SURVIVOR SEARCH SUCCESS: Wolf Hall of Bellevue, Wash., survived the Holocaust but thought his whole family had perished — until an Israeli niece he never even knew existed tracked him down. “How much can I describe it?” Hall tells Seattle’s Jewish Transcript. “You couldn’t find a happier guy than I am…. I’ve become an uncle now.”
A CAPITAL PROJECT: The Washington Jewish Week looks at the effort to build a new National Museum of the Jewish People, envisioned as a Daniel Libeskind-designed building on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and Congress. "Given Washington’s role as a pilgrimage point for Americans and an international audience, and given the fact that the major museum in Washington associated with Jews is the United States Holocaust Museum, I feel the other aspects of Jewish life — religion, tradition and culture — need to be explored for that tremendous audience," says Ori Soltes, the effort’s leader.
RECESSION RUN: Richard Cohen, who lost his business to the recession and faced losing his house, responded by running across the country to raise awareness about people in his situation, occasionally carrying the flags of America, Israel and his alma mater, the University of Alabama. “Even when I was hurt, I thought, ‘If I have to use crutches, I’m going to do this,’” the 60-year-old runner tells The Atlanta Jewish Times. “So honestly, I never questioned whether I’d finish, it never came to the surface.”
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CATALOG SALE: The Jewish Publication Society is selling its inventory to the University of Nebraska Press, which will also handle marketing, distribution and production for the storied Jewish publishing house. "This will not be a diminishment of JPS as a publisher of quality Judaica," Ellen Frankel, JPS’s editor emerita, tells Philadelphia’s Jewish Exponent. "Its business footprint is the only thing that will be diminished, not its mission and content."
HAPPY HUNDREDTH: Minnesota’s American Jewish World, approaching the 100th anniversary of its founding, looks back at its history. “There is certainly no rich compensation awaiting one, either in money or even literary glory, for all such efforts,” the paper’s founder, Rabbi Samuel Deinard, wrote in 1915, upon re-launching the paper after some initial fits and starts. “If the same energy were spent by one in writing something for a secular magazine of wide circulation, there would be some satisfactory reward as a result. But what reward awaits the editor or even the publisher of a Jewish journal?” (Don’t worry, he had some answers to the question.)
NEW WAYS TO CARE: As the Los Angeles Jewish Home approaches its hundredth birthday, it’s coping with government cutbacks and is rolling out new types of programs to care for the elderly. “It’s a health care system for the elderly, is what we’re evolving into being,” Molly Forrest, the home’s CEO, tells the L.A. Jewish Journal.
COMMUNITY WITH BUZZ: Beekeeper Eric Korsten hooks up Kansas City Jewish institutions with their own beehives, but his wife is allergic to bee stings, The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle reports. “So much so she swells up in a very unforgettable state,” Korsten tells the paper.
THANKS PORT!: The Oregon Area Jewish Committee is honoring the Port of Portland with its 2011 Human Relations Award, Portland’s Jewish Review reports.
JEWS WITH OPINIONS: Some 340 Jewish Phoenix residents got together to plan their community’s future, The Jewish News of Greater Phoenix reports.
REASON TO KVELL (AND SHVITZ): Chicago’s JUF News profiles three area Jews who will be playing football for Ivy League colleges this season. “I [get to play] Division 1 football and I’m also going to get a great education,” said Abe Dube, a freshman at Brown University.
