Jewish News

French President Francois Hollande at a visit to a vandalized Jewish cemetery said French Jews still see France as their homeland. “How do we understand the unnameable, the unjustifiable, the unbearable?” Hollande said Tuesday, Feb. 17 at the cemetery in Sarre-Union, in northeastern France’s Alsace region, where more than half of the 400 gravestones were [...]

Singer-songwriter Lesley Gore, whose hit It’s My Party topped the charts in 1963 when she was 17, has died. Gore died Monday, Feb. 16 of cancer at a New York hospital. She was 68. It’s My Party was nominated for a Grammy Award and sold over 1 million copies. Other Gore hits included Judy’s Turn [...]

Bob Simon, the Emmy Award-winning CBS News and 60 Minutes correspondent, was killed in a car accident in New York City. Simon, who covered nearly every major overseas conflict and news story since the late 1960s, was a passenger in a hired car on Wednesday, Feb. 11 that hit another car on Manhattan’s West Side. [...]

WARSAW, Poland (JTA)—Roman Frister, a Holocaust survivor who was a former editor of Haaretz, has died. Frister, a dual Polish and Israeli citizen, died Monday, Feb. 9 in Poland. He was 87. Frister survived the Auschwitz and Mauthausen concentration camps. He was born in 1928 in Bielsko, Poland, but fled with his parents after the [...]

Will iamsburg —Beatrice Steinhouser Legum passed away peacefully on Dec. 2, 2014. Known to everyone as Ms. B, she was a lifelong resident of Williamsburg. A celebration of life was held at Temple Beth El in Williamsburg.

Virginia Beach —Sam C. Brown, Jr., 89, a native of Charleston, S.C., peacefully passed away Thursday afternoon, Feb. 12, 2015. He was born September 28, 1925, in Charleston, S. C., the oldest son of Sam and Hannah Brown. A childhood spent on the beaches and waters of Sullivan’s Island left him with a lifelong love [...]

Congregation Beth Chaverim’s Rabbi Israel Zoberman with a United Nations soldier from Denmark on the Golan Heights’ Mt. Bental at a U. N. force observation post. The post overlooks the abandoned Syrian town of Kuneitra. Rabbi Zoberman participated in a Solidarity Leadership Mission of the CCAR (Reform Rabbis).

Sunday, March 29, 3 pm, Simon Family JCC The Maccabeats are not “your grandfather’s synagogue choir,” according to their website, but their ideology and identity play an important part in their performances, as they are “strongly committed to the integration of traditional and secular wisdom.” Performing an eclectic array of Jewish, American and Israeli songs, [...]

Wednesday, March 25, 5:45 pm, Norfolk Waterside Marriott Leah and Richard Waitzer are the nominees to receive the prestigious Humanitarian Award at the Tidewater chapter of the Virginia Center For Inclusive Communities’ 51st annual dinner. The award is presented to deserving individuals who have demonstrated a commitment to the promotion of respect and understanding among [...]

Sunday, April 19, 5:45 pm Artie Shaw, Harry James and Benny Goodman. They were the kings of swing in the 1930s and 40s, and they were all Jewish. Temple Israel will recall their contributions to one of the greatest eras in American musical history with “Let’s Shwing: Jews, Jazz and Jive.” The synagogue’s annual fundraiser [...]