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A first kiss, then marriage: Two rabbis-to-be tie the knot at a fun-filled California wedding
(JTA) — Zoe Dressner and Margeaux Wolberg had just one month free between graduating from college and when they were due in Jerusalem to begin rabbinical school. So, they figured, in addition to packing, finding an apartment and nailing down the logistics of a 6,000-mile move, why not get married?
At 23 and 22, respectively, the women are much younger than the average college-educated brides — but the decision to marry felt like a natural step in the relationship that began just months into college, accelerated because of the pandemic and, they knew, was headed for a shared destination in the rabbinate.
“The only questions left were do we go directly after college or take a year off, and which school do we apply to,” said Dressner. “Luckily, we both felt really attached to the Reform movement, which meant we were both set on attending Hebrew Union College. We’re lucky that it worked out.”
They had been together for less than a year when all colleges and universities in the United States shuttered their campuses because of the descending pandemic.
“We lived with my family and her family. We weren’t in college with our friends anymore,” Dressner said. “We figured that if this is working, then it must be legit, and it was.”
Their love story traversed three of Judaism’s denominations. Both women were first-year students in the joint program between Columbia University and List College, the undergraduate school of the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary,when Dressner asked her classmates in an introductory Bible class whether anyone would like to check out a Reconstructionist Shabbat service. She got only one taker: Wolberg.
One feature of the wedding stood out: a bouncy house. “I need to be pushed out of my comfort zone,” Dressner said. (Courtesy)
The next morning, on a cold January day, they walked from Morningside Heights to the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, commonly known as SAJ, a Reconstructionist synagogue about two miles south of the JTS campus, and back. As they chatted, they learned they had something in common that was relatively rare for students at List College: Their Jewish passion had been stoked in the Reform movement, through their synagogues and the NFTY youth group — Wolberg in San Francisco and Dressner in East Brunswick, New Jersey.
Three months after their Shabbat morning stroll, the two women opened up to each other that their new friendship was turning into something more.
Neither had ever dated another woman. In fact, Dressner was the first person Wolberg ever dated at all.
“She was my first kiss,” Wolberg said. “And now we’re married.”
Once they planned to wed, they decided it would mostly fall on Wolberg to plan the wedding, while Dressner would plan the proposal. Back in New York, on Dec. 23, 2021, Dressner’s itinerary took them from a light show at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden to sipping warm cider on a rooftop bar to dinner at a kosher steakhouse. They also exchanged rings.
“We started the day by walking around Morningside Heights and recalling special memories together: dates, places we’d lived, etc.” Wolberg said. “I wasn’t surprised that we were getting engaged that day, but the whole day’s plan was a surprise.”
Their wedding similarly packed a lot into a short time. After heading to Calfornia from New York, they had a five-day window in which to marry before leaving for Israel. They set their sights on Sunday, June 12, but their preferred venue could accommodate them only on June 10, the Friday before.
The pair married amid the redwood trees at Old Mill Park in Marin County, holding a daytime reception that reflected a slew of their passions: Mediterranean food, progressive politics (informational posters about same-sex marriage and gun control) and Tevas, the outdoor sandals that both nature enthusiasts have long favored.
Dressner and Wolberg married amid the redwood trees at Old Mill Park in Marin County, California. (Hellena Cedeño Photography)
Then the couple headed to Kabbalat Shabbat services at San Francisco’s Congregation Emanu-El. (Beth Singer, Emanu-El’s rabbi, had performed their wedding ceremony after another rabbi and cantor had to cancel.) A catered dinner followed, at which their grandparents and siblings recited the sheva brachot, the blessings said during the first week of a marriage. They went back Saturday morning for services, then headed to Wolberg’s parents’ house for a family lunch. That night, they held a party for their friends.
The couple said they appreciated that Shabbat services became a continuation of their celebration. They also said that one feature of the wedding stood out: the bouncy house.
That was Dressner’s idea. Given their ages, she said, she thought, “Why not?”
But although some of their parents were initially skeptical about it, most of the guests partook. And one could also see the massive inflatable slide that the couple zoomed down together as a metaphor for their relationship.
“I’m much more reserved personality-wise, and sometimes I need to be pushed out of my comfort zone,” Dressner said. “I learn a lot from the wonderful way Margeaux approaches the world so differently.”
