Bianna Golodryga was only 18 months when she left Moldova in the Soviet Union to settle in Galveston, Texas. Mom mopped floors and dad cleaned garages so she could go to school. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, and today is an ABC News business correspondent and the weekend co-anchor of Good Morning America.
Harvey Feuerstein, of Manhattan, proudly mentioned that his son Mark is now in his fourth year starring in “Royal Pains” on the USA network. The 40-year-old actor plays the lead role of the doctor, Hank Lawson, in this comedy series.
Sarah Grace Victor, born in Philadelphia to Christian parents from India, is the winner of the second annual Harold I. Saperstein Cornell Student Sermon Contest. The competition, based on the Hebrew Bible, was open to all students on campus. Victor emerged victorious over 30 contestants.
As the New York Jewish community gathered last month at the Park East Synagogue to celebrate Arthur Schneier’s 50th year as the shul’s rabbi, State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver proclaimed, “Here’s to the next 50 years.”
“That’s ridiculous!” declared Ed Koch. “I wish you 120!”
The former mayor recalled when he had a stroke in 1987 and the rabbi came to him in the hospital. “Say this prayer after me in Hebrew,” Rabbi Schneier told him.
Seeds of Peace attracted some 1,000 youthful guests to its seventh annual peace market on March 1 at the Metropolitan Pavilion in Manhattan. They came to support an organization that seeks to empower a younger generation to resolve disputes in various regions of conflict, including the Israel/Palestine issue.
Seeds of Peace attracted some 1,000 youthful guests to its seventh annual peace market on March 1 at the Metropolitan Pavilion in Manhattan. They came to support an organization that seeks to empower a younger generation to resolve disputes in various regions of conflict, including the Israel/Palestine issue.
One of the supreme joys in Mir Hadassi’s young life was when she and her parents converted to Judaism in Holland and made aliya. “From the very first moment I saw Israel I fell in love,” she said. Her devotion to the nation intensified when she did her military service in the north which came under rocket fire during the first Lebanon war in 1982.
At the same time she met her husband Yossi and, after army service, settled in Kibbutz Merhavia (where Golda Meir first lived when she arrived in 1921).
On a trip to Israel Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul & Mary fame) brought his guitar and message to schools in Lod and Petach Tikva. His aim was to bring Jewish and Arab kids together to prevent bullying and intimidation among schoolchildren.
At a recent America-Israel Friendship League dinner in New York, Yarrow performed the song that most resonated with the kids:
Shabbat was the theme of the National Jewish Outreach program’s 18th annual dinner Feb. 13 at the Grand Hyatt in New York. Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald, founding director of NJOP, which has sponsored Shabbat Across America and Canada for more than 800,000 Jews since 1996, honored Sen. Joe Lieberman for his book, “The Gift of Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of the Sabbath” (Howard Books/Simon & Schuster).
Oftentimes a funny story can make a penetrating point. Mark Sofer said that when he was Israel’s ambassador to India he attended a performance of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. The program included Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 8, commonly known as the Unfinished Symphony.
He noticed that in the first movement there were 20 violinists playing. “Only 10 would do,” he concluded. “If Schubert had taken seriously what I’m saying, he would have finished the symphony.”
