Red-haired tornado of energy Joanna Hausmann likes to explore how puzzled Americans are when she says she’s Latina

Once a month in Caracas, Estrella Benmaman turns her home into a restaurant, putting a new spin on her Fez-born grandmother’s recipes

According to the Law of Return, Jewish converts who wish to make aliyah are required to undergo a conversion in a "recognized Jewish community," and then spend at least nine months actively engaged in Jewish life in said recognized community before they can move to Israel. However, for a group of nine Venezuelan Jews from Maracay who coverted to Judaism in 2014 under the auspices of a Conservative rabbinical court-and who joined a synagogue an hour's drive from their hometown and have been practicing and studying their religion for three years-they apparently are not "involved enough" in Jewish life to make aliyah.