Jewish Life

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Riding from Darkness to Light

I’ll take any opportunity to spend time with my adult kids, travel and be outdoors. Earlier this year, my daughter Hayley had a friend working at the Krakow JCC and, out of the blue, asked me, “Hey Mom, want to do this bike ride with me called Ride for the Living?” My immediate...

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How to Fight the Loneliness Epidemic

This summer, the New York Times ran a full-page, front-section article entitled, “If Loneliness Is an Epidemic, How Do We Treat It?” The authors wrote, “More than one-fifth of Americans over 18 say they often or always feel lonely or socially isolated.” And they went on to quote Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who said, “Addressing the...

Joseph Gelders speaking at Highlander Folk School, circa 1935. Photo courtesy family of Earl Hartman.

A Time for Freedom

As we begin to wind down this Passover 2023, our thoughts turn from the struggle for freedom in the Biblical story of Exodus to more recent struggles for freedom in our own land. Earl Hartman is a community member and former operator of Caffee Mediterranneum at the Food Oasis on campus....

OFJCC Garden Pedagogista Debbie Togliatti at the pumpkin enclosure on the farm.

Tu B’Shvat: How We Celebrate in California

And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” -Genesis 1:11 It’s the birthday of the trees! It arrives on the 15th day of Shevat in Israel and February  5– 6 here....

star of david in a pendant and text we remember

Holocaust Remembrance Day with the OFJCC

Today, Friday, January 27, is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Designated by United Nations, the date of January 27 commemorates the day on which the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated in 1945. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum states, “On this annual day of commemoration, the UN urges every member state to honor the six million...

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Introducing…The Annual!

By Seth Leslie, Chief Development Officer  Shalom, chaverim (friends)! Greetings from the OFJCC’s Team Development. We are here today dropping some big news. For those of you in the know, the OFJCC has hosted our Annual Benefit for as long as many of us can remember. We followed the traditional...

OFJCC COO Sally Flinchbaugh (left) and Mandel Leadership in the North fellow Merry Kaabiya, at Merry's home in Israel

Another View on Leadership

In June, our Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President Sally Flinchbaugh was able to travel to Israel as a hands-on learning component of the Mandel Executive Leadership Program. The 18-month program empowers leaders of Jewish nonprofits to sharpen their vision of Jewish communal life and expand their leadership skills....

Evening view of Ama Dablam on the way to Everest Base Camp - Nepal

Parsha Partners: Light on the Mountain (Ki Tisa)

This dual blog post was authored by Robert Perry and Aviv Siegel. Robert and Aviv started working on Parashat Ki Tisa a couple of months ago, and enjoyed working together, discussing, exchanging thoughts and ideas while finding inspiration to each create a personal work based on the Parsha. There have...

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Double D’var: Parsha Perspectives from American and Israeli Friends

Parshah Pinchas  An Israeli and American duo met to learn the weekly Torah portion together. In the process, they discovered they had two totally different but equally meaningful interpretations of the same text. Eyal’s perspective incorporates the words of Israel’s beloved national poet, Chaim Bialik, while Brad’s perspective grounds us in the...

Ancient Goat Skin Torah Scroll

The White House and Pirkei Avot

On June 2, the White House’s first-ever Cabinet-level science advisor Eric Lander was sworn in using a volume of Pirkei Avot. Pirkei Avot, sometimes translated as “Ethics of the Fathers,” is a unique section of the Mishna. Unlike the rest of the Mishnah’s legal precepts, Pirkei Avot is a collection...