ended more than a year ago, you wouldn’t know it to look at Jewish nonprofits. In an annual list released Nov. 1 by The Chronicle of Philanthropy of the top 400 nonprofits in the United States, fundraising at the country’s largest Jewish charities had declined by an average of 18.5 percent in 2009 — nearly twice as much as the list as a whole, which showed a fundraising decline of 10 percent. Twenty-two Jewish organizations made the Philanthropy 400, which ranks the country’s 400 largest nonprofits by the size of their fundraising totals.

Celebrating 25 Years of keeping Jews Jewish

On Nov. 2, Jews for Judaism, an organization dedicated to counteracting missionaries, celebrated its 25th anniversary. Some 250 people gathered for a gala dinner at the Sephardic Temple in Westwood to honor the organization’s founder and director, Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz, and his wife, Dvora Kravitz.

Gateway to Awakening: Parashat Vayetzei (Genesis 28:10-32:3)

I love to be out in nature: hiking, camping, exploring the woods, sitting by a rushing river, listening to the sounds of the birds and other wildlife. I am blessed, like many of us in Southern California, to live within walking distance of amazing natural surroundings — in my case, the San Gabriel Mountains.

Non-Jews move to Israel for a Sabra — Then what?

“It is false advertising,” complains an American woman in Tel Aviv. “They give this illusion of a traveling people. But then they all come back to Israel.” She is referring to Israeli men, like her boyfriend, who travel the world and in the process discover non-Jewish, non-Israeli romantic partners to seduce into moving to Israel.

All-women ‘Joseph’ a dream come true

At a recent dress rehearsal at Temple Beth Am for the Jewish Women’s Repertory Company’s (JWRC) November production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” Margy Horowitz, the company’s founder, musical director and accompanist, played piano while the narrator belted out the famous opening line: “Some folks dream of the wonders they’ll do, before their time on this planet is through.”

Israeli village helps at-risk youth sing a new song

You could look at the members of the Yemin Orde Choir and call them what others have called them: at-risk youths from across the globe, victims of abandonment and dysfunctional families.

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More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.