Jewish Community News

News: March 2004

Is Mel Gibson's film anti-Semitic?

Jesus will appear on the Christian holy day of Ash Wednesday — thanks to Mel Gibson.

The Hollywood star directed and financed the $25 million epic “The Passion of the Christ,” which is emerging from a nearly year-long media storm and is due to hit 2,000 screens nationwide Feb. 25.

That Gibson’s “The Passion” will premier is certain. The big question is how a reportedly gory film about the last 12 hours in Jesus’s life, in Aramaic and Latin with subtitles, will play at the local multiplex. More

Kids “live” Jewish at summer camp

By Rabbi Ed Feinstein
(Reprinted with permission from the Los Angeles Jewish Journal)

This summer, thousands of youngsters will depart the comforts of home and family to share the experience of Jewish summer camps. A month or so from now, those same kids will tumble off buses, sleepy and soiled and transformed. They will take home crafts, new friends and a profound sense of having touched the core of Jewish life. They will bear vivid memories of Friday night sunsets, Havdalah beneath the stars, new Hebrew songs and a sense of belonging. They will learn little about Judaism. They will have lived Judaism personally and intensely. More

Cupertino woman speaks out about her aunt injured in Jan. 29 Jerusalem bus explosion

Esther Ederi, right, stands with her family in Jerusalem in happier times.

When the No. 19 bus made its way down Gaza Street in central Jerusalem on January 29, there was one passenger who knew this would be his last ride. The rest of the passengers were Jerusalemites going about their daily lives.

The day before, Rachel Friedman, a Cupertino resident, had just returned from Israel where she visited her son, Omer, an Israeli army soldier. While there, she also visited other family members, including her uncle and her aunt, Esther Ederi. More

Yavneh rolls out fall 2004 middle school program

By Shelley Leveson

Yavneh Day School formally rolled out the plans for its new middle school program to a standing-room-only crowd at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Stuart Krigel. The program will begin this fall with grade 6, with an additional grade added each subsequent year to have a full K-8 program by fall 2006. Larry Stein, Middle School Committee chair, said the day school initially planned to institute the first sixth grade class in fall of 2005, but strong funding support and community interest allowed plans to be accelerated by a year. More

Jewish and Latino College students prepare to go to Argentina

By Eleanor Weber Dickman

Twenty young Jewish and Latino college students were formally introduced to the community on January 29, at a celebratory event marking the next phase in the Puente Project — a collaboration between Hillel of Silicon Valley and the Greater San Jose Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. More

Clinton speechwriter to speak at SPHDS fundraiser

By Jamie Hyams

What do a Nobel Prize winner in physics, an expert on the classic malts of Scotland, a speechwriter for former President Clinton and the deputy consul general of Israel have in common? On Saturday, March 20, these individuals will speak at South Peninsula Hebrew Day School’s Food for Thought fundraiser, an evening of conversation and desserts at different homes. More

Jewish Camp Programs

Read a comprehensive list of Jewish day and overnight camps available locally, throughout the U.S. and in Isreal. More

Hirsch Goodman to speak at March 18th SBI Lecture

By Bettina Rosenberg

Hirsch Goodman, a senior research associate at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, and former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Report, will give the second SBI lecture this year on the topic “When David Becomes Goliath — Israel and Its Image Problem.” The lecture will take place on Thursday, March 18, at Congregation Beth David. More