The Anti-Defamation League was put on trial at the Aug. 11, 2026 Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) Board Meeting.A meeting that was ostensibly about addressing the insufficient attention of BVSD, and particularly Southern Hills Middle School, to acts of documented anti-Semitism of a student at that middle school for more than two years, turned into a forum for person after person explaining why ADL’s anti-bias programming did not belong in the school district.

Behind the imposing stone walls of Eastern State Penitentiary — the Philadelphia prison that once held Al Capone — sits a small, unlikely  synagogue built by inmates, for inmates, nearly a century ago. Now, a new exhibition is telling its story. Eastern State Penitentiary, in Philadelphia’s Fairmount neighborhood, was active from its founding in 1829 until its closing in 1971.

In case you missed it, I’ve started a puzzle gemach (free loan). Thousand-piece puzzles have become one of my favorite ways to tune out the world. As one works on a puzzle, it’s nearly impossible to think about anything outside the puzzle.

For 32 years, Esther Melamed has been the secular studies principal at Beth Jacob High School. That’s a lot of students she has seen and guided. Melamed estimates that over the years she has taught 800 to 900 graduates; a perfect background to bolster conversations about the 250th anniversary of the US and the future of America.

Some people return to the places that shaped them simply to reminisce. Rabbi Jordan Shaner is returning to help shape the next generation. Years after sitting in the classrooms of Temple Sinai as a child, he has come home as the congregation’s new rabbinic director of Jewish learning, bringing his journey full circle.

The popular French Jewish DJ Barbara Butch is striking a defiant tone after pro-Palestinian activists disrupted her concert in Grenoble, France, vowing not to be cowed from performing.