I write this aboard AirTran Flight #299, returning home from a very short but sweet visit to my snowbird sister and brother-in-law, in Boynton Beach, Florida. A twoday megadose of summer-in-February spent at their retirement community gave me a taste of retirement living as well as of Florida’s sunlight and vibrant color. Indeed, I saw people wearing fuchsia, sunny yellow, and teal in the middle of the winter. I snapped pictures of pink flamingos in the Wakodahatchee Wetlands, heard the screech of deep green parrots in the palms, and combed the inky blue Gulf Stream beach for exotic seashells. I

You may have noticed crews hard at work, this summer, building decks and other construction projects around town. Perhaps you took a double-take upon noticing their tzitzis T-shirts bearing a large Star-K logo. Those young men were part of Project Build, a summer program of the year-round Chananya Backer Memorial Institute (CBMI).

  CBMI, one of the few programs of its kind in the nation, is an innovative teen mentoring initiative that perpetuates the memory of Chananya Backer, a”h, a 16-year-old Baltimorean who died tragically five years ago from injuries sustained in a car crash. The program aims to avert

GG is definitely my oldest friend, ever. She also happens to be one of my most closest, most vivacious, witty, intuitive, insightful, interesting, and fun friends, as well. I have been blessed in my life to have many close friends who can boast these same traits. What makes this friendship different than any other I’ve experienced? In great part, it’s because GG is old enough to be my great-grandmother!
You would never know that GG is a nonagenarian-plus. She does not look it, nor does she act the part. I try

For 70 years, the Jews of the Soviet Union languished behind an Iron Curtain, discriminated against, robbed of their Torah, and denied the right to escape from their repressive land. Then the curtain was flung open, and Russian Jews poured into the United States by the tens of thousands.

The year was 1989. Rabbi Paysach Diskind, who was selling long distance telephone service at the time, wondered at this sudden torrent of Jews, a phenomenon that could never have been predicted. “I thought it had to be a stroke of hasgacha pratis (divine providence),” says Rabbi Diskind. “Hashem had clearly designed

The Etz Chaim Center for Jewish
Living and Learning has certainly come a long way since I worked in its 300-square foot office in the Imperial condominium on Clark’s Lane, close to 30 years ago. Its metamorphosis into the 21st century became even more obvious to me after meeting with Rabbi Shlomo Porter, the organization’s long-time Dean and President, and native South African Rabbi Nitzan Bergman, its new Executive Director.

  The new Etz Chaim is a “tree of life” that branches out and leaves no Jew behind; it provides a rich, meaningful Torah education and lifestyle experience to Jews of