In the wake of the terrorist attack in the Har Nof synagogue in Jerusalem, Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy wants to honor the memory of alumnus Rabbi Kalman Levine, a member of the first graduating class of HBHA, and Rabbi Mosheh Twersky the uncle of HBHA teacher Meshulam Twersky.
HANUKKAH RADIO — Thanks to reader Maury Kohn, we know that SiriusXm will once again have Radio Hanukkah on channel 68, beginning Dec. 16. It runs through Dec. 24 and will feature a wide variety of Hanukkah music including contemporary, traditional and children’s Hanukkah classics.
TEL AVIV — They all lived on the same street. They had all moved there from abroad. They were all rabbis. They all prayed at the same synagogue.
It’s been seven months since the community was sent into shock by the shootings at the Jewish Community Campus and Village Shalom, which killed Dr. William Corporon, Reat Griffin Underwood and Terri LaManno. Last week plans were announced to commemorate the anniversary, and to show the world, that faith wins.
For the first time ever, a former Member of Knesset and chief of Israel’s security agency will be the keynote speaker at the Israel Action Forum. Sponsored by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the event features The Honorable Avi Dichter Tuesday night, Dec. 9, at the White Theatre on the Jewish Community Campus.
Raised in Davenport, Iowa, Rabbi Barak Cohen never expected his career would take him all the way to Australia, only to bring him back to the Midwest in order to research Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy’s renowned dual-track Jewish studies program. Rabbi Cohen is bringing the knowledge he picked up in Kansas City and at other North American Jewish day schools to Masada College, a K-12 Jewish day school located in St. Ives, Australia. Masada’s goal: To implement a dual-track Jewish studies program similar to that of HBHA.
Earlier this month the Israeli government adopted a major reform expected to ease the path to conversion for hundreds of thousands of Israelis now prohibited from marrying in the Jewish state.
ROCH CHALK CHALLAH — If there’s a KU basketball game on a Friday night and you are a Jewish student waiting to enter Allen Fieldhouse, you just may encounter KU Hillel’s Rabbi Neal Schuster passing out challah. Rabbi Schuster said KU Hillel does not do a program on a night featuring a KU home game. Instead, he tries to reach the Jewish students where they are.
WASHINGTON — Mementos of Jacob Goldstein slide across the 3-foot-by-4-foot horizontal screen like cards being dealt at a casino: his photograph, his name, an Operation Urgent Fury headline denoting the 1983 military campaign in Grenada, Goldstein’s explanatory text summarizing his role during the invasion.
Just over 10 years ago, no state allowed same-sex couples to marry, support for marriage equality nationwide hovered below 40 percent, and politicians everywhere thought if they touched on the controversial topic, their political career would be dead. Today, with Supreme Court action recently expanding the freedom to marry to 35 states, nearly 60 percent of Americans are in support. Democrats use the issue to their advantage, and a bipartisan array of judges — 42 out of 44 at latest count — have ruled that marriage discrimination violates the U.S. Constitution.