Meanwhile, Wolberg said that among the traits she loves most about her partner is that she has long considered herself a bit of an eccentric (her love of Renaissance music was part of what endeared her to Dressner), and thought it might be difficult to find someone who would put up with her many quirks.
“Zoe wholeheartedly accepts me,” she said. “My quirks are the things she loves the most. She’s not just putting up with me, but really loves all of me for exactly who I am.”
This story is part of JTA’s Mazels series, which profiles unique and noteworthy Jewish life events from births to b’nai mitzvah to weddings and everything in between.
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21 Arab, Islamic, African States and Entities Condemn Israel’s Recognition of Somaliland
The signatories’ flags enclosed in the statement in Arabic. Photo: Screenshot via i24.
i24 News – A group of 21 Arab, Islamic and African countries, organizations and entities issued on Saturday a joint statement condemning Israel’s recognition of Somaliland sovereignty.
The statement’s signatories said that they condemn and reject Israel’s recognition of Somaliland “in light of the serious repercussions to peace and security in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea region, and its serious impacts on international peace and security, which also reflects Israel’s clear and complete disregard for international law.”
It was signed by: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Qatar, Jordan, Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Libya, Palestine, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Comoros, Djibouti, Gambia, Maldives, Nigeria and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
The joint statement voiced support “for the sovereignty of Somalia and reject any measures that would undermine its unity, territorial integrity, and sovereignty over all its lands.”
The signatories also “categorically reject linking Israel’s recognition of the territory of the land of Somalia with any plans to displace the Palestinian people outside their land.”
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Nvidia, Joining Big Tech Deal Spree, to License Groq Technology, Hire Executives
A NVIDIA logo appears in this illustration taken Aug. 25, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Nvidia has agreed to license chip technology from startup Groq and hire away its CEO, a veteran of Alphabet’s Google, Groq said in a blog post on Wednesday.
The deal follows a familiar pattern in recent years where the world’s biggest technology firms pay large sums in deals with promising startups to take their technology and talent but stop short of formally acquiring the target.
Groq specializes in what is known as inference, where artificial intelligence models that have already been trained respond to requests from users. While Nvidia dominates the market for training AI models, it faces much more competition in inference, where traditional rivals such as Advanced Micro Devices have aimed to challenge it as well as startups such as Groq and Cerebras Systems.
Nvidia has agreed to a “non-exclusive” license to Groq’s technology, Groq said. It said its founder Jonathan Ross, who helped Google start its AI chip program, as well as Groq President Sunny Madra and other members of its engineering team, will join Nvidia.
A person close to Nvidia confirmed the licensing agreement.
Groq did not disclose financial details of the deal. CNBC reported that Nvidia had agreed to acquire Groq for $20 billion in cash, but neither Nvidia nor Groq commented on the report. Groq said in its blog post that it will continue to operate as an independent company with Simon Edwards as CEO and that its cloud business will continue operating.
In similar recent deals, Microsoft’s top AI executive came through a $650 million deal with a startup that was billed as a licensing fee, and Meta spent $15 billion to hire Scale AI’s CEO without acquiring the entire firm. Amazon hired away founders from Adept AI, and Nvidia did a similar deal this year. The deals have faced scrutiny by regulators, though none has yet been unwound.
“Antitrust would seem to be the primary risk here, though structuring the deal as a non-exclusive license may keep the fiction of competition alive (even as Groq’s leadership and, we would presume, technical talent move over to Nvidia),” Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday after Groq’s announcement. And Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s “relationship with the Trump administration appears among the strongest of the key US tech companies.”
Groq more than doubled its valuation to $6.9 billion from $2.8 billion in August last year, following a $750 million funding round in September.
Groq is one of a number of upstarts that do not use external high-bandwidth memory chips, freeing them from the memory crunch affecting the global chip industry. The approach, which uses a form of on-chip memory called SRAM, helps speed up interactions with chatbots and other AI models but also limits the size of the model that can be served.
Groq’s primary rival in the approach is Cerebras Systems, which Reuters this month reported plans to go public as soon as next year. Groq and Cerebras have signed large deals in the Middle East.
Nvidia’s Huang spent much of his biggest keynote speech of 2025 arguing that Nvidia would be able to maintain its lead as AI markets shift from training to inference.
