Hoops and Halacha Schedule

What happens when someone is born to a Jewish family, but that family does not practice? Is that person still Jewish? The answer is yes. And Olami’s Romeo-Adan Ventura knows first-hand what it’s like to be a “reconnecting Jew.” Thanks to Ventura’s curious nature, his willingness to explore and educate himself, and his own personal courage, he was able to find his true home within the Jewish community, even though it wasn’t a community he knew growing up.

Danielle Gyles did not grow up Jewish. In fact, she grew up in the small Colorado town of Pueblo, where there is not a large Jewish population. “I love my hometown,” Danielle explains, “But it’s definitely one of those small towns that people don’t really understand. It was a blue-collar town for a very long time, and when the mill went under a lot of people lost their jobs. For a long time the city was scrambling trying to figure out how to keep their citizens.”