Did You Hear?

The Jewish Delegate Assembly of Greater Pittsburgh is greatly concerned by the spate of anti-Semitic incidents, including terror attacks, riots, violent assaults and the desecration of synagogues and other holy sites that have occurred in in Europe in the last year. The CRC recognizes the EU and the State Department’s definition of Modern anti-Semitism.* The […]

Research shows that a quarter of the Jewish population carries at least one of the many preventable Ashkenazi Jewish genetic diseases (AJGD) – and the list is growing rapidly. The Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF) is the original funder and provider of community education about AJGD and supporter of appropriate pre-conception screening opportunities in Pittsburgh. The […]

I remember in the late 1970’s, my parents saved up enough money to take their first trip to Israel.  When they returned, they gave me and my siblings gifts.  I remember I was given a t shirt that said “Israel Is Real”.  I know it sounds a little corny today, but it was a big […]

Passover ends and immediately the activity in the Jewish community starts to move at a frantic pace.  The number of events, programs and meetings is beyond belief and is a testament to the kind of engaged and interested community we have. I would only mention one such event from this past week, the Yom Hashoah […]

A quick story about something that happened to me this week… My daughter is participating in a teen trip to Israel this summer.  I called the office of the organization running the trip to let them know that our Federation subsidizes every teen going on a teen trip to Israel (when you have attended a […]

Wednesday was a great day.  It started with a meeting and ended with an event. The morning meeting, a two hour gathering of a great group of committed lay leadership, engaged the group in serious discussion about our community and how to best address one of our communal priority areas in order to get the […]

I take much of the language in this week’s Shabbat message from a correspondence I received from our national system, the Jewish Federations of North America.  I know that for many of us our “Jewish attention” has been focused on our local Jewish community, on the Israeli elections and on growing anti-Semitism across Europe.  I […]

The buzz this past week has been about Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech in Congress.  Admittedly, there is a divide both within and from outside the Jewish community as to whether the Prime Minister should have given the speech at all.  There is debate about the right way to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat.  One thing […]

In last week’s New York Times Magazine, “The Ethicist” had a question posed to him.  The question raised was, “During a pledge drive for a public-radio station, an on-air personality made an accusation I’d never heard:  that regular listeners who never contributed were behaving unethically.”  Is it unethical? The Ethicist responded that it was not […]

Debbie Winn Horvitz, the CEO of the Jewish Association on Aging, spoke at a meeting of the Federation Beneficiary Agency Executives.  Debbie mentioned that at a recent session of the Wechsler Leadership Development Institute (Federation’s Young Adult leadership development program), one of the attendees was very taken by an aspect of the work of the […]