Blog

Operation Guardian of the Walls Editor’s Note: Leah Garber, Vice President, Israel Engagement | Director, Center for Israel Engagement, in Jerusalem, has written this update about the current events in Israel and the various factors influencing these events. She will continue to offer her personal perspectives from her home in Israel as often as warranted, and, of course, we pray that the current violence will end soon. Since last evening, hundreds of rockets have been ...

Camp is raucous fun – days filled with friends, activities, and constant motion. The stereotype is that camp counselors are shirking “real” jobs and internships to enjoy final summers as kids themselves. Conventional wisdom tells us jobs at offices, behind desks, chasing coffee, offer better preparation for the brutal economy than a summer camp. That is not our experience. Yes, our counselors spend their summers wearing pajamas and superhero costumes, playing ga-ga and ...

The Merage JCC is excited to welcome people back into our theatre (safely and distanced), and there’s no better occasion to celebrate than Israel’s Independence Day! Please join us on Saturday, April 17 at 8pm for some laughs and “L’chaims” as we Roast and Toast Israel on her 73rd birthday. American-born Israeli comedian Benji Lovitt will join us from Tel Aviv, along with American comedians Talia Reese and Eitan Levine from New York. Benji draws on his experiences ...

Mah Nishtanah: How is Jewish Camp Different From All Others? It is true, every single year for over 20 years, I have run a Jewish summer camp. And, yes, when I write about sending your kids to Jewish camps, yes, it will sound like I am advertising the JCC’s camps. Let’s face it, I am. A bit. But I spend every single summer at Jewish camp, because I believe in them. The JCC believes in them. We believe they are great experiences for your kids and we believe Jewish camp is an ...

First posted in 2017, we are bringing back some of our favorite articles from Mark Lazar, who originally launched our Center for Jewish Life. It is said in the Book of Kings that the great prophet Elijah looked for God within the mighty wind, the shattering earthquake, the raging flames only to find…”And after the fire---a still, small voice.” A still, small voice…a small voice that some of us hear sporadically and others like modern day prophets, use their ...

First posted in 2017, we are bringing back some of our favorite articles from Mark Lazar, who originally launched our Center for Jewish Life. The Forbidden Fruit Contrary to Renaissance Art and Freudian thought, the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden was not an apple or a banana, but a fig! What other leaf could hide the private parts of Adam and Eve? They were after all, made in the image of God …and presumably quite well endowed. The Bowl of Lentil Stew How much could a bowl ...

“Butterflies don’t live in here, in the ghetto.” The phrase is the last line of a poem, “The Butterfly,” penned in 1942 by Pavel Friedman, who was in the Terezin concentration camp and ghetto constructed by the Nazi Gestapo in the Czech Republic. More than 150,000 Jews were sent there. The Butterfly Project, founded by educator Jan Landau and artist Cheryl Rattner Price, was created to commemorate Yom Hashoah or Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Fainbarg and Chase ...

Like you and the entire world, for the past several months we’ve balanced COVID worries, economic downturns and social unrest with hope and with the desire to do something meaningful. Though our many JCC Cares volunteers have hunkered at home away from the Merage JCC and away from our numerous nonprofit partners, we have remained busy. We’ve been reaching out, and staying connected in a number of ways: collecting hundreds of masks, filling our food drive canisters with groceries, ...

CIF Finalist Aurora Duncan Will Be a Second-Generation Panther With Commitment to Drury Junior National qualifier Aurora Duncan of Irvine, Calif. has announced her decision to attend Drury University beginning in the fall of 2021. She will become a second-generation Panther as her mother, Gina LeBlanc-Duncan, competed in the first two NCAA Championships for Drury and head coach Brian Reynolds. Reynolds will also be Aurora’s coach. She told Swimming World: “I am thrilled to ...