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Jenessa Schwartz, Bay Area day school teacher and cancer ‘thriver,’ dies at 41

SAN FRANCISCO (J., the Jewish News Weekly of Northern California via JTA) — Jenessa Schwartz wore many hats: wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend and educator at Yavneh Day School in Los Gatos, California. Many also knew and admired her as a courageous, self-described “cancer thriver” determined to spread awareness of the disease through her unflinchingly honest blog “My Colon Cancer: Semicolon, Not Full Stop.”
“When life gives you cancer, make a punctuation pun,” she joked on the site. Humor infused her posts, even those that exposed her rawest, most painful struggles.
Schwartz succumbed to the illness on Nov. 1, a month after making the difficult decision to stop all treatment and enter hospice, and less than two weeks after standing on the bimah as her daughter, Ramona, became a bat mitzvah, a celebration Schwartz was determined to attend in person. Schwartz was just 41, though she lived longer than predicted early on by her doctors, who told her it was unlikely she’d live to see 36.
“She didn’t do anything just because,” said Jamie Zimmer, director of Jewish life and learning at Yavneh. “It came with meaning. It came with resolve to make the world a better place.”
A native of the South Bay area of Northern California, Schwartz grew up in Congregation Beth David in Saratoga, California. She was active in her local BBYO chapter and graduated from Yavneh in 1993. She returned to the Jewish school as an employee in 2015, serving first as a middle-school language arts teacher and then as the middle school’s dean.
“There’s not a kid who wasn’t in awe of the kind of teacher that she was,” said Zimmer. “She meant every single word she said, and she took her passion for grammar and language and building confident writers and musical theater and imbued it in every student, and inspired her colleagues, too.”
She also excelled as a Jewish educator, Zimmer said. In 2022, Schwartz won the Ruby Award from the San Francisco-based Jewish Learning Works for excellence in Jewish youth education and engagement.
Her Jewish identity “came from her kishkes. Her Judaism came from a place of heart,” Zimmer said. Prior to working at Yavneh, Schwartz served as director of Jewish life at the Addison-Penzak JCC, next door to the school.
It was at Yavneh that Schwartz met her husband, Trevor Davis, who taught physics there at the time. The two shared a close friendship before becoming a couple shortly after Schwartz was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer in March 2017, when she was just 34.
Schwartz and Davis wed in their San Jose backyard a few years later, in a small ceremony held at the height of the pandemic and streamed over Zoom. The bride and groom wore blue, for colon cancer awareness, as did Ramona and son Solly, her children from a previous marriage.
“It’s going to sound trite and a little cliche, but I’ve cultivated this seize-the-day attitude,” she told CNET before the wedding. “We decided we can’t put off joy.”
Though colon cancer can strike at any age, it typically impacts older adults. Schwartz noticed irregular bowel habits, fatigue, nausea and anemia, but initially attributed the symptoms to her pregnancies: In addition to her two kids, she carried twins as a surrogate for a gay couple, Israeli natives Gil Shlamovitz and Tomer Mendelson.
“She’s the most amazing, loving, compassionate woman we know,” Shlamovitz said. He and Mendelson, who live in Los Angeles, stayed in close contact with Schwartz after Ben and Maya were born in 2015, generally seeing her twice a year. The twins refer to her as their birth mom.
“She’s a super important and meaningful person in their life story,” Shlamovitz said. “She gave many gifts to the world. Ben and Maya are just two examples.”
Another is the way she shared her colon cancer journey publicly in hopes others could get diagnosed, and treated, sooner than she did. The disease is on the rise among people under 50.
“Her writing helped her students, family, community and countless others learn how to live life fully and with compassion,” Yavneh said in its online memorial.
Schwartz wanted to document her experience “partly because I’m a middle child and need the attention, but mostly because colon cancer deserves some air time,” she wrote in an introduction to her blog. “It is incredibly treatable when caught early, but devastating once metastasized.”
Schwartz knew that devastation all too well. She wrote about enduring more than 100 rounds of chemotherapy, several surgeries and clinical trials. Her decision to enroll in hospice followed scans that showed extensive new tumor growth in her liver and lungs, a progression that led to her being released from a medication trial she considered her last hope.
“I’m bloodied, I’m bruised, but no one can say I lost my battle with cancer,” she wrote in her final post on Oct. 1. “I get to choose how things end, and that sounds like winning to me.”
Yavneh Day School closed on Friday, Nov. 3 so members of the Yavneh community could attend her morning funeral at the JCC and grieve for their friend, colleague and teacher.
Schwartz previously asked that donations in her memory be made to Yavneh.
Schwartz is survived by her children, Ramona and Solly; her husband, Trevor; parents Allan Schwartz, Cyndi Sherman and Stephen Schleimer; siblings Jon (Brittany) and Josh (Danielle) Schwartz, cousin Quelise Schroeder, and aunts Jodi Sherman (Ed Markowitz) and Suzie Sherman (Emily Saltzman).
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The post Jenessa Schwartz, Bay Area day school teacher and cancer ‘thriver,’ dies at 41 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.