‘To be a hostage does not define me’ By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer “I told myself that I’m a dead man. So every second, every minute, every hour, every day, it will be a gift. So that was my technique. And you never lose the hope. You cannot,”

Anti-Israel vandalism at her school led Ruth Glaser to start a Jewish Student Union there. She’s now a national Zionist youth activist. Interview by Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer Ruth Glaser, 17, has a message for Dayton’s Jewish community. “There are people in the younger generation of Jews who

By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer Ahmed Rehab, who regularly denigrates Jewish supporters of Israel on his social media, gave the keynote address at the MLK Dayton Inc. Celebration Banquet Jan. 19 at Carillon Historical Park. Rehab is executive director of Chicago’s Council on American-Islamic Relations chapter as well

Culinary historian Michael Twitty will deliver the keynote for University of Dayton’s Food & Culture Festival. He’ll talk about the history, myths, and controversies surrounding Southern food, race, and identity, at 5:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 5 at the Roger Glass Center for the Arts. The full festival, presented by UD’s

By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer Beginning with the 2026-27 school year, Hillel Academy of Greater Dayton will have a new home. In January, the Jewish day school signed a contract with Temple Beth Or in Washington Township to lease space in the Reform congregation’s building. Since 2010, Hillel

The National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center will host the panel, Black-Jewish Reconciliation: (Re)Building the Bridge, 7 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 26, presented by the Jewish Community Relations Council. Panelists will be Wilberforce University Assoc. Prof. of History Godfrey Vincent and documentary filmmaker Avi Dresner, son of Civil Rights champion Rabbi

Shoham Cohen, who survived the Oct. 7, 2023 Nova massacre, will be the guest speaker for Chabad’s Community Shabbat Dinner, 5:30 p.m., Friday, Feb. 6. For hours, Cohen was chased by terrorists and hid at the festival site. The cost is $30 adult, $10 child. Chabad is located at 2001

In the news series Jewish Family Education with Candace R. Kwiatek, The Dayton Jewish Observer The use of biotechnology and biomedical engineering for human benefit extends back at least 13,000 years, to physical evidence of rudimentary tooth cavity fillings made with a mixture of tar, hair, and plant fibers. Deliberate

Zoey Shiraz Lader will become a bat mitzvah on Shabbat, Feb. 28, as she reads from Parashat Tetzaveh (Ex. 27:20–30:10). Zoey is a sixth grader at Hillel Academy. She enjoys creative writing and spending time with friends, and she especially loves Shabbat—unplugging from the week, lighting candles, and sharing family

Look for Bark Mitzvah Boy each month in The Dayton Jewish Observer and at this site! To read the complete February 2026 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.