Ronnie Katz Gerber, at The Blogs

Sep 30, 2024, 10:00 PM

We Need Space to Heal – We Need Peace in Our Homes

Image supplied by the Nova Music Festival Traveling Exhibit and courtesy of Hadassah.

A recent parashah (Torah portion) asks us to seek peace in our homes, to find compromise and paths toward claiming successes – even partial successes – as a blessing. Like hot water meeting the cold, the hot water can...

Sep 21, 2024, 3:59 AM

My Friend Steve’s Second Bar Mitzvah at Age 83: Today You Get a Fountain Pen!

On a recent Saturday night, we celebrated a bar mitzvah in my living room. There were only six of us, all long-time, very good friends. The Wednesday before, I received a text from a dear friend’s daughter, who lives with...

Jul 23, 2024, 6:16 AM

In Time of Educational Crises: Teaching Beyond the Holocaust

As a retired Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) high school educator, who also worked with students from the Palos Verdes School District, I want to share my recent experience addressing the Palos Verdes school board over the publication...

Jul 7, 2024, 11:06 PM

Attending JPAC 2024: Lots of Idealism and Dedication

Pictured left to right: Hadassah Southern California (HSC) members Ronnie Gerber, Ellen Orenstein; CA Assemblyman Al Maratsuchi; HSC members Margie Lunt and Gaye Jacobs. Photo courtesy of the author.

In May, I attended the annual Jewish Public Affairs Committee (JPAC) of California’s 2024 annual conference in Sacramento. Last year, there were over 300 attendees; this year, there were over 500. As to be expected, we learned what our...

May 22, 2024, 12:59 AM

Best Mother’s Day Gift This Year? A D’Var Hadassah

Author Ronnie Gerber Katz and her granddaughters Sarah Sakai and Leah Sakai. Photo courtesy of the author.

Parashat Kedoshim, the Torah reading that falls on the Shabbat before Mother’s Day this year, instructs the Israelites to be holy. And then it tries to define holy by enumerating a set of laws to regulate all aspects of...

Mar 27, 2024, 2:58 AM

Denial Is a Weapon: Simon Wiesenthal Center/Hadassah So. California Collaborate

First there was music and dancing. Then there was a barrage of screams. All the screams ended with the sound of bullets. That’s the scene Talia Biner and Ron Gabay, survivors of the October 7th attack by Hamas on Israel’s...

Mar 21, 2024, 10:23 PM

Rise Up and Confront Our New Genesis

Rise Up! Take the measure of what’s going on around us. Today’s antisemitism has the scent of World War II all over it. We are once again part of our own Genesis ”redo”--yet another beginning. It’s time to make important...

Jan 30, 2024, 12:56 AM

The Sisters and the Apples: A New Year’s Parable

There was once a hard-working family that lived on an apple farm in the great northeast. Their apples were so sweet that the family was able to market them throughout the world. The apples also provided many health benefits -- especially to the at-risk families, who...

Dec 21, 2023, 7:42 PM

Hadassah Comes to the Aid of At-Risk Children in Israel

Just in time for Hanukkah and just weeks after the start of the Hamas-Israeli War, two local Hadassah chapters in the Los Angeles South Bay area, Adira and L’Dor V’Dor, collected over $9,000 through grassroots, word-of-mouth initiatives to help teenage victims of...

Nov 1, 2023, 8:17 AM

Save Our People

I’m confused, upset, confounded and in deep conflict. I grew up with skeletons rattling in my closets and at my table. Although my mother was born in America, she was the daughter of Jews from Kyiv. I was, therefore, a...

About Me

Ronnie Katz Gerber is currently Communications Chair for the Hadassah Metro Los Angeles Region and a member of the Hadassah Writers' Circle. A retired English and drama teacher for one of the largest school districts in California, she has written, directed and produced a handful of curriculum-based plays for her students and received a Los Angeles Awards nomination for her educational outreach through the arts. She has now turned her attention to columns, articles and short stories. Ms. Gerber is active in the community doing volunteer work and also spends her time pursuing her avid interest in travel. She has visited most of Europe, Russia and Africa, China and a bit of South America as well. Most springs, she hosts foreign exchange students for a month while they take an American culture and language crash course at a local university. As a result, she has spent time with them and their families abroad. Her family, especially her grand girls are the best activity of any day.

Contact Me