The choir of the Gerrard Berman Day School, Solomon Schechter of North Jersey at the recording studio. Courtesy Gerrard Berman Day School, Solomon Schechter of North Jersey.
Excited and nervous. That's how Ethan Klein, a sixth-grader from Gerrard Berman Day School, Solomon Schechter of North Jersey, in Oakland, felt the day he and other students recorded a song in tribute to Israel's 60th anniversary, which will be part of a double CD set.
"It was the first time I was in such a big studio," Ethan added.
Ethan is the soloist in "Shabechi Yerushalayim," one of the 3' songs on "Schechter Sings for Israel @60!" in which children from 3' Schechter schools in 14 states and Canada participated.
The set, to be released today, is a project of the Solomon Schechter Day School Association, a member of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.
Jewish leaders are pondering the significance of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States last week.
Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, who attended a meeting with the pope at the John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, D.C., last Thursday, called it "more show that substance, but for the Vatican even show is substance."
The fact that the pope invited the approximately 50 Jewish representatives to meet with him in a private room was an important gesture, said Foxman, because he "greeted us on the occasion of a Jewish festival, which basically was a recognition of religious Jewish life, Jewish faith, and Jewish rituals, and had that significance."
Ruthie Eliasaf, Rachel Banai's mother, stand with pomegranate trees on her kibbutz. Photo by Rachel Banai
An Arab mayor sips coffee. Two teenagers, one Jewish, one Arab, touch hands. An elderly woman sits at a sewing machine. A family of six poses in front of crates.
Those are some of the 80 pictures in an exhibit, "The Land Between Us," that opened on Saturday at the Puffin Cultural Forum in Teaneck.
Consisting of four sets of photographs, the exhibit features the works of two Israeli photographers, Rachel Banai and Rauf Abu Fani.
One set by Banai is of members of Kibbutz Sarid, where she was born 60 years ago. The kibbutz, in the lower Galilee, seven miles west of Afula, was founded in 19'6 by immigrants from Europe, among them Banai's grandmother, Franci Fishel, who hailed from the former Czechoslovakia.
From left are Yaniv and Sima Peretz of Sderot, Danielle and Gabrielle Flaum of SOS, Rep. Scott Garrett, Dane Burroughs of SOS, Nancy Kislin Flaum, and Martin Radnor of One Family Fund. Photo by Daniel Santacruz
Gabrielle Flaum's first trip to Israel two years ago included a war.
The 17-year-old Short Hills resident and senior at Millburn High School was part of a group of 500 American students on a six-week trip organized by the National Federation of Temple Youth when war between Israel and Hezbollah broke out on July 1', '006.
That day, at about 9 a.m, Hezbollah attacked a number of targets on the Israeli border. Two soldiers, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, were abducted, three were killed, and two were wounded. Their abduction was preceded by that of another soldier, Gilad Shalit, on June '5, on the border with Gaza.
On Sunday, April 13, 50 elderly residents of Jersey City, Bayonne, and Hoboken will receive packages with food for Passover, courtesy of CareLink.
An extra treat awaits the recipients: The packages will also contain crafts from the children of the Jewish Community Center of Bayonne Nursery School, the United Synagogue of Hoboken Learning Center, and the United Synagogue of Hoboken preschool.
The packages, tote bags that volunteers are scheduled to fill today, will contain chicken, grape juice, gefilte fish, horseradish, matzoh, macaroons, and a Haggadah.
Married professionals in their '0s or 30s wanted to help revitalize an established Jewish community. Convenient commute to New York City and easy access to routes 4, 17, 80, '08, and the Garden State Parkway. Plenty of stores nearby, a friendly synagogue headed by a well-known rabbi, a newly renovated mikvah, several kosher restaurants, a bakery, and seven Orthodox synagogues.
That's how Cong. Shomrei Torah, Fair Lawn's largest Orthodox synagogue, wants to market the community to young families.
The initiative comes from the synagogue's Torah Enrichment Center, in partnership with Yeshiva University's Center for the Jewish Future (CJF), which aims to strengthen Jewish communities throughout the country.
At a planning meeting for Club Hispano Hebraico are, from left, Mario Leonor of Teaneck, Isaac Student of Teaneck, and David Bernal of Jersey City. Photo by Michael Laves
TEANECK – A township resident born in Russia of Polish parents and raised in Cuba wants Spanish-speaking Jews to join the club he just founded. Isaac Student, a Teaneck resident for 30 years, came up with the idea of the Club Hispano Hebraico after a recent conversation he had with another member of the Jewish Center of Teaneck, Susan Rabkin, about its Spanish speakers.
"I found it extremely interesting in talking to them," he remembers telling Rabkin.
Rabkin suggested that he start a group similar to the JCT's Yiddish club and Student started looking for potential members.
"I thought that this would be a wonderful idea and talked about it to some of these Spanish speakers and found a very enthusiastic support for this idea," Student said.
The club was to have its first meeting on Wednesday.
The Nostra Aetate Wings of Peace Award takes the name from a declaration of principles on the relationship between the Catholic Church and non-Christian religions, Nostra Aetate.
Issued by the Second Vatican Council on Oct. '8, 1965, the document, in Latin, takes its name from two of the first words of the text, "In nostra aetate," meaning "in our age."
Leaving Auschwitz on the first stage of their recent study tour are, from left, Bishop Richard Sklba of Milwaukee, Wis.; Rabbi Eugene Korn of the Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding; Rabbi Tzvi Blanchard of Clai; Bishop Kevin Rhodes of Harrisburg, Pa.; Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg of New York City; and Bishop Frank Dewane of Venice, Fla.
The horrors of the Holocaust brought together bishops and rabbis from several states on a recent study tour.
Sponsored by the Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding of the Fairfield, Conn.-based Sacred Heart University, the trip, from Sept. ' to 7, started in Poland — where the group was joined by the chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, and the archbishop of Krakow, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz — and ended in Italy, where they were joined by the chief rabbi of Florence, Joseph Levi.
Rabbi Natan Slifkin has hiked in Israel, gone on safari in Kenya, whale-watched in the Pacific, scuba-dived in Eilat, and wrestled alligators in California.
Asked what else has he done that might be called "exciting," he replied, in an e-mail interview with The Jewish Standard: "What, that's not enough?! How about defending myself against attacks by scores of distinguished rabbis? That was even scarier than wrestling alligators!"
Three years ago, three of Rabbi's Slikfin's books — "The Science of Torah," "The Camel, the Hare and the Hyrax," and "Mysterious Creatures: Intriguing Torah Enigmas of Natural and Unnatural History" — were banned by several rabbis in the United States and Israel on the grounds of heresy.
