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Gavi Klein is a writer based in New England.

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Jewish Journal •

Fresh voices to help harmonize community at Beverly’s B’nai Abraham - Jewish Journal

Temple B’nai Abraham in Beverly recently hired Emma Mair of Middleton as the congregation’s new learning engagement coordinator and Melissa Baden of Newton as the new music director.
“They’re both committed, passionate, and both connected to all ages. And they both love Judaism and want to try things out,” temple Rabbi Alison Adler said. “The three of us are committed to more multigenerational things, helping people to get to know each other and have relationships across generations.”
Mair, who...
Jewish Journal •

Record-breaking painting showcases humanity of Boston’s Auschwitz exhibit - Jewish Journal

At 10:30 a.m. on July 31, the world record for the largest watercolor painting was broken at the “Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away.” exhibit when Sharon-based Jewish artist Eli Portman put the final strokes on a 180-square-foot work – the number 18 representing chai, life – inspired by the art of concentration camp prisoners during the Holocaust.
As the exhibition approaches its final month on display at The Castle at Park Plaza in Boston, its creators and marketing team wanted to ensure th...
Jewish Journal •

On Tisha B’Av, our grief – past and present – is shared communally - Jewish Journal

They tried to kill us, they failed. Let’s eat!
This is the age-old Jewish joke about Jewish holidays – someone tries to wipe out the Jewish people. We prevail. And so we celebrate, usually with food.
In the scope of Jewish time, we are now moving into the first, foodless part of this adage – mourning the losses the Jewish people have faced throughout time, namely the destruction of the Holy Temples and entrance into the diaspora. This year from July 23 through Aug. 13, we move through the progre...
Jewish Journal •

Explorers makes retirement a time for exuberant living for North Shore seniors - Jewish Journal

Gay Porter doesn’t believe that aging means life must get dark, dull or lonely.
“The retirement years can be everything you might not be able to do during your working years,” she says. “It’s full of joy and color and new things – new people and new ideas and new subjects. I think that’s mostly what lifelong learning is about: you are never too old to learn!”
For five years now, Porter, 81, has been president of the Explorers Lifelong Learning Institute at Salem State University, a program that...
Jewish Journal •

99-year-old survivor to perform in Andover with Holocaust Survivor Band - Jewish Journal

Saul Dreier first beat out a rhythm in a Nazi concentration camp. He wanted to help out a cantor friend of his, also imprisoned, with making music in the camps, but he was not a singer. He figured he could offer a beat.
Through another friend in the camp, Dreier was able to acquire two spoons (most people only got one). One night, as the cantor sat singing with other prisoners, Dreier started up a beat. “I felt that something was missing, so I took the two spoons, joined them, and started ‘pom,...
Jewish Journal •

How an unstoppable Black Jewish woman from Brookline became a voice for Israel - Jewish Journal

In a Tel Aviv mall sometime in 2017, Noa Fay saw a Black girl at the register, and a thought struck her: That person is probably Jewish.
That thought mattered because Fay herself is Black and Jewish. Growing up in Brookline’s Coolidge Corner, she knew she stood out from her white Jewish peers. Even in an explicitly Jewish space like synagogue, strangers never assumed she was Jewish like they did her white friends. Once at a shul event in Lexington, a woman tried to explain to her what a rabbi wa...
Jewish Journal •

‘It is not an easy life in Sderot,’ so Israeli teens find peace at summer camp in New Hampshire - Jewish Journal

For many American Jews, Oct. 7 brought with it the painful understanding: “It could have been me.”
For Laurie Kamenetsky, a daughter of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, that knowledge has been with her since 2007, when she first met a child from Sderot, the Gaza border community where Hamas terrorists massacred at least 50 civilians and 20 police officers on Oct. 7 of last year.
It was the summer of 2007 that the Camp Boston-Sderot Project – a summer camp experience organized by the Russ...
Jewish Journal •

Jessica and Randal Sklar: pandemic love to fairy-tale wedding - Jewish Journal

Jessica Goodman and Randal Sklar’s first date lasted six hours. Alright, it wasn’t actually their first date – the recently wed couple met in the summer of 2020 on the dating app Hinge, during the height of the pandemic. Jessica is immunocompromised (she suffered from arthritis as a child), so rather than a traditional first date, they FaceTimed to see if they connected enough for the risk of an in-person meeting.
Evidently, they did. The second first date took place at the Yotel rooftop in the...
Jewish Journal •

Jewish summer camps navigate how to include Israel in the program - Jewish Journal

