‘We were all young, we all grew up together’ By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer “Oh, I remember it vividly,” Rabbi Judy Chessin says of Temple Beth Or’s first Friday night Shabbat service, Jan. 25, 1985. In the worst snowstorm of that winter, more than 100 people came out

By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer Thanks to an anonymous donor’s matching gift of $450,000, the Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Dayton project has the potential to raise $900,000 over the next two and a half years. With the $3 million Jewish Cemeteries has already raised, that would easily put

By Talia Doninger, Special to The Dayton Jewish Observer Samantha A. Vinokor-Meinrath never intended to become an expert on antisemitism. “I wish we were talking about anything else,” she tells The Observer. “I wish for all of us that antisemitism would be the realm of historians and not of contemporary

By Rabbi Shmuel Klatzkin Chabad of Greater Dayton There is a striking verse in the Lecha Dodi, sung as we welcome Shabbat each Friday night. It sings of Shabbat as that which was: “From the very beginning, from time primordial, chosen: Last in creation, first in thought.” Simply, Shabbat was

Sacred Speech Series Jewish Family Education with Candace R. Kwiatek, The Dayton Jewish Observer Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel said to Tavi his servant, “Go out and purchase a good cut of meat for me from the market,” so Tavi purchased tongue for him. Rabbi Shimon then said to him, “Go

Temple Israel and Omega Baptist Church will hold their 30th pulpit exchange over MLK weekend. The tradition began in 1994 with Rabbi P. Irving Bloom and Pastor Daryl Ward when Omega Baptist purchased Temple Israel’s building on Emerson Avenue and Temple Israel moved to Riverside Drive. Pastor Joshua Ward will

Opinion by Martin Gottlieb There are many exit polls, wherein voters are confronted at the polling place about how they voted. Any organization that wants to do such a poll can. But there’s one big one. It’s done by a group of major news outlets. After this election, it showed

Twins Eli and Ethan Greenberg, seniors on Centerville High School’s varsity boys basketball team, both signed on Nov. 13 to play basketball at Division 1 schools on full athletic scholarships. Eli will play at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y., a member of the Northeast Conference. Ethan will play at

The U.S. Department of Education announced on Dec. 20 that the University of Cincinnati had agreed to resolve a complaint that the school had failed to follow its obligations under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. An investigation by the department’s Office for Civil Rights reviewed approximately two

Look for The Adventures of Bark Mitzvah Boy each month in The Dayton Jewish Observer and at this site!     To read the complete January 2025 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.