Local updates connected to the Israel-Hamas war By Marshall Weiss, The Observer Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton Past President Debby Goldenberg described this year’s JCC Chanukah celebration as particularly poignant. Federation staff and layleaders personally invited non-Jews to the program who have expressed their support for the Jewish community since

Temple Israel and Omega Baptist Church will join together for their annual pulpit exchange over MLK weekend. Pastor Joshua Ward will deliver the sermon at Temple Israel’s Shabbat service, 6:30 p.m., Friday, Jan. 12. An Oneg reception will follow the service. Rabbi Karen Bodney-Halasz will deliver the sermon at Omega

By Rabbi Shmuel Klatzkin Chabad of Greater Dayton The year was 1939. Britain was closing the gates of their mandate in the Holy Land to the Jews just as the Nazi regime Britain had placated was about to conquer Eastern Europe and enslave and slaughter its Jews. German Jews had

Opinion By Martin Gottlieb I wish I could believe that the huge, angry reaction against the congressional testimony by the presidents of three elite universities will do something about the rising tide of antisemitism, but I don’t. The reaction seems to me a pathetic search for easy scapegoats. We can’t

By Justin Vellucci Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle Jewish journalist Benyamin Cohen sees Albert Einstein everywhere. Yes, there’s the long shelf life of E=mc2. And a lot of people still know Einstein from his opposition to deploying the atomic bomb, or his theory of relativity. But the genius thinker, who is widely

By Martina Jackson, Fig City News The Foxtail Legacy is a tale of the legacies we all are heir to — family history, family dynamics, family culture, and genetics. And it is that last category that at the beginning and end of the novel is pivotal in defining who should

Judaism’s Worldview Series Jewish Family Education with Candace R. Kwiatek, The Dayton Jewish Observer “They roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws,” goes the fearsome chant-like refrain in the picture book classic Where the Wild Things Are by

Sam Jacob placed 19 out of 2,000-plus runners and third in his age division at the Turkey Trot race in Phoenix, Ariz. over Thanksgiving. Sam, the son of Allyson and Marc Jacob, is a cross-country runner at Centerville High School. Sammy Caruso has graduated summa cum laude from University of

Look for the Adventures of Bark Mitzvah Boy each month in The Dayton Jewish Observer and at this site!     To read the complete January 2024 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here. 

DeNeal Feldman, 92, passed away on Nov. 26. DeNeal, known as Neal to his friends and family, was born on Feb. 12, 1931. A lifelong resident of Dayton, he attended Dayton Public Schools, graduating from Fairview White. He then attended The Ohio State University, where he met his beloved wife,