Jewish Life Now

How do you say goodbye to the woman who gave birth to you, who raised you with unconditional love, lead by example and elegance, and was the woman I most admired in the world?

Last Sunday, September 13, our extraordinary mother, Ruth Saltzman died.
Leaving behind 4 children,
6 grandchildren and 5 great grandchildren.
Mom was my guiding light, my inspiration. No matter where in the world I lived, she was my north star-my home base.

She was raised in Salem Oregon and went on to study at Stanford. She created and built White Swan Ltd. until it was acquired. She wrote the award-winning children’s book Poppy Bear: The Garden that Overslept and grew award-winning roses. She also composed beautiful songs.

Mom was truly an incredible mother, not just to my sister and brothers and I, but over the years, we learned there were many others who viewed her as a mother figure as well. Over the years, many even viewed her as a princess or movie star-but that’s another story.

She and my dad shared in their philanthropic pursuits and leadership roles, in the Jewish community, and the Oregon business and civic world as well as the arts.

She started her company on a dare, and entered the business world at a time when women needed their husbands to cosign a loan. She had leadership roles in the Federation, ADL and other organizations and raised money for Israel during the wars.
She was a great believer in “giving back.”
Her elegant activism showed up in other areas too.
In the late 1960s, when people were talking about zero population growth, Mom was pregnant with my youngest brother, David, her fourth child. Someone came up to her and asked, “How dare you have another child in times like these?”
Mom’s response:
“I’m trying to make up for the six million we lost.”

At the end, I was not brave or generous enough to tell her it was okay, she could go to Dad.
But now I will try to be:
“Mom, it’s okay. We love you-
Go to Dad. He’s waiting for you.”

Tehei nishmata tzurah bitzror hachayim
May your soul be bound up in the bond of eternal life. 💕

Macklemore condemned Hamas once. On October 19, 2023.

In the same post, he accused Israel of collective punishment.

He never talked about Hamas again. Or the victims of October 7. Or the hostages that remained in Gaza. Or Kfir or Ariel, the youngest children who were murdered by terrorists.

Then one year later, he rapped “long live the resistance.”

has justified Palestinian “resistance”, repeatedly called for a Free Palestine while explicitly admitting he doesn’t know enough, sending thousands of dollars to the agency whose employees massacred civilians and took hostages on October 7, and dismissed Jews who have labeled his rhetoric antisemitic.

Macklemore desperately wants to be seen as a martyr, with his most recent announcement of donating $1M to Palestinian organizations, including , but don’t be fooled.

Speaking out for Palestine brought him something his music hadn’t generated in years: attention, views, and relevance.

hope this helps!!!

With apologies to Madonna, Fauda don’t preach. It just tells a compelling story, with Israeli and Arab characters both portrayed in all their human complexity, lights as well as darks, and lets the audience make up their minds.
It’s what we used to call “art”, and it is the secret of its success. Season five, agonisingly built around the October 7th massacre, is the number one show on Netflix in Lebanon. What, the country whose government has been formally at war with Israel since 1948, whose southern border Hezbollah spent the last two years using as a rocket range? Why, the very same.
Such is the power of good television. Fauda is also number two in Jordan, and in the top ten across Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt, Morocco, Oman, even Saudi Arabia. Millions of Arabs, in countries where saying anything sympathetic about Israel can end a career (at least), are sitting down and watching a story told through Israeli eyes. No ideology required. Just art.
So here’s the thought experiment. Imagine if that’s what television and film had been doing towards the Middle East for the last three years, instead of infantilising and fetishising Arabs on the one hand, and demonising Jews on the other...

Macklemore is out of Ed Sheeran’s remaining U.S. tour dates.

According to the tour promoter, venues reportedly refused to host the shows with Macklemore on the bill. He had been scheduled to open 8 of the final 10 U.S. dates.

One important distinction: this was not, at least publicly, a decision announced by Ed Sheeran himself.

Because while Macklemore may have lost the stage, Ed Sheeran is still silent about the anti-Israel propaganda pushed from that stage — including during the MetLife shows Jewish Life Now reported on last week.

Use the stage to spread anti-Israel lies, and don’t expect everyone to keep handing you the microphone.

A little monster has arrived. 👶

For anyone wondering about the headline, Lady Gaga has called her fans “Little Monsters” for years — and now she has one of her very own.

Mazel tov to Gaga and her fiancé, Michael Polansky, on reportedly welcoming their first child together.

And because Polansky comes from a Jewish family, we’re absolutely claiming a little Jewish nachas on this one. ✡️

No name or other baby details yet, but naturally we already have opinions, questions, and probably a sweater ready. 😂

My most embarrassing Rosh Hashana experience.
The upside is that our family chats just got a lot more interesting.

I’m sharing the first part of Pink’s caption below. Her full statement continues in the comments on her original post — please go to and read the entire thing. It’s worth it.

“I’ve been quiet in my own words for a week, which you know isn’t like me. So here they are.

Last Sunday I reposted somebody else’s post about Macklemore’s set at Ed Sheeran’s show. It said things in words I didn’t write, and I wouldn’t have chosen all of them. Then the comments came, and I did what I do when I’m hurt, which is post snarky memes and act like I’m fine. That’s on me. A repost isn’t a statement, and a meme isn’t a spine. Social media makes all of us cheap and fast, and we all know it. But I’d rather be disagreed with for what I actually said than hated for what anybody else wrote, so let me say it.

I was born a Jew. I didn’t pick it, and I’ve never hidden it. And this week a whole lot of people decided what I believe without asking me, without checking a single thing I’ve ever said or done, because a repost and the word “Jew” were apparently enough to fill in the rest. But let me fill it in... myself.

Of course I don’t speak for Israel, or for any government. I never have. What I said in October 2023 is still exactly what I believe: Hamas is a terrorist organization. Palestinians deserve a future that honors their humanity and their aspirations. Protecting innocent life comes first, everywhere, and nobody should ever celebrate the death of a child. Anybody’s child. I’ve spent a decade as a UNICEF ambassador for kids who didn’t choose the country or the war they were born into, and I have grieved every one of them, on both sides of that fence. I didn’t do it from behind a screen; I went to those children and held them. I’m not going to litigate a complex war in an Instagram caption, and I’m not going to recite anybody’s slogan to earn back a follower.”

(Continued in comments in Pink’s original post)🩷

The US Open’s iconic signature cocktail faced fierce competition for the tennis tournament’s most popular menu item this year. Surrounded by greasy fried foods, the unexpected breakout star was a green bean bowl from the Tel Aviv-born eatery Miznon, according to the restaurant’s head.
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Miznon, the pita chain founded in 2011 by Israeli chef Eyal Shani, set up shop at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center for the first time this year, featuring green beans served in a paper bag, a stand-in for fries, that have become an unexpected sensation — selling by the thousands and drawing lines so long that fans have taken to wandering the grounds in search of them, Liad Balki, Miznon’s head of operations, told Jewish Insider.
ㅤ@jewishinsider