Look for The Adventures of Bark Mitzvah Boy each month in The Dayton Jewish Observer and at this site.     To read the complete July 2020 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.

Janet Bogin, devoted wife, mother, grandmother, friend and teacher, died May 20 in Oakland, Calif. Born July 24, 1927 in New Rochelle, N.Y. to Pauline and Pinchus Schmier, she attended college at Ohio Wesleyan University and, in 1950, married Asher Bogin, also of New Rochelle. After the Bogins settled in

Tells The Observer she feared another massacre on Fifth Street or that nearby protesters would be shot By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer Fairborn, Ohio resident Katie Mae Marshall, as she goes by on Facebook, came to Downtown Dayton by herself around noon on Saturday, May 30 to join

By Curt Schleier, JTA Instinctively, director-choreographer Jerome Robbins (né Rabinowitz) knew the musical that he was preparing for Broadway was something far greater than just the story of a Jewish family facing persecution in czarist Russia. So at one of his early meetings with the creatives behind the project, he

Documentary examines ‘miracle’ of World Baseball Classic By Jonathan Mark The New York Jewish Week The 2018 documentary, Heading Home, about Team Israel’s Joe Hardy-like ride through victory after victory in the Major League’s 2017 World Baseball Classic, is a sports documentary, of course, but a love story all the

By Michael Fox Special To The Dayton Jewish Observer Benjamin Ferencz was the lead prosecutor in the Nuremberg trial of 24 officers who led the Einsatzgruppen (mobile SS extermination squads) that murdered more than a million Jews and other “enemies of the state” in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. Just 27 when

By Michael Fox Special To The Dayton Jewish Observer Palestinian writer-director Sameh Zoabi achieves something altogether remarkable with his second feature film, particularly at this moment in time: He finds humor in the tattered relationship between Israelis and Palestinians. “The whole idea of Tel Aviv on Fire is that we

By Rabbi Haviva Horvitz Temple Beth Sholom, Middletown The word commencement is a noun, which is defined as a beginning or a start. It is also used when referencing a ceremony in which degrees or diplomas are conferred on graduating students. Doesn’t that seem contradictory? Those who are graduating and

With Scott Halasz, The Dayton Jewish Observer Sammy Caruso showed the importance of donating blood by using his creativity — and his veins. The recent Oakwood High School graduate was one of five $1,000 scholarship winners in the 2020 Community Blood Center/Vectren Lead The Way Scholarship competition. Sammy, the son

A Bisel Kisel with Masha Kisel, The Dayton Jewish Observer Mukbang is not as porny as it sounds, although this genre of online entertainment is almost equally voyeuristic. Originating on South Korean television in 2010, the term is a composite of the words meokneun (to eat) and bangsong (broadcast). It