BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — Rabbi Gabriel Yabra was an expert in kosher supervision — not just in the religious laws around Jewish dietary practices, but in the chemical processes of modern food production. For decades, he was the director of UK Kosher, a Buenos Aires-based kosher certification agency that is the largest is the Spanish-speaking…
(JTA) — NEW YORK (Forward via JTA) — Joseph Feingold, a Holocaust survivor, architect and memoirist whose gift of music brought a unique friendship to a South Bronx community died April 15 of pneumonia and COVID-19. He was 97. Jozef Fajngold was born to socialist parents on March 23, 1923, in Warsaw. His father, Aron,…
NEW YORK (JTA) — To those she met accompanying her husband on university business, she was the elegant woman known simply as Mrs. Lamm. To her four children and 17 grandchildren, she was a loving mother who took them on regular outings to Broadway shows and the opera. For years, Mindella “Mindy” Lamm had a…
T’ruah, a nonprofit that trains Jewish clergy to work on human rights campaigns, has a somewhat unusual funding structure. A third of its annual revenue— about $1.4 million in 2018, according to tax filings — comes from foundations, which normally make up a larger portion for Jewish organizations of its size. The rest comes from…
Through the dark forest, my parents and I inched our way over rocks and twigs, to a clearing surrounded by a short fence edged with unlit candles and flowers, some fake, some wilting. My feet pressed into the spongy weeds as our group gathered to hum a niggun, then say Kaddish. Huddled near my parents…
A gathering of young men in front of the Chabad movement’s Brooklyn headquarters led to a scuffle with police, who have been permitting prayer services there for a month despite the ban on gatherings amid the coronavirus pandemic. The incident highlighted the attempts by law enforcement to balance the devout community’s spiritual needs with safety…
The gift she hoisted with a string onto the balcony of her two-bedroom condo was the closest to human contact Ursula Israelski had come in a month. It was a face mask sewn by Sandy Scheller, former wardrobe tech for Cirque du Soleil’s “Zumanity” in Las Vegas, and it came with the bonus of a…
Since July 1 of last year, Jami Goldstene, a former public relations executive, had spent seven days a week running Solomon’s Delicatessen in Sacramento a long-awaited Jewish deli she co-owns that had finally opened after years of delays. Then came Covid-19. On March 15, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that restaurants had to shift to…
(JTA) — Isaiah Kuperstein was known for his big, booming voice and even bigger personality. But those close to him appreciated his softer side, a quality that came across in the way he treated his wife, Elana. Even after 43 years of marriage, Kuperstein still called her his “bride” and often held her hand in…
(JTA) — John Adler was a descendant of Hasidic royalty, tracing his family lineage back to Reb Shmelke of Nikolsburg, one of the earliest Hasidic rabbis. But for years, Adler was estranged from Jewish practice. That changed some time after he arrived in Bristol, England, where for nearly three decades he worked in the drama…
(JTA) — BERKELEY, Calif. (J. Weekly via JTA) — Alby Kass, one of the founders of the Russian River Jewish Community some four decades ago, has died March 31 of complications from COVID-19. He was 89. After spending the past year battling a number of other illnesses, he succumbed in a San Leandro hospital bed…
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