By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
The Associated Press estimated that in January of this year, approximately 245,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors are living worldwide, out of just under 16 million Jews worldwide. It’s harder to establish just how many survivors are living in the Portland Metropol...

By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
Nestled downstairs under the Stampfer Chapel at Congregation Neveh Shalom, in a room dominated by heating and ventilation equipment, is a collection of items that fills one of the areas greatest and least known needs: durable medical equipment, readily accessible ...

By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
One of Passover’s most memorable traditions is the four cups of wine consumed during the course of a seder. But another tradition often observed before Pesach makes use of a different liquid: water, specifically the waters of a mikvah.
Rabbi Chanan Spivak, the R...

By JESSICA ANDERSON
A couple of weeks ago, a swatting event occurred at Mittleman Jewish Community Center and Portland Jewish Academy. It was an unsettling event for many people who witnessed the police response and for those who subsequently heard about it and had to wait and wonder about what w...

By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
A year ago, 200 Portlanders headed out on what proved to be the adventure of a lifetime.
All clad in matching blue shirts, the participants in the PDXIsrael 2023 mission had been anticipating the adventure – some for as many as four years. The journey was an am...

By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
At long last, Avi Melamed arrived at the Mittleman Jewish Community Center, in the flesh, to talk about what’s happening in Gaza, Israel and the surrounding region.
The author of “Inside The Middle East” and the founder of the organization that bears the sa...

By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
Congregation Kesser Israel’s mishloach manot baskets are a major production each Purim; a thematically prepared box of joy given out to the congregation’s members and others in fulfillment of one of Purim’s mitzvot.
With this being the first Purim since the...

By JESSICA ANDERSON
In 2023, the US Jewish community reported 1,005 false bomb threats and “swatting” calls (“Swatting” is the act of making false emergency calls, often to 911, to trigger a response from law enforcement.) This was a 774% increase from 2022 when only 115 incidents were re...

By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
While waging a successful strike for a better member contract, the Portland Association of Teachers was making a foray into another conflict; this one larger, more divisive and infinitely more complex than teacher pay and benefits.
This time, it was the War in Ga...

By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
Jaimie Harper has worked in geriatrics and end-of-life care for over 20 years. For much of that time, she hadn’t experienced the next step; what happens in Jewish tradition after death. She knew about it but hadn’t witnessed it or met the people who perform it...

By KERRY POLITZER
For The Jewish Review
A museum visit isn’t complete without a good nosh. Rachel and Aaron Brashear of Sweet Lorraine’s Latkes & More are now ensuring that your trip to the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education will end on a tasty note.
The musical duo, who ...

By RABBI BARRY COHEN
When I was an undergraduate, young, idealistic and optimistic, I had my first encounter with existentialist philosophy. What is the point of being? Where can we find meaning and purpose? What is our motivation to wake up in the morning and live yet another day?
The writings o...

By JESSICA ANDERSON
In my last column, I talked about the importance of reporting antisemitic incidents to me through my incident reporting form at https://jewishportland.org/security. Continuing that thread, I want to share information about a unique resource we have here in Oregon. Oregon was t...

By JESSICA ANDERSON
It won’t be news to most of you reading this that according to the FBI, the Jewish community is on the receiving end of about 60% of religious bias crime, and that between 2021 and 2022, Jews experienced a 36% increase in reported crimes. Given recent events, we can expect 2...

By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
Rabbi Barry Cohen, who has served as Portland’s Jewish Community Chaplain for over five years, will depart his position next month to become the Chaplain Manager of The Velva G. and H. Fred Levine Jewish Chaplaincy Program at the Joan and Stanford Alexander Jewi...

By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
Everything can be Jewish. From A to Z.
Visitors to the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education can see the evidence of that laid out in the museum’s main floor gallery in “Oregon Jews, A to Z,” now through May 26.
“We rarely, if ever, had t...

By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
Bonni Goldberg has written plenty over the years, on a variety of subjects, but it took a special story to make firsy traditionally published children’s book.
A special Jewish story. 
That special story was the genesis of “Dona Gracia Saved Worlds,” publish...