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Digesting the Jewish media: Palo Alto invests $147m in Jewish campus, N.J. puts $20m in day schools

By Jacob Berkman · September 12, 2008

The summer is over and the Jewish papers bounced back in a big way this week, with a lot going on in the charity world.

• The New York Jewish Week sets the bar high with a special section on giving. There's a lot here that I'll unpack in the coming days.
• In Palo Alto, a 8.5-acre, $147 million complex is taking shape that will be a campus for Jewish life and, planners hope, the center of the Bay Area's Jewish world, reports J.
• The Washington Jewish Week takes a look at the JCPA's Fighting Poverty With Faith effort, a non-profit dedicated to propagating fair news coverage of Israel and the problem of teenage pregnancy.
• The Baltimore Jewish Times has a cover story on a fascinating affordable housing project in inner-city Baltimore started by Jewish Funds for Justice and a church group.
• The synagogue at Eastern State Penitentiary is getting a face-lift, reports the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.
• A community wide drive in New Jersey to build an endowment to help make Jewish day schools more affordable has reached $20 million, reports the New Jersey Jewish News.
• Alvin Goldfarb, a major philanthropist in St. Louis, passed away, the St. Louis Jewish Light writes.
• The New Jersey Jewish Standard has a story about Shalva, the Association for Mentally & Physically Challenged Children in Israel.
• And for my final trick of the roundup, let's veer off-course a bit: The L.A. Jewish Journal has a story about the evolving role of the rabbi's spouse and what it means to be a rebbitzen these days – male or female.