Her degree in anthropology from the prestigious University of California at Berkeley didn’t exactly prepare Ellen Dean for her ultimate professional path: from first running Miracle Mile, the popular Valley delicatessen founded by her father, Jack Grodzinsky, to serving as Arizona coordinator of BookPALS, a program in which performing artists and trained volunteers read to…
Ah, it’s Mother’s Day. The day when all of us hard working, perpetually stressed out moms deserve a little TLC. My Mother’s Day usually starts with a delectable array of fresh berries, an egg white omelet, pink grapefruit slices and a specially prepared cappuccino that my 13- and 10-year-old sons, Levi and Eli, have managed…
Many Jewish youths seeking a gap year experience between high school and college head to Israel. Steve Eisenbach-Budner has no qualms about that – as a teen, he participated in a Young Judaea program in Israel before the term “gap year” was even invented. Yet he recognizes that not every young adult has the desire…
You gotta love Facebook. For all the junk it brings into your life, it sometimes offers a bridge to your past that can open up a wealth of wondrous memories and remind you that you really were 15 years old once upon a time. That happened to me the other day when I reconnected with…
My baby, Eli, turned 10 yesterday. It’s so easy to see the frantic flurry of time’s passage once you’re a parent. The milestones fly by like speeding airplanes zooming through the sky. You barely even notice them, and then suddenly a decade is lost. We have this giant sunflower on the wall outside my office….
“I don’t want to get wet!” my 6-year-old son, Eli, screamed emphatically as we entered camp on the penultimate day of the session. “Shoot,” I thought to myself. “I did it again.” It had been a hellish morning. We were already 20 minutes late, and I’d forgotten it was “water day.” “But I’ll get you…
Summer camps were not an option in the pioneer west; however, summer recreation was an important part of Arizona desert life. Early “water holes” were man-made lakes located at Carrillo Gardens, where picnic grounds, band enclosures and boathouses could be found – complete with small boats to rent and paddle across what must have seemed…
For many of us growing up, summer was a time to run through sprinklers, play sandlot baseball or go for long bike rides and maybe even sit outside under a tree reading a book. But not when the temperatures reach 110-115o. Summer in Arizona is a different animal. While residents are not willing to trade…
Last February Brian Mitchell became camp director of Camp Daisy and Harry Stein, the only Jewish overnight summer camp in the region. Previously known as Camp Charles Pearlstein, Camp Stein is located in Prescott and is owned and operated by Congregation Beth Israel in Scottsdale. Brian grew up as a camper and counselor at Camp…
On the website for the new JCC Maccabi Sports Camp (maccabisportscamp.org), Camp Director Josh Steinharter writes, “As a kid who hoped to one day play shortstop for the Yankees, I faced a dilemma every summer. ‘Why do I have to choose between sports camp and Jewish overnight camp?’” Fortunately for like-minded kids today, that is…
