Stretching along the popular beachfront area of Miami, approximately 650,000 Jewish residents support more than 100 synagogues, several Jewish community centers and abundant kosher restaurants, including authentic Thai food. The South Florida city even employs a full-time kashrut supervision department.
I recently returned from Florida, where I spent the Kwanzaa break (I\’ve coined a new name for the winter break that I hope will sweep the nation) with my parents. Actually, they used to be my parents. Now they\’re my son\’s grandparents. I was once my mother\’s middle child, her youngest son, one of three apple-cheeked children around which her world revolved. Now I\’m just the thing that brings the grandchild during the Kwanzaa break (I think the name is catching on).
We just returned from a trip to Italy, concentrating on the provinces of Puglia and Campania close to Naples. It is a region that we enjoy because of the diversity of the foods and wines available.
Imagine a world in which every newborn child receives a voucher toward early childhood Jewish education and a free trip to Israel.
That\’s what philanthropist Michael Steinhardt asked 4,000 delegates to the North American Jewish federation system\’s General Assembly to consider earlier this month.
The \”Newborn Gift\” would be part of an overall investment in strengthening Jewish education that Steinhardt is proposing. He told delegates that he was willing to contribute $10 million to the project, which he called the Fund for Our Jewish Future — on condition that his contribution represent no more than 10 percent of the total fund.
In other words, the former Wall Street tycoon was challenging the audience to raise at least $90 million for Jewish education in the Diaspora.
It suddenly occurred to me that the Holocaust was an attempted silencing of the Jews. While World War II was decades ago — and the camps were liberated — the quiet lingers. We\’re so far away from it all in the United States. In Poland, the wounds are still raw and it isn\’t something that the locals are comfortable talking about.
Didgee is looking forward to the day he can leave the quarantine cage to snuggle up with his two Sheilas in the shade of a eucalyptus tree, and learn to say \”Shalom\” as well as \”G\’day.\”
Chanukah, the Festival of Lights, is a time to recall the miracle that occurred more than 2,000 years ago, and celebrate the discovery of the small amount of oil that burned for eight days, the amount of time needed to prepare pure oil from the local olive trees to rekindle the flame. That miracle is the focus of the Chanukah celebration that begins at sundown Friday, Nov. 29. Was it also a miracle that this event occurred at this time, since the months of November and December are the usual time for the olive harvest?
Nearly twice as many residents as last year intend to participate in the We Stand With Israel trip next month, Federation Executive Director Bunnie Mauldin said,adding that \”despite what\’s going on politically or war with Iraq on the horizon, our aim is the same.\”
The trip is an opportunity for people to show their support.
I recently returned from eight days in Israel. After months of reaching for the newspaper first thing each morning and follow with online searches for even more recent events, I felt a strong need to go to Israel and see firsthand how things were going. I was nervous before I left due to the constant photos of destruction and despair. It is the first time that I blessed each of my children before departing on a trip.
I have heard people refer to the process of meeting someone as "the dating minefield."
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