Jewish News

The only site of its type in Tidewater, the Jewish Museum & Culture Center (JMCC) is housed in a former synagogue, Chevra T’helim, a building constructed more than 100 years ago in Portsmouth. The original congregation was established in the early 20th century by Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe.  The synagogue’s architecture reflects this geographic [...]

WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Joe Biden unveiled a multifaceted and broad strategy to combat antisemitism in the United States that reaches from basketball courts to farming communities, from college campuses to police departments. “We must say clearly and forcefully that antisemitism and all forms of hate and violence have no place in America,” Biden said [...]

Research, learning, and action were all on display at Strelitz International Academy’s fifth grade exhibit on Tuesday, May 23. Since SIA is an IB® World School, the fifth graders document their learning, research, and action and present it at the Primary Years Program exhibition. Using Chumash (Torah text study) and science as a springboard, the [...]

More than 75 people were busy having fun casting bait into Lake Sandler for this year’s Fishing Derby on Sunday, May 21. With perfect weather and 40 prizes and raffle items, plenty of smiles were caught along with the fish. The largest fish of the day, a 4 lb., 3 oz. largemouth bass, was caught [...]

(JTA) — For a decade starting in 2002, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi devoted herself to pro-Israel advocacy. After that, the Jewish philanthropist and activist from Annapolis, Maryland, went all in to fight for disability rights, working in the field for the next decade. Now, Mizrahi is focused on climate change. “Let me put it this way: [...]

They say, “we are what we eat.”  Maybe this is because food is more than just the building blocks of our physical body. . .it is also feeds our spirit.  It reflects our emotions, “I need something fried today!”  our attitude, “I am feeling bold and spicy!” and our joy, “We have to celebrate with [...]

This year’s Yom Hashoah Commemoration, honoring the victims and survivors of the Holocaust, as well as liberators and righteous gentiles, brought the community together around awareness, sadness, honor, hope, and the understanding that the ordinary can be extraordinary. Temple Israel hosted the annual event on the evening of Sunday, April 16. Anne Fleder, Holocaust Commission [...]

Setting goals and acquiring new skills are at the heart of kindergarten at Strelitz International Academy. This year, each student in Jamie Baker’s kindergarten class set a goal to accomplish with their classmates’ help. Goals included baking a Barbie cake, making and launching rockets, and doing bike tricks on a ramp. Students thought about the [...]

The Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience’s 2023 Middle School Essay contest’s first place winner is Leah Steerman of Virginia Beach.  With the prompt, “If you were building a Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience, which 3 things would you put in it?” MSJE, based in New Orleans, La., launched a contest that was open [...]

  A trailblazer and an active Be A Reader (BeAR) mentor, Thelma Carroll has impacted many lives. In 1960, Carroll applied to and was accepted at Lincoln University, a historically black university in Pennsylvania. She majored in English and graduated in 1964 with a Bachelor of Arts degree – among the first women to graduate [...]