PROUD OF OUR GRADUATES — Every year the Jewish community can boast about the achievements of our college and high school graduates and this year is no exception. One such graduate her parents are happy to brag about is Gabbie Fried, a 2012 graduate of Blue Valley North and the daughter of Sandi and Ed Fried. Gabbie was selected to speak at BVN’s graduation ceremonies, where she reminded her classmates that “rejections only make you stronger, and that’s the key to success.” Gabbie, 18, received the Superintendent’s Award, which is reserved for the top 10 students in the school. In addition she was recognized as an AP scholar with distinction, Kansas Honor Scholar, a Forensics League Academic All American and is a member of the International Thespian Society and National Honor Society. She will attend New York University in New York City in the fall and plans to major in acting with a minor in psychology.
PERFECT SCORE — Last month, on April 26, Gavri Schreiber was featured in The Chronicle as a Salute to Youth honoree. Then last week we found out that the Blue Valley North junior has achieved something less than one-tenth of one percent of ACT test takers nationwide achieve, a perfect score. Gavri earned perfect scores of 36 on the college entrance exam. The ACT tests in the areas of English, reading, math and science. Approximately 1.4 million students take the test each year
THE COMMUNITY WE NEED — Congregation Beth Torah is featured in the newest edition of Reform Judaism magazine, which came out on the Union of Reform Judaism’s website last week and should be arriving in subscribers’ homes any day now. Beth Torah is in the article “How to Build Community on Shabbat,” and it can be accessed at www.reformjudaismmag.org. Five congregations are featured, with Beth Torah being the lead! It’s a much shorter version of the front-page feature story we published on March 21, but it has some great quotes in it we didn’t get. Check it out.
SEEN ON CHANNEL 41 — I was watching the television news, again, and this time I heard a story on 41 Action News and realized it was about a couple many of us know. On May 15, Tom Christiansen reported that Jeff Fromm had lost his wedding ring on a business trip earlier this month. Before going out to purchase a new ring, which he had had for almost 24 years, Jeff’s wife Rhonda decided to look for it by placing an ad on Craigslist. Rhonda got a response from a man in Omaha, who had also posted an ad after he found a ring in Chicago. Luckily for the Fromms it was Jeff’s ring and he got it back last week. To see the whole story, go to http://www.kshb.com/dpp/news/local_news/water_cooler/craigs-list-reunites-husband-with-lost-ring.
TRADER JOE’S PAREVE CHOCOLATE CHIPS GO DAIRY — Last week I heard the news that Trader Joe’s semi-sweet chocolate chips will no longer be certified nondairy. The Los Angeles Jewish Journal, distributed to us through our news service JTA, reported the following:
OK-Certification will no longer be able to certify the products as pareve because of a change in the supplier’s production procedure.
In a statement, Trader Joe’s said the ingredients have not changed and the chips will continue to be made on equipment dedicated to nondairy chocolate.
The bagging process, however, has changed, with the supplier now using a dry cleaning procedure for a machine that also packages milk chocolate products.
These changes “triggered the need for an FDA regulated, dairy-related allergen statement, and this in turn brought about a change in the kosher certification for our item — going from ‘Kosher Pareve’ to ‘Kosher Dairy,’ ” the statement read.
As a result, OK Kosher said supervising rabbis can no longer guarantee that errant milk chocolate won’t be in the semi-sweet bags.
A petition at change.org urges “Trader Joe’s: Keep the Chocolate Chips Pareve!” A Facebook campaign to restore the pareve status was also launched. Or contact the company at http://www.traderjoes.com/about/product-information-form.asp