Finding their place [VIDEO]

By Julie Gruenbaum Fax
Published on February 22, 2012

Lauren Levine is settling in with a group of friends apartment to watch “American Idol,” when a look of panic comes over her face. She rummages around, finds her keys and darts out.“I left the hair thing on,” she says when she returns, breathless, from her own apartment downstairs. “I was straightening Jasmine’s hair before we came up here, and I forgot to turn it off. Wow. That was close.” Levine has wide blue eyes accentuated with sparkly eye shadow, and her voice is spiced with a sense of interested wonder.

Something special

Published on September 16, 2011

Stephen Michaels’ fondest memories of his Aunt Lisa are of watching movies with her.

Who you calling rebbetzin, why you dissing Palin, what college anti-Semitism?

Published on September 17, 2008

" . . . I am just an average person that fits the person you describe in "Post-Palin Depression." I do not have a therapist, but I have been in depression for almost two weeks now . . . "

A quiet hero

By David Suissa
Published on July 9, 2008

When Libby was not around, the young women of Shalva often had to be coaxed in order to reveal their insecurities or to talk about sensitive issues. But with Libby, it was the opposite.

Our family’s journey to make sure our special son was included

By Rony Rosenbaum
Published on February 7, 2008

As soon as they put him on my belly, I knew. I looked at his eyes, and they were a bit puffy, as is normal after a regular delivery, but I knew.

My husband, Mark, said he looked perfect, with all fingers and toes accounted for. I kept asking if he was all right; he was our second child, after all, and I knew he wasn't, because a mother knows.

Mark kept believing everything was OK until he followed the nurses down to the nursery, and they asked for pediatricians to come in. Nurses attended to our first born, Jason -- not doctors.

The journey to inclusion

By William Kolbrener
Published on February 7, 2008

My son, Shmuel, was born four years ago on the 10th of Cheshvan. My wife woke me at 3 a.m.; we were at the hospital a bit after 3:30. Not her first delivery, the labor was quick. By 5:45, she gave birth.

So efficient she was, I thought that there would be time to make it to my regular 7 a.m. minyan in the Bayit Vegan neighborhood of Jerusalem. Our newborn would fit into my schedule -- everything according to expectations; everything as planned.

I accompanied the baby to the post-delivery room. The doctor, flanked by two nurses, labored over the baby with unexpected focus and intensity. Finally, the doctor emerged. Our newborn, he suspected -- really, he knew -- had Down syndrome.