A Bar Mitzvah boy from Scarsdale, N.Y., has built a website that, as of this writing, has enabled nearly 3,000 New York seniors to get appointments for COVD-19 vaccine shots. Twelve-year-old Sam Keusch created VaccineHelper.com as his Bar Mitzvah project. Sam originally thought of making a financial donation but realized the website he envisioned would…
Rabbi Dr. Arthur Waskow (87 or 88) has been arrested more than 25 times while participating in nonviolent demonstrations on behalf of a range of social causes. He is the founder and director of The Shalom Center, which “equips activists and spiritual leaders with awareness and skills needed to lead in shaping a transformed and…
Tikkun Olam (“repairing the world’) is an important tenet in Judaism — and that includes with regard to environmental degradation and sustainable growth. All streams of the Jewish religion are concerned about ecology. Here we present one Torah-centered view from Aish HaTorah (“Fire of the Torah”), an Orthodox educational organization and yeshiva. See the article…
It’s easy to conclude that the enmity between Muslims and Jews is intractable and probably will exist forever. The five videos linked below belie that conclusion. They may represent only a small fraction of interactions between the two religious groups, but they are real and meaningful and inspiring. There is hope! Quote: “We are…
Yosef Abramowitz (b. 1964) is a pioneering developer of solar power in Israel. Named by CNN as one of the top six Green Pioneers worldwide, Yosef Abramowitz served as President of the Arava Power Company and is now focused on serving as CEO and President of Energiya Global, which builds solar fields in Africa and…
Prominent in The Jerusalem Post’s list of “50 Most Influential Jews of 2020” (see “In the Spotlight”): three Jewish physician-scientists on the cutting edge of the search for a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine. They are (from left to right) Prof. Shmuel Shapira, head of Israel’s Institute for Biological Research (IIBR); Dr. Tal Zaks, chief…
We featured Ady Barkan, 36, in this space in October 2019. At the time, it appeared that the healthcare activist suffering from the debilitating and deadly disease ALS had only a very short time to live. The good news is that he’s still alive and carrying on his fight on behalf of healthcare for all…
Bryan Schwartz is an Oakland, California–based attorney who specializes in civil rights…
Fraidy Reiss was raised in an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish family in Brooklyn N.Y. At age 19 she was wed through an arranged marriage; her husband turned out to be extremely abusive. In 2011, Reiss founded the nonprofit organization Unchained At Last to support women and girls who want to leave arranged marriages, forced marriages, and child…
Denis Goldberg, a longtime comrade of Nelson Mandela and a prominent figure in the struggle against apartheid, passed away at age 87 at the end of April 2020. He was imprisoned for 22 years for his activities against the apartheid regime. After his release in 1985, he moved to London and then back to South…
To learn about these and many more AmazingJews, watch a compilation put together by JewOfTheWeek.net in 2015 and posted on YouTube.