Soviet Union

Sheldon Silver had a good excuse for missing the 34th annual Met Council legislative breakfast at the Roosevelt Hotel on Sunday. “Only my grandson’s graduation keeps me from joining you in person” the state assembly speaker explained in a video message.

Met Council executive director/CEO William Rapfogel said the organization has been engaged in “deeds of kindness” by providing 100,000 New Yorkers with human services ranging from domestic violence counseling to kosher food pantries.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert may have declared the age of mass aliyah over, but aliyah from North America has ticked up in the last few years. And among those making the move this summer is a who’s who of Modern Orthodoxy.
Prominent rabbis and educators from the New York area, including Ari Berman, spiritual leader of The Jewish Center, a leading congregation on the Upper West Side, were feted last week by the Jewish Agency for Israel in its annual Olim Farewell ball.

PALM BEACH, Fla. (JTA) -- It’s a cool spring night, and Kathy Manning and Randall Kaplan are battling their way out of the west lawn of the sprawling bay-side mansion of Jane Goldman and Benjamin Lewis.

Manning, the chairwoman of the Jewish Federations of North America, and Kaplan, the chairman of the board of governors of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, have just spent a few hours schmoozing with 80 donors, a handful of boards of trustees and several members of Hillel’s board trying to make the case for their organizations.

Sandy Cahn, co-founder of Limmud FSU, will be the first-ever non-Russian honoree at this year’s annual reception of the Council of Jewish Émigré Community Organizations (COJECO), to be held May 10 at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. COJECO, under the auspices of UFA-Federation of New York, is made up of more than 40 member organizations serving the local Russian-speaking Jewish community.