Calling all Cleveland area middle and high school wordsmiths and artists: you are invited to enter the 2017 annual Yom Hashoah V’Hagvurah (Cleveland’s commemoration of the Holocaust and heroism) Contest. Essays and works of art are sought that portray this year’s theme, “Stand Up, Speak Out: Stopping Persecution Then and Now.”

An evening of togetherness, laughter…and food!

Jewish Clevelander Ron Goldstein recently traveled to Louisiana on an IMPACT! Volunteer Mission with his sights set on helping to rebuild New Orleans, 11 years after Hurricane Katrina. However, when Baton Rouge was hit was devastating floods, Ron and his group quickly rearranged their schedule to go where help was needed. This is Ron's story.

Visiting Israeli cook Bat Zion Yona picked up a piece of Josie Peric's savory, Croatian-style strudel and gave it a taste.

Etty Valinaamat usually opens her home to cook for others. In addition to being a high school baking teacher, she runs a bakery in her hometown of Beit Shean, Israel, where guests are invited to “eat and pray.”

A stone staircase, in disrepair for years, once again provides a second access to the Hebrew Cultural Garden. The tall fountain at the center of the gardens between Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and East Boulevard in Cleveland, dry for years, is working. The plaques at the ends of the spokes of the gardens have been buffed and largely updated.

Donna Yanowitz had never been to the Hebrew Cultural Garden at Rockefeller Park in Cleveland before she was asked to chair the Jewish Federation of Cleveland’s newly formed HCG committee in 2006.

Relentless flooding has devastated southern Louisiana, now a federal disaster area.

Ten college students learned about the importance of having a strong Jewish identity and expressing their passion for Israel at a program July 11 at the Jewish Federation of Cleveland’s Mandel Building in Beachwood.