Chaplain Rabbi Akiva Feinstein regularly blows the shofar for patients on Rosh Hashanah, but specifically remembers doing so for a boy who, suffering from an illness, spent the holiday at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland.

Grandparents and their grandchildren, as well as a few parents, enjoyed the PJ Library grandparents’ tea party Aug. 27 at the Jewish Federation of Cleveland’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Building in Beachwood.

Jewish Federations across the country are raising funds to support communities and individuals in Houston, San Antonio, Galveston, Corpus Christi and other areas that have been hammered by Hurricane Harvey. With record breaking volumes of rain having fallen through the weekend and expected to continue through tomorrow, extensive damage is continuing to mount.

During the Jewish High Holy Days, the Kol Israel Foundation and Jewish Federation of Cleveland will honor and commemorate the 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. The 56th annual Fall Memorial Service will be on Sunday, September 24 at 2:00 pm at Zion Memorial Park (5461 Northfield Road, Bedford Heights). The service will be held in front of the Holocaust Memorial Monument, which was built by Kol Israel members and dedicated in 1961.

The Jewish Federation of Cleveland will kick off its 2018 Campaign for Jewish Needs at 7 p.m. Sept. 6 at Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple’s Penni and Stephen Weinberg Social Hall in Beachwood with a focus on speakers who witnessed firsthand the effect of federation dollars around the world.

Michelle Hirsch, senior vice president of Brunswick Cos., officially was named chair of the Jewish Federation of North America’s National Young Leadership Cabinet at its annual retreat Aug. 9 to Aug. 12 in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Wednesday, September 6, 2017 marks the launch of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland’s 2018 Campaign for Jewish Needs, which is the annual fundraising Campaign that supports our community’s vitality and vibrancy in the year ahead. The Campaign Launch Event is open to the public on September 6 at 7:00 pm at Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple’s Penni & Stephen Weinberg Social Hall (23737 Fairmount Blvd in Beachwood).

The Jewish Federation of Cleveland’s Young Leadership Division (YLD) has launched a new Microgrant Program. With the YLD Microgrant Program, YLD hopes to create a thriving, vibrant Jewish Cleveland young adult community by empowering individuals or groups to create, plan, and host experiences for Jewish Clevelanders (ages 22-45).

Forty Cleveland civic leaders spent a week in Israel in July, as part of a new Jewish Federation of Cleveland trip, where they got a sense of the country and issues shared by Northeast Ohio and Israeli communities.

A contingent of civic leaders just returned from a week in Israel. We'll gather some to discover what they learned.