Herman Jaffe, 75, passed away Dec. 25, 2016, the first day of Chanukah, at Oaks of West Kettering. Mr. Jaffe was the third child born to the late Joseph and Lena Jaffe. They moved to Dayton from Bellefontaine and became active in Beth Jacob and Beth Abraham synagogues. He was

By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer When Hannah Schwartz moved from Knoxville, Tenn. to work for the Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management, she hoped to find a social group for young Jewish adults. “There wasn’t anything,” Hannah, 26, says. “And so, I approached the Federation and said, ‘Hey,

Movie Review By Michael Fox, Special To The Dayton Jewish Observer Set within a congregation of observant Jews in a quiet neighborhood in Jerusalem’s Old City, The Women’s Balcony begins with a Bar Mitzvah and ends with a wedding. But there’s plenty of trouble between the celebrations, triggered by a

Movie Review By Michael Fox, Special To The Dayton Jewish Observer Fritz Bauer is hardly your prototypical action hero. As portrayed by Burghart Klaussner in the minor-key historical thriller The People vs. Fritz Bauer, the late-middle-aged lawyer resembles David Ben-Gurion without the charisma. Like Ben-Gurion, though, he is a force

By Alyza D. Lewin, Special To JTA The story of Chiune Sugihara — the Japanese consul in Kovno, Lithuania, who disobeyed his government’s orders in 1940 and issued transit visas through Japan to thousands of Jews seeking to flee war-torn Europe — wasn’t widely known until 1985, when Yad Vashem,

Back to Basics Series Jewish Family Education with Candace R. Kwiatek, The Dayton Jewish Observer Two equally accomplished young women left their abusive marriages. One took her grandmother’s recipes and her Shabbat candlesticks while the other took an assortment of empty Gucci purses. If you had only hours to pack

With Rachel Haug Gilbert, The Dayton Jewish Observer For the sixth time since 2011, Dr. Marti Moody Jacobs has facilitated a spring visit to Dayton for Arab-Israeli middle school students from the village of Deir al-Assad in the Lower Galilee. Along with visiting local sites, the students participated in Temple

By Steve Markman You don’t have to be Jewish to join Jewish War Veterans. For that matter, you don’t have to be a veteran, either. JWV is America’s oldest veterans’ organization, and anyone can join as a patron donor. This type of membership is open to any supporter of the

By Ronnie Fein, JTA Cheesecake is the iconic Shavuot dessert. But it requires some tips and techniques to get it right. And not everyone agrees on what makes a cheesecake perfect. Some like it dense; others, fluffier. Purists say it should be simple, but lots of people prefer it fancy,

By Danielle Oron, JTA I’m a cheese and dairy fanatic. So for obvious reasons, my favorite holiday is Shavuot. This is when spring has sprung and my family makes a whole spread of cheese and dairy-filled foods and desserts. There are always a ton of different cheeses, spreads, breads, fluffy