Jewish News

Norfolk—Elsie Martin, longtime resident of Norfolk, passed away February 2, 2021. Born September 5, 1926 in Czechoslovakia, she and her family immigrated to the United States in the mid-1930s to escape the persecution of the Jewish people of Europe. She was the daughter of the late Benjamin and Helen Martin. She was a resident of [...]

Norfolk—Rose Rosenbach, 90, passed away on Sunday, February 14, 2021. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, she was the daughter of the late Mary Miller Rottenberg and Joseph Rottenberg. She was preceded in death by her beloved husband of 67 years, Kurt M. Rosenbach; her brother, Maurice and her daughter-in-law, Kathy. Mrs. Rosenbach was a member of [...]

Norfolk—Bernard “Bernie” Schloss, passed away February 9, 2021. He was 88 years old and was born in Edelfingen, Germany. Bernie was the son of the late Henry and Regina Schloss, and was preceded in death by his brother, Max. Bernie is survived by his three daughters, Laura S. Jones, Caroline M. Schloss, and Helen R. [...]

Ari Gold, a pop star who left his Orthodox Jewish roots to become a music icon of and activist for the LGBTQ community, died this month. He was 47, and the cause was leukemia. Gold was born and raised in an Orthodox family in the Bronx, New York. NPR once reported that his musical talent [...]

Avraham Bedman, a 36-year-old man from Jerusalem, died of COVID on Wednesday, Feb. 10. His fellow synagogue members are blaming his death on misinformation about the coronavirus vaccine. According to Kikar Hashabbat, an Israeli news site, an email sent to members of Bedman’s synagogue claimed that Bedman did not get the coronavirus vaccine because he [...]

Hershel Shanks, the one-time publisher and editor of Moment magazine and a powerhouse in the popularization of biblical archaeology, has died at 90. He died Feb. 5 at his home in Washington, D.C., from COVID-19, his daughter told The Washington Post. An attorney by training, in 1975 he started Biblical Archaeology Review, a Washington-based magazine [...]

It seems they’re everywhere. Plastic bags are choking sea life, clogging up waterways, and blowing in the wind through streets and yards. Ohef Sholom Temple is helping to do something about it. OST joined the Trex Community Challenge two years ago. Trex is a company in Winchester, Va., that takes those pesky bags and other [...]

The Simon Family JCC Swordfish swim team is in its first-ever winter season, having started practices on November 9 in preparation for virtual swim meets from December through February. Jacob Gynan, the JCC swim coordinator, is the team’s head coach, with Leia Sabatini serving as assistant coach. Both are veteran coaches for the Swordfish summer [...]

It’s always great to bake hamantaschen and share them with friends and family. But this isn’t a normal year, of course, and it may be harder to find the time to bake hamantaschen because your kids are home doing remote school; or you’re worried about getting the packages out in time; or maybe you just [...]

(JTA)—In any other year, the mask-decorating party planned for later this month at Congregation Beth El Ner Tamid in Broomall, Pennsylvania, would make perfect sense: Costumes are part of the ritual for festive Jewish holiday of Purim, which begins Feb. 25. This year, though, the masks being decorated aren’t meant for a carnival—they’ll be appropriate [...]