by Abigail Pickus

Yohanan Kosensko, a 27-year-old rabbi, is building an iPhone App and website to showcase the history of a Jewish cemetery in Moscow as a way to preserve and transmit Moscow’s Jewish history.

  

by Abigail Pickus
part 1 of 2

Back in 1950, with the ashes from the massacre of Eastern European Jewry still smoldering and a fledgling State of Israel taking its first tentative steps, an American Jewish rabbi wrote a very prescient article.

“What kind of American Jewish community do we desire, and how shall we plan to achieve it?” asked Robert Gordis in a Commentary Magazine essay titled, Creating an Organic Community:A Blueprint to Assure American Jewry’s Future.

  

New York, NY February 6, 2012 – The Natan Fund today announced $973,500 in 47 grants to 48 emerging nonprofits organizations and individuals in Jewish communities around the world. The 2012 grants reflect Natan members’ unwavering commitment to supporting innovative initiatives that are transforming 21st-century Jewish life. “In our ninth annual round of grants, Natan’s grantmaking has grown both broader and deeper,” said David Steinhardt, chair of Natan’s board of trustees. “Natan continually takes risks on new ideas, new people and new initiatives, while at the same time remaining committed to current grantees that are demonstrating success.”

  

Fourth-grade students at Temple Israel Center in White Plains, NY recently gathered for one of a series of Havdalah programs, splitting into groups and discussing the blessings and ritual objects and even making some of their own.

Not particularly unusual on its face. But what made it more notable was the fact that it occurred beyond the synagogue walls, in someone’s home, and most importantly, that parents participated as well.