By CRYSTAL ERICKSON
TC Daily Planet
A documentary 10 years in the making, Ida’s Story had its big-screen debut at North Minneapolis’s historic Capri Theater on Nov. 16. The premiere drew nearly a full house; over 250 attended to see the new film by a local cast and crew led by executive producer Donna Sherlock and producer/director Barbara Wiener.
Sherlock [...]

The online edition of the Cedar Rapids Gazette reports that Jews in Postville, Iowa, are showing support for former Agriprocessors manager Sholom Rubashkin, with yard signs depicting him against a U.S. flag background. The posters carry the message: “Send Sholom Home.”
A federal jury in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, found Rubashkin guilty Nov. 12 on 86 [...]

Sha’arim expands Darkaynu program for young adults with disabilities
By ERIN ELLIOTT BRYAN / Community News Editor
For young adults with developmental disabilities, graduating from high school is an important milestone in their lives. But while their peers are going away to college or moving on to create new chapters in their lives, these young adults may not [...]

Ambassador Asher Naim, who helped bring 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel, works to help them succeed in the Jewish state

By MORDECAI SPECKTOR

There are more than 100,000 Ethiopian Jews in Israel. They have made aliya from their impoverished African homeland in waves going back to the late 1970s. The most dramatic mass emigration took [...]

Madison, Wisc.-based jazz pianist and composer Ben Sidran has recorded an album of Dylan covers. Dylan Different (Nardis Music) includes Sidran’s renditions of “Highway 61 Revisited,” “Tangled Up in Blue,” “Maggie’s Farm,” “Blowin’ in the Wind” and other tunes by the renowned troubadour from Hibbing, Minn. In a story about Sidran earlier this year (4-17-09 [...]

After Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s war in Gaza, Hamas has emerged as a more potent threat
By MOSHE GIT
Earlier this month a large majority of the United Nations General Assembly members voted to send the Goldstone report to the Security Council. The U.N.-sponsored Goldstone report on Israel’s punishing incursion into Gaza last January has become a [...]

Baseballs, Basketballs and Matzah Balls, by Mitchell Smith, Ph.D., AuthorHouse, 276 pages, $22.95
Reviewed by RABBI NORMAN M. COHEN
If you have ever had the discussion about attending religious school or going to the big game scheduled at the same time as Bar Mitzva rehearsal, then you know what conflict can emerge from the American Jewish way [...]

It’s getting strange out there. Opponents of the Obama administration continue to rally, at the Capitol and in the hinterlands, and call for revolution or secession — or quote Psalm 109:8: “May his days be few; may another take over his position.”
Succeeding verses from the psalm, which Obama’s detractors seem to love, become more [...]

The pop-culture mania for vampire stories meets the Holocaust in Sarah Jane Stratford’s debut novel, The Midnight Guardian, according to Marc Tracy’s article, “War Diary of a Vampire,” for Tablet Magazine.
Following on the popularity of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series — the movie adaptation of Meyer’s first book grossed nearly $200 million in the U.S. — Stratford’s book follows [...]

Israeli director Oren Moverman, in his directorial debut, elicits powerful, affecting performances from the stars of The Messenger, a film about soldiers assigned to the U.S. Army’s Casualty Notification service. Ben Foster plays Will Montgomery, an army officer back from a tour in Iraq, who is assigned to work with fellow officer Tony Stone (Woody [...]