Are bar mitzvah hype men still a thing, or have they been irrelevant since 2005? What about music; is a DJ still the preference over a live band? Is awkward preteen dancing still required? (Well, some things never change.) 

I’d been keeping a secret from my daughter.

The first paid writing job I ever held was as a bar mitzvah speech ghostwriter.

The phrase adult bar or bat mitzvah, if not an apparent contradiction in terms, reads with some incongruity. Why would you need a bar or bat mitzvah if you’re already an adult?

How do you live life dialectally? This is a challenging way to live life, but there are merits as it will allow you to open your mind to new possibilities.

There are so many months dedicated to raising awareness about important health issues that it is hard to keep track of all of them. Every year there seems to be a new health issue that is being added to a specific month. While there are many important health issues that are worthy of a month…

If one reads some mailings from our field, from some of our grantees, and from all too many wealth advisors, one might think that philanthropy was and is a byproduct of the U.S. tax system. It wasn’t and isn’t.

Dr. Peg Durachko has four bankers’ boxes filled to the brim with cards and small items that she received from friends and strangers after her husband, New Light member Dr. Richard Gottfried, was murdered during the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre on Oct. 27, 2018.

When Yitzchok Gordon arrived at the site, he didn’t bring scaffolding. He wasn’t sure what the job required. Gordon didn’t know whether he needed spackle, scrapers or other materials regularly used for covering up blemishes or altering spaces. What Gordon, a professional painter, realized as…

On Oct. 27, 2018, unimaginable horror descended on the city of Pittsburgh as an anti-Semite extinguished the lives of 11 innocent Jews and forever changed the lives of countless others.

“What to do about lighting?” is the question every client asks me. They want to know: “Do I buy lamps, install track lighting, have recessed cans put in the ceiling, use up-lights, indirect lights or cable lights? What’s the difference between halogen bulbs and incandescent bulbs and now LED?”

There’s nothing like a gorgeous, well-designed kitchen to set the right vibe for the rest of the home. That’s clearly what Stephanie Gamble of Stephanie Gamble Interiors had in mind when she was commissioned to fix up a newly purchased home in Maryland.

When I joined my family’s business, Cypress HomeCare Solutions, back in December 2003, I realized very quickly that many of the clients that we were serving had a form of dementia and some had received a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. After 16 years at the helm, I have seen this populatio…

Are diamonds truly timeless, or are the expensive gems finally on the way out? What about gems that aren’t diamonds? For so long it was taboo to use any other kind of jewel, but does that still hold true? Just as wedding ceremonies are being modernized with updates to old traditions, so too …

Q: I’ve been reading about new homes where husbands and wives have separate rooms built for many purposes. What is this all about?

Holocaust survivors in the Valley will have new opportunities to express themselves emotionally and artistically thanks to an emerging curriculum from Jewish Family & Children’s Service.

Cycling through personal milestones and challenges defines the decades and our journey. Summer of 2019 is a pivotal one for my family. The last of our chickadees will be flying the coop to navigate health care-related fields to not only make a living, but also make a life and a difference. 

When Peg Gamse sprained her ankle a few years ago, having an elevator in her Falls Church,Virginia home really came in handy.

We’re surrounded by counters — particularly in the kitchen, home office and bathroom. We take them for granted and don’t realize the impact they have on us. Their colors, patterns and textures affect our feelings daily. Choosing the material is a decision based on style, function and cost, w…

Being alone can be a terrible thing. Beyond the difficulty of simply living alone, particularly as we get older when our connections to others may diminish, being alone leaves millions of Americans vulnerable to feelings of loneliness and social isolation.The National Association of Area Age…

If you’re approached by someone who offers “free” genetic testing or cancer screening, turn them down.