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[caption id="attachment_5387" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Kaifeng Jews (with Eran Barzilay in back)"]Kaifeng Jews[/caption] When December's devastating fire ravished Israel's Carmel mountain range, the Jewish community in Kaifeng, China was distraught. Without most of the community ever having visited Israel, let alone the country's lush north, the Jews of Kaifeng nevertheless felt strongly that they needed to help in whatever way they could. With the assistance of Eran Barzilay, a young Israeli who has been studying Chinese at Henan University in Kaifeng for the past year, the community decided to make a donation to the Yemin Orde Youth Village, which was at the epicenter of the fire. Yemin Orde was home to more than 500 children from 20 countries, ranging in age from 5 to 19-years-old. Reconstruction efforts are already underway, but school officials estimate it will take nearly two years to rebuild the entire village. A video of the school and its destruction can be found on its website here.
23 March, 2011
[caption id="attachment_5343" align="alignleft" width="100" caption="Miriam Pena"][/caption] Miriam Pena was raised in a devout Catholic home in Cartagena, Colombia, the vivacious 30-year-old had a different, simpler dream – to visit the Middle East and see the desert. Israel seemed like as good a starting point as any. But as her plans began taking shape back in Colombia, Miriam realized she wanted to join the Jewish people. “At first, I didn’t believe it myself,” Miriam says. “It’s something I just felt in my heart, like I’d been waiting for this for so many years.” Getting to this point, however, has not been easy. When she was five years old, her mother abandoned Miriam and her sister, leaving the two at the door to the school they were attending. The headmistress took them in and raised them as her own children. Although Miriam says she always believed in G-d, she bristled at attending church, and quarreled with her adopted mother over the subject frequently. When she grew older, she moved to the Colombian capital of Bogota where she worked as a waitress and singer (back in her hometown, she had appeared in the “Miss Popular Cartegena” festival and even cut a CD).

15 March, 2011
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