The 5 Towns Jewish Times
December 19, 2020
TEL AVIV Growing up in Cutchogue, New York, Jovan Booker thought he was the only amputee in his small Long Island town.
Raised largely by his late father and grandmother, Booker also had no idea until he was 15 that he was Jewish an identity later cemented during a trip to Israel and through time spent in Jerusalem.
Now a graduate student at New York’s Hofstra University and a basketball coach, Booker, 27, decided last year that he wanted to find a way to return to Israel. He soon secured a five-month internship through the Masa Career Israel program with a nonprofit group that uses basketball as a platform to bring together Jews and Arabs. The internship, which runs through January, combines his twin passions of sports and nonprofit work.
Park Synagogue hosted a Virtual Trivia Night March 13 and raised more than $2,000 for the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Featuring 26 teams of eight people, the three top teams were âSmarter than a Fifth Grader,â âTeam Mish-Moshâ and âDiamondsR4Ever.â The teams included multi-generational fami… More Headlines