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September 2005
Life after her husband’s plane crash
Lately, Rachel Michelberg is focusing on staying positive. Too often, she says, it is easy to slip into feeling scared, overwhelmed and stressed. It is no wonder why. Five months ago, on April 19, Rachel’s husband David was traveling with business associate Yaron Ekshtein from Los Angeles to San Jose in a single-engine plane when that engine failed. The pilot, David’s business associate, made an emergency landing in what turned out to be a wine vineyard. Both men suffered serious injuries. David incurred two severely damaged vertebrae, lost the sight in his right eye and suffered significant brain damage. More
Public school presents challenges
for Jewish kids during holidays
Recently, seventeen-year-old Or Schwartz had a difficult decision to make:
Attend his junior prom at Leigh High School or spend the first night of
Passover with his family. “I guess I didn’t check the prom
date correctly because it never occurred to me that they would have the
prom on the first night of Pesach.” He went to the prom, but says
that afterwards he regretted it.
More
22-year-olds meet through Federation’s
SVYAD and marry
Amanda Glincher, 22, says that even among other Jews, she has often stood
out as very Jewish. Growing up she attended South Peninsula Hebrew Day
School and the Orthodox synagogue Am Echad. Her family kept kosher, and
often attended shul. “All the guys I dated on this coast were Reform,”
said Amanda. “They would eat cheeseburgers…. in their home...
on their own dishes!” More
16-year-old takes on pollution
If you ever feel that the enormity of environmental problems in the world makes it impossible for any one person to make a difference – think again! Sixteen-year-old David Marash-Whitman, a sophomore at Kehillah Jewish High School, has made a difference. Through a school science project that began when he was 13 years old, he successfully forced hundreds of Silicon Valley residents to think twice before hosing motor oil, paint products, garden chemicals, and pool/spa cleaning agents down neighborhood storm drains. More
5765: A Year of Politics and Promise
As Jews celebrated 350 years of Jewish life in America, the role of religion in the public sphere shifted to the forefront as several prominent cases sparked heated debate over the relationship of church and state. The theory of evolution’s place in American classrooms again took center stage as lawsuits were filed in two cases where public schools elected to teach evolution as just one among several theories of human development — the most prominent alternative being intelligent design, which posits that the universe is so complex that its existence must be the product of some super intelligence. More
Oct. 23rd celebration will welcome refurbished Holocaust Torah home
While San Diego sofer Alberto Attia completes the restoration of a Holocaust Torah community residents helped rescue from Poland nearly one and a half years ago, members of Silicon Valley’s Holocaust Youth Education Committee are excitedly planning a celebration to welcome it home. The entire community is invited to attend the event that will take place on Sunday, October 23, 2-5 p.m., at the new Gloria and Ken Levy Family Campus. More
My Hillel Birthright experience
“On the morning of Shabbat, which happened to coincide with my 27th
birthday, our Hillel group walked through the quiet streets of Jerusalem
toward the Wailing Wall, or Kotel as I learned to call it. I wondered
why this structure was so important to Jews around the world. I was nervous
as we descended the stairs and approached the security post to enter the
area. As I walked over to the Kotel, I stopped about five feet away, behind
the seated women, and listened to the soft sound of prayer books being
turned, the women’s gentle voices, and the stillness underneath
the massive wall. I stood for a while before I felt a need, a physical
pull to get closer. More
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