Features

The school year is coming to a close and colleges across the country — including mine — are letting out for the summer. Many students will be spending their vacation at summer camps (I will be working at this one), while others will be taking up “real-world” jobs and internships.

Sculptor Lynn Syms, philanthropist Jean Gluck and radiologist Dr. Monique Katz were honored by the National Women's Division of Shaare Zedek Medical Center of Jerusalem this month at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

"To be an honoree is a mitzvah-like maror," Dr. Katz chuckled.

Barbara Gluck Weichselbaum paid tribute to her parents, Jean and Eugen Gluck, who sponsored the Department of General Pediatrics in the new Wilf Children's Hospital at Shaare Zedek.

In the religious world, there has been much discussion over the past few years, and rightly so, of the struggle between what sociologists like to call the “commanding presence” and the “sovereign self.” The “commanding presence” is an outside source of authority- in the larger religious sense, God, or in a lesser religious sense, rabbis. The “sovereign self” is the autonomous individual, who chafes at being told what to do.

“Hello, New York!” Barry Manilow shouted. “It’s good to be home.”

The 600 guests at the 92nd Street Y spring gala on Monday went nuts as they cheered, hollered and wriggled in their seats through a throbbing Las Vegas production of classic Manilow hits.

The singing star said that although he’s originally from Brooklyn, this was the first time he performed at the venerable 92nd Street Y. But he remembers coming here for the Lyrics and Lyricists program.

For many Israelis, Iyar 28 was the best day of the Six-Day War.

That was the date — June 6, 1967 on the secular calendar — when a divided Jerusalem became united, Israeli paratroopers capturing the Temple Mount, defeating Jordanian troops, crying at the Western Wall, ending 19 years of Arab rule that had kept Jews away from some of their holiest sites.

Five years ago last week, The Jewish Week published the first installment of this column. At the time, the kosher wine industry was at the peak of a boom, with a new kosher winery opening almost every month. Yet no American newspaper was then regularly writing about kosher wine, except before Passover and Rosh HaShanah. 

As head of the general surgery department and the Shock Trauma Unit of Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, which has earned an international reputation for its state-of-the-art techniques, Dr. Avi Rivkind has treated, by his own count, at least 10,000 victims of suicide bombings, war, traffic accidents, tsunamis and other disasters. His patients have included soldiers and civilians and Palestinian terrorists. A Sabra, he has done his life-saving work in such countries as Kenya, Argentina and Sri Lanka.

Q: My wife and I disagree about charitable giving. I believe most of our charitable dollars should go to helping our own Jewish people; she wants to give to local non-Jewish groups, like the homeless shelter and food bank. What's the magic formula about Jewish v. non-Jewish giving, according to Jewish law?