Rethinking the South American alfajores cookie for Purim. By Leanne Shor, The Nosher Alfajores are a decadent sandwich cookie filled with dulce de leche, a caramel-like spread made from condensed milk. Most people associate alfajores with Argentina, Uruguay, and Peru; they were brought to the New World by the Spanish

Look for The Adventures of Bark Mitzvah Boy each month in The Dayton Jewish Observer and at this site.     To read the complete March 2022 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.

Patricia “Pat” Frankel Bloom died peacefully in Atlanta on Feb. 10 at the age of 88 after a long and courageous battle with cancer. Pat was preceded in death by her beloved husband, Irving. She is survived by their children Jonathan (Aurora) Bloom of Columbus, Ohio, and Judy (Jonathan Minnen)

By Marshall Weiss, The Observer Through a grant from the Association for Jewish Studies, University of Dayton English Prof. Miriamne Krummel will present staged readings of two 20th-century plays that dig deep into virulent medieval Jew hatred in England and Spain. Beth Abraham Synagogue will be the venue for the

By Jim Nathanson Ed Shames died Dec. 3. He was 99 years old, the last surviving officer of Easy Company, the World War II combat unit (E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne Division) made famous by Stephen Ambrose’s 1992 book Band of Brothers and the 2001 HBO miniseries

with Bark Mitzvah Boy, The Dayton Jewish Observer Alice and Dr. Burt Saidel are the arts patrons selected to receive Governor’s Awards for the Arts in Ohio this year. They’ll be among the nine Ohioans honored for their contributions to the arts at a ceremony on May 11. Former Daytonian

The Power of Stories series Jewish Family Education with Candace R. Kwiatek, The Dayton Jewish Observer The Summit. Just a thousand feet shy of Mt. Everest’s peak, Israel’s most accomplished mountain climber, Nadav Ben Yehuda, came across what appeared to be a dead body. Recognizing it as the inexperienced and

By Rabbi Elchonon Chaikin, Chabad of Greater Dayton The end of December featured charitable giving in record numbers. Crowd-funding campaigns, end-of-the-year appeals, building campaigns and the like filled our email inboxes, our brick-and-mortar mailboxes, our phone voice mail calls, our text messages, and social media pages. Wherever we turned, we

Temple Beth Or’s Adult Education Committee will present a virtual discussion on antisemitism at 7 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 22. The guest speaker for the program will be Jeff Silverstein, a second-year rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. Prior to rabbinical school, Silverstein worked for Cincinnati Hillel as its

Chabad Women’s Circle will present its Community-Wide Mega Challah Bake at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 17 at Chabad, 2001 Far Hills Ave., Oakwood. The program is open to girls and women ages 12 and up and includes a musical interlude and desserts. Participants will take home two braided challahs