“Why aren’t you at the bus stop?” I sleepily barked at my 15-year-old son, Levi, as I pulled on a sweatshirt and emerged from another night of tossing and turning. “It’s 6:20. I can’t drive you to school. I have a breakfast meeting.” “Mom,” he calmly reassured me, “Relax. My regular bus driver is out…
In its 2015 Quality Counts report, Education Week ranked Arizona as 47th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia on quality of education. That probably doesn’t come as a great surprise to most Arizonans, who have grown accustomed to our state’s dismal education report card. But what may astonish some is that our…
“You’re ruining my life,” bemoans my 15-year-old son, Levi, as he storms out of the kitchen in a fury. To be honest, this kind of teenage drama is relatively rare in our household. Levi’s grown into a fairly easygoing young man who handles most of life’s daily stressors with a cool, even-keeled sense of rationality…
In the late 1980s, under the leadership of Rabbi Bill Berk, Temple Chai set out to redesign the synagogue experience and create a more compassionate and compelling institution. At the forefront of this experiment was the notion that synagogue life should integrate healing and wholeness into the core of Jewish religious experience. The experiment was…
“How could I leave Ronni and our kids with so much more in life to experience?” “How could I not be there to give Ronni and our kids advice, just as my father does for us today?” “Who would walk my daughter down the aisle?” These are just a few of the worries that invaded…
In the “no good deed goes unpunished” file, let’s talk about Hanukkah for a moment. Specifically, let’s talk about a group of folks so joyfully celebrating the miracle of Hanukkah that they’ve incited multiple Jewish communities, rabbis and the ACLU to sue them over their fervent commitment to publicly fulfill the mitzvah of lighting the…
A few years ago when money was tight and we were scaling back on holiday gift giving, my insane husband, Mark, happened upon a giant inflatable polar bear playing “whack-a-mole” with two little penguins. Like any adoring husband, he thought, “I just have to spend the money and buy this inane decoration for my Jewish…
His full name was Robert Gottschalk. “But everyone knew him as Bob,” says his wife, Judi. Though Bob fell prey to lymphocytic leukemia in 2011, Judi is determined to keep his legacy alive for the future of kids in the Arizona Jewish community. Judi and her family have pledged an impressive gift of $150,000 to…
Jessica Berg and the STEP Student Expedition Program Jessica Berg is the real deal. Walking into her home you get the sense of a women with an earthy artistic sensibility. She is warm, engaging and deeply committed to her role as a wife and mother. But once you start talking to her, you realize she’s…
As a parent who has had both of her children labeled “autistic” at very young ages by either a teacher, aide or some other academic “expert,” I don’t take the diagnosis of autism lightly. However, neither of my children suffer from the disorder, for which I am grateful. They are both excelling in school, making…