‘Tis the season – that is, the season of bug spray and sunscreen, guitar strumming and s’mores, and those once-in-a-lifetime, once-a-year type of friends: it’s summer camp season.
This year, camp will go on as it always does; Jewish sleepaway camp – like most Jewish things – is designed to keep on going when the going gets tough. This summer, camps across the region are working to give campers a meaningful, fun experience, while also grappling with new challenges the war in Israel and Gaza bring...
Jewish Journal •

Shaloh House welcomes Israeli campers from Sderot for the summer - Jewish Journal

Camp Gan Israel Shaloh House of Boston last week welcomed 10 Israeli girls from Sderot, an Israeli town less than a mile from Gaza, for a summer stay in Boston from July 4-21, as a respite from the last months (and years) of rocket fire and proximity to war in Gaza.
Rabbi Dan Rodkin, director of Camp Gan Israel at Shaloh House, visited Israel shortly after the Oct. 7 attack, and the experience moved him to action.
“You go to any hotel, you see hundreds of children from the south, no school, no p...
Jewish Journal •

Journal gala brings Jewish community together; honors the Menschions who lead the way - Jewish Journal

Over 250 people attended the Jewish Journal’s annual Menschions and Martinis fund-raising gala on June 18 at Congregation Shirat Hayam in Swampscott.
The event honored the Journal’s contributions to Jewish life and recent Honorable Menschions: Kary Andrinopoulos, Lisa Nagel and Ken Asher, Carrie and Ariel Berger, Phyllis and Alan Bolotin, Stephanie and Scott Ginsberg, Larry Groipen, Marilyn Schlein Kramer, Patricia “Patti” McWeeney, Bea Paul, Bethany Roditi, Paul Tucker, and Paul Weinberg.
“The...
Jewish Journal •

Students facing on-campus antisemitism gain strength during trip to Israel - Jewish Journal

Six Boston-area Jewish students – among a delegation of around 20 from throughout the United States – recently met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a part of an Olami student leaders’ mission to Israel.
Olami is an organization devoted to sustaining Jewish community around the world, and imbuing young people with a strong, positive connection to Judaism.
“The goal of the government of Israel is not only to serve the people in Israel, it’s to serve the people of Israel, which mea...
Jewish Journal •

‘This year, the Torah that we go to is the Torah of comfort’ - Jewish Journal

Shavuot, the Jewish holiday in which we celebrate receiving the Torah on Mount Sinai, is coming. The cheesecake-and-blintz-filled holiday marks the end of the counting of the Omer – the 49-day period of personal growth in-between Passover and Shavuot. The holiday comes on the evening of 5 Sivan and lasts until nightfall on 7 Sivan. In the Gregorian calendar this year, the holiday will fall on Wednesday, June 11 and run through the evening of Thursday, June 13.
Traditionally, Jews stay up all nig...
Jewish Journal •

North Shore Antisemitism Task Force hosts first event - Jewish Journal

Late last month, the North Shore Antisemitism Task Force held the first event of what they hope will be many, teaching teens to combat antisemitism.
The Task Force, which was founded by concerned Jewish parents, teachers and community leaders on the North Shore in December following Oct. 7, hosted the event with TribeTalk, the Boston-based organization that aims to educate and empower Jewish teens and allies to address situations regarding antisemitism and anti-Israel bias on campus. It was titl...
Jewish Journal •

Epstein Hillel school after-school program gives kids the chance to grow - Jewish Journal

Epstein Hillel School, the North Shore’s only Jewish day school, has launched a new, revamped after-school program that offers a wide range of clubs, activities and fun learning opportunities for kids of all ages.
The Marblehead day school has had an after-school program for around three years, but last year, Head of School Amy Gold appointed Jessie and Lea Winkler – two sisters who have worked at the school for more than a decade – as the new co-directors of the program.
Since then, the Winkler...
Jewish Journal •

Marblehead High student peacefully resolves contested curriculum on Israel - Jewish Journal

David Magen, a 14-year-old Israeli-American, came home one day this past October during the fall of his freshman year at Marblehead High School, and showed his mom one of his homework assignments. It included an abbreviated history of the Jewish people. In it, they described the land that Abraham went to as “Palestine.”
“This summary was talking about 2000 B.C. until 515 B.C.,” David said. “Literally, the word Palestine did not exist in that time period, as that name was only given to the land b...
Jewish Journal •

Beverly Bikes cyclists hit the road for Tour de Shuls fundraiser - Jewish Journal

