Rabbi Daniel Plotkin, who grew up in Brown Deer and attended Congregation Shalom, once served as the first student rabbi – the first anybody with a title that had rabbi in it – for Congregation Beth Israel, a Reform synagogue in Colleyville, Texas.  For him, the taking of hostages there on Shabbat, Jan. 15, 2022, was surreal and horrifying. It was also […]

  Sydelle Shulkin said she never thought she’d see “somebody like her” in person.  “It was so exciting,” she said. “To think that the prime minister of Israel was at Fourth Street School!”  Shulkin was a student teacher when Prime Minister Golda Meier visited her former elementary school, back in 1969. Now, Shulkin is a resident at Ovation Communities, and more than 50 years later, she […]

  Mike Gousha and his wife, Lynn Sprangers, donated several photos and documents this winter to Jewish Museum Milwaukee, all of it related to Golda Meir’s 1969 visit to her former elementary school in Milwaukee.  Some of it, like a striking photo of Meir hugging a girl, is not new. The museum already had that shot (see cover). But the documents do shed more light on the Israeli Prime Minister’s brief visit to […]

  Milwaukee’s Congregation Shir Hadash is resettling refugees who were displaced by the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in August, in the Harambee/Riverwest area of Milwaukee.   Rabbi Michal Woll, the Shir Hadash spiritual leader, said that essentially, “Shir has adopted two families.” She hopes to take on more.  Advocates say that thousands of refugee […]

  The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle print edition for January has been delayed about one week and is arriving at homes now. The monthly print edition had been scheduled to arrive in homes on or around Jan. 1. The monthly print edition typically arrives in homes on or around the first of each month. The delay was caused by a […]

  In October, I was fortunate enough to join the Joint Distribution Committee on an inaugural trip to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The JDC is the leading global Jewish humanitarian organization, working in over 60 countries in helping build, revive, and rescue Jews around the world. It is more colloquially known as the Jewish 911.   […]