Leshon Ima – Mother Tongue with Dr. Rachel Zohar Dulin, Special To The Dayton Jewish Observer This month we celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day. We are proud that the state of Israel is a beacon of hope to the Jewish people around the world. We are proud of Israel’s

The Jewish Internet with Mark Mietkiewicz, Special To The Dayton Jewish Observer It is the sixth most popular website on the planet. It has become the go-to repository for information replacing venerable — and dusty — encyclopedias. And it’s where controversy over Israel and Judaism are a daily affair. Welcome to

Joseph Benjamin Braunstein, age 97, of Dayton, passed away April 5. He was born Jan. 14, 1917 in Cincinnati and moved to Dayton shortly thereafter. Mr. Braunstein was preceded in death by his parents, Nathan and Esther Braunstein, sister, Bette Getline, and stepson, Thomas May. Mr. Braunstein is survived by

By Martha Moody Jacobs, Special To The Dayton Jewish Observer Last year, a Chasidic woman earned a master’s degree in creative Jewish expression from Antioch University Midwest in Yellow Springs, under the guidance of a Chabad rabbi. That woman is Miriam Karp of Cincinnati, and the rabbi is Dayton’s Shmuel Klatzkin.

Dr. Dan Shechtman, who won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2011 and recently announced his campaign for president of Israel, lived in the Dayton area for three years in the 1970s when he worked at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. In a November 2011 article in The Dayton Jewish Observer,

By Michael Fox, Special To The Dayton Jewish Observer An unabashed crowd-pleaser in a DayGlo package, The Zig Zag Kid transports young-at-heart viewers on a magic carpet of charming hi-jinks and manic energy. Belgian director Vincent Bal has transposed vaunted Israeli novelist David Grossman’s beloved 1994 coming-of-age adventure fantasy from the

By Michael Fox, Special To The Dayton Jewish Observer Wladyslaw Pasikowski’s extraordinary Aftermath is a rare example of a filmmaker fearlessly exposing a grievous chapter in his or her country’s history. You can well imagine everyone prefers that the secret, and the amoral failings of a prior generation remain buried, but

By Michael Fox, Special To The Dayton Jewish Observer The screw-tightening Israeli drama Bethlehem pivots on the personal bond between a Shin Bet officer and the Palestinian teenager he’s cultivated as an informant. That may sound like a bad case of misplaced trust by both parties. In the context of

  Looks for The Adventures of Bark Mitzvah Boy each month in The Dayton Jewish Observer and at this site. To read the complete April 2014 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.

By Rabbi Judy Chessin, Temple Beth Or, and Chair, Synagogue Forum of Dayton We cheered when gymnast Aly Raisman wowed the crowd with her floor performance to the strains of Hava Nagila at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. It was with less enthusiasm that critics hailed the 15-year-old Russian ice