Bill Kerr of Beverly Bikes, a one-stop shop for all things biking, is organizing a group of Beverly road bikers to join the annual Tour de Shuls, a charity bike ride that raises money for the Tikvah Program at Camp Ramah New England, supporting children with special needs at camp. The ride will take place June 23, and all are welcome to participate.
“The Beverly Bikes road crew is a joy to ride with,” said Kerr, who owns the bike shop. “We are always looking for bicycle adventures to share. What...
Jewish Journal •

Graduation season turns into fear and chaos for Jewish college students - Jewish Journal

On a warm spring morning, Marilyn Meyers, 22, a Jewish senior set to graduate from MIT, sat at a picnic table a little way from a pro-Palestinian encampment.
The encampment – which has since been disbanded by police – was a quiet plot of tents and tarps, encircled by a metal barrier fence hung with cardboard, hand-painted posters: “MIT, there is blood on your hands;” “No peace during genocide;” “MIT Jews say: Not in our name;” “Free Palestine.”
A sign at the front entrance said protestors were d...
Jewish Journal •

North Shore JCC to hold musical tribute to Israel’s independence on May 21 - Jewish Journal

In celebration of Yom Ha’atzmaut – Israeli Independence Day – the Jewish Community Center of the North Shore in Marblehead is inviting an Israeli music group to perform and share its stories.
“After Oct. 7, instead of just telling the story again and again on Zoom and hearing from survivors – which is also super important – I tried to bring a different angle, and tried to bring music to the JCC,” said Uria Roth, project director in the Israel office of the Jewish Community Centers of North Ameri...
Jewish Journal •

Holocaust survivor left powerful impression on Congregation Ahavas Achim in Newburyport - Jewish Journal

At Congregation Ahavas Achim, the dead are given a voice through their loved ones.
The Newburyport synagogue has a tradition that congregants commemorating the yahrzeit of a family member or loved one may receive an Aliyah during the Torah reading on Shabbat, and stand up and speak about the person they lost. On April 3, Rabbi Alex Matthews was surprised by the number of people who stood up to speak about a past member – a man with no family at the shul, who didn’t even live on the North Shore –...
Jewish Journal •

Bar mitzvah boy reminds us: ‘It is really important that we don’t forget.’ - Jewish Journal

For Myer Dawson, 13, just as the Israelites kept the shattered pieces of the Tablets Moses brought down from Mount Sinai, we, too, must keep the broken fragments of ourselves as we move forward in our lives.
“We all have blemishes, imperfections, and flaws that make us unique, and we should not be discouraged by this,” Myer said in his bar mitzvah speech at Congregation Ahavat Olam in North Andover on April 27. “Instead, we should embrace these things as these things make us who we are.”
Myer’s...
Jewish Journal •

New museum opens doors to Chelsea’s vibrant Jewish history - Jewish Journal

At the turn of the 20th century, when thousands of Jews were flooding out of Central and Eastern Europe and landing in Chelsea, the first thing they did was think about dying.
“The first thing that says, ‘We’re here and we’re staying’ is to buy land for a cemetery,” said Ellen Rovner of Somerville, a scholar of Jewish history in Chelsea. The Jewish funeral home in Chelsea in the late 19th and early 20th centuries – when the Jewish population was racing upward from a few dozen to several thousand...
Jewish Journal •

In these troubling times, Yom Hashoah gathering will remind us to ‘Never Forget’ - Jewish Journal

Magda Bader was 14 years old when the Hungarians gave her family 24 hours to get out of their home, leaving everything behind. She was 14 when her family was forcibly moved to a ghetto, 14 when they arrived via cattle cars at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
“Even today, when I speak about it, I know that my voice changes,” she said. “I feel my eyes are tearing, because I remember it very well, all these horrors. I never thought that I would survive.”
That was 80 years ago. It was Passover when they came to...
Jewish Journal •

In troubling times, community Seders bring Jews together to honor our history of perseverance and strength - Jewish Journal

Last year, Rebecca Rosen’s children couldn’t make it to their family Seders in Marblehead.
She and her husband considered doing their Seders alone, but “it would have been very sad in a way, and a holiday should not be that sad,” she said. For the first time, she and her husband turned to the community Seder at Congregation Shirat Hayam in Swampscott.
“I walked in, and it was – in Yiddish, you’d call it ‘freilach,’” she said. Freilach means “happy,” particularly in regard to music – an apt phras...
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About Me

I am a writer and journalist living in Cambridge, MA. I am always on the lookout for untold human-centered stories, and am particularly curious about those that deal with nature, food and farming. When I'm not writing, you can find me baking bread, reading fantasy novels and swimming.

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