JITC’s Positive Influence on Jewish Life & Other Orthodox Jews in the News

The Top 100 People Positively Influencing Jewish Life, 2017
A dozen of Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ list of the top one hundred individuals who have positively influenced Jewish life this past year are Orthodox Jews. Our own Allison Josephs is among them. Among the partners on her journey is fellow J100 lister and “Big Bang Theory” actress Mayim Bialik, with whom she studies Torah.

Kosher in the White Mountains
New Hampshire is not known for being especially diverse, so you may be surprised by a new 65-room luxury resort in this small rural hillside community. The Arlington Hotel has all the expected touches: elegant rooms, spacious public areas, a bar, an indoor pool, a salon, and a gymnasium, alongside kosher food and luxury accommodations.

Spanx Introduces Arm Tights — and We Want a Pair
Spanx gets into the modest clothing trend by creating a stylish shell. “It’s basically a crop top made out of tights,” founder Sara Blakely told Vogue.com. “We wear tights on our legs to transition skirts and dresses into the fall and winter seasons, but why not on our arms?”

N.Y. Transplant is South Dakota’s Lone Rabbi: ‘You Really See What God Made Here’
Jacobs, who was born and raised in the Bronx, is part of a tiny community of Sioux Falls Jews that has long gathered to pray and commune without a permanent rabbi. The last full-time spiritual leader of Mount Zion — the only synagogue in South Dakota east of the Black Hills — retired in 1978.

Conan’s Shomer Negiah Selfie 
Conan shares President Trump’s blueprints for dividing up the Holy Land and learns that he’s better at making friends than haggling. New friends include a pair of Orthodox Jewish women, who take a selfie with him sans touch.

Irma Does Not Deter Yeshiva Students in Boca from Studying
Although many local housing developments lost electricity in Hurricane Irma, the development where the 30 post-high school students of Yeshiva Tiferes Torah of Boca Raton in central Boca were staying had its power flicker but never go out. According to Rabbi Yoel Goldberg, the school’s development director, “while this boarded-up house looked on the outside like all others in the area during the storm, what was going on inside was very different; 30 boys engrossed in the highest level of Judaic study out-howling the storm outside!”

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