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Germany donating $80 million to maintain Auschwitz

Germany has committed to a donation of $80 million to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, for the preservation and restoration of the memorial at the site of the Nazi concentration camp.

Tikkun Olam

When it comes to helping victims of the Southeast Asian tsunami, the American Jewish World Service (AJWS) is taking the adage, \”teach a man how to fish,\” quite literally.

As part of its long-term relief efforts for victims of the Dec. 26 tragedy, the group is working with its partner organizations in the region, including the Sanghamitra Service Society in Andhra Pradesh, India, which helps local fishing communities with sustainable development and disaster preparedness. The philosophy behind the group\’s post-tsunami effort is the same as that behind general AJWS operations — long-term efforts through collaboration with groups in the region.

A Berry-Bursting Celebration

When my daughter was born, I walked the floors of our Atlanta home night after night, day after day, holding her while she slept or when she cried, stopping always in front of the wall of backyard windows framing a forest of trees. As I grew into my unexpected role of single motherhood, I watched the bare trees bend, and sometimes break under the weight of silver winter icicles. Then, as if reborn, I saw the same trees stretch tall and proud with tight spring blossoms of white, pink and lavender, before expanding, under the summer rains, into a lush landscape of green. Finally, these magnificent trees transformed, as if to colored music, into passionate reds, singing oranges and dancing yellows of fall, just as we packed our boxes and moved away.

Dude, Where’s My Kabbalah?

It\’s official. The Kabbalah Centre has usurped the Church of Scientology\’s status as Hollywood\’s hottest creed of choice. These days, it seems like every celeb looking to add meaning to his or her glittering but empty life of fame and fortune is joining the red-string-wearing, holy-water-selling, quasi-Jewish group.

Ariel Avrech

iel Avrech died of complications from severe pulmonary fibrosis on July 1. He was 22.\n\n\”He was incredibly learned,\” said Avrech\’s father, Emmy-winning screenwriter Robert Avrech (\”The Devil\’s Arithmetic\”). \”I always learned from him. Our roles were reversed. He was also very funny and had a very dry, ironic sense of humor.\”

The Gift of Thrift

T-shirts $2. Jeans $7. Handwritten signs point to bargains galore at the National Council of Jewish Women/Los Angeles (NCJW/LA) Council Thrift Shop.

There’s No Time Like the Present

In my family, death and funerals seem to inspire joking. Maybe it\’s discomfort, but it also seems to be a lack of concern and heaviness about the whole thing. No one in my family does much visiting of graves, and burials are apparently not deemed necessary.

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Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.