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Russian Drones, Missiles Pound Ukraine Ahead of Zelensky-Trump Meeting
Rescuers work at the site of the apartment building hit by a Russian drone during a Russian missile and drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine December 27, 2025. REUTERS/Viacheslav Ratynskyi
Russia attacked Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine with hundreds of missiles and drones on Saturday, ahead of what President Volodymyr Zelensky said would be a crucial meeting with US President Donald Trump to work out a plan to end nearly four years of war.
Zelensky cast the vast overnight attack, which he said involved about 500 drones and 40 missiles and which knocked out power and heat in parts of the capital, as Russia’s response to the ongoing peace efforts brokered by Washington.
The Ukrainian leader has said Sunday’s talks in Florida would focus on security guarantees and territorial control once fighting ends in Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two, started by Russia’s 2022 invasion of its smaller neighbor.
The attack continued throughout the morning, with a nearly 10-hour air raid alert for the capital. Authorities said two people were killed in Kyiv and the surrounding region, while at least 46 people were wounded, including two children.
“Today, Russia demonstrated how it responds to peaceful negotiations between Ukraine and the United States to end Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Zelensky told reporters.
In Russia, air defense forces shot down eight drones headed for Moscow, the city’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Saturday.
THOUSANDS OF HOMES WITHOUT HEAT
Explosions echoed across Kyiv from the early hours on Saturday as Ukraine’s air defense units went into action. The air force said Russian drones were targeting the capital and regions in the northeast and south.
State grid operator Ukrenergo said energy facilities across Ukraine were struck, and emergency power cuts had been implemented across the capital.
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, said the attack had left more than a million households in and around Kyiv without power, 750,000 of which remained disconnected by the afternoon.
Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said over 40% of residential buildings in Kyiv were left without heat as temperatures hovered around 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) on Saturday.
TERRITORIAL CONTROL: A DIPLOMATIC STUMBLING BLOCK
On the way to meeting Trump in Florida, Zelensky stopped in Canada’s Halifax to meet Prime Minister Mark Carney, after which they planned to hold a call with European leaders.
In a brief statement with Zelenskiy by his side, Carney noted that peace “requires a willing Russia.”
“The barbarism that we saw overnight — the attack on Kyiv — shows just how important it is that we stand with Ukraine in this difficult time,” he said, announcing 2.5 billion Canadian dollars ($1.83 billion) in additional economic aid to Ukraine.
Territory and the future of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant remain the main diplomatic stumbling blocks, though Zelensky told journalists in Kyiv on Friday that a 20-point draft document – the cornerstone of a US push to clinch a peace deal – is 90% complete.
He said the shape of U.S. security guarantees was crucial, and these would depend on Trump, and “what he is ready to give, when he is ready to give it, and for how long.”
Zelensky told Axios earlier this week that the US had offered a 15-year deal on security guarantees, subject to renewal, but Kyiv wanted a longer agreement with legally binding provisions to guard against further Russian aggression.
Trump said the United States was the driving force behind the process.
“He doesn’t have anything until I approve it,” Trump told Politico. “So we’ll see what he’s got.”
Trump said he believed Sunday’s meeting would go well. He also said he expected to speak with Putin “soon, as much as I want.”
FATE OF DONETSK IS KEY
Moscow is demanding that Ukraine withdraw from a large, densely-urbanized chunk of the eastern region of Donetsk that Russian troops have failed to occupy in nearly four years of war. Kyiv wants the fighting halted at the current lines.
Russia has been grinding slowly forwards throughout 2025 at the cost of significant casualties on the drone-infested battlefield.
On Saturday, both sides issued conflicting claims about two frontline towns: Myrnohrad in the east and Huliaipole in the south. Moscow claimed to have captured both, while Kyiv said it had beaten back Russian assaults there.
Under a US compromise, a free economic zone would be set up if Ukrainian troops pull back from parts of the Donetsk region, though details have yet to be worked out.
Axios quoted Zelensky as saying that if he is not able to push the US to back Ukraine’s position on the land issue, he was willing to put the 20-point plan to a referendum – as long as Russia agrees to a 60-day ceasefire allowing Ukraine to prepare for and hold the vote.
On Saturday, Zelensky said it was not possible to have such a referendum while Russia was bombarding Ukrainian cities.
He also suggested that he would be ready for “dialogue” with the people of Ukraine if they disagreed with points of the plan.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Kyiv’s version of the 20-point plan differed from what Russia had been discussing with the US, according to the Interfax-Russia news agency.
But he expressed optimism that matters had reached a “turning point” in the search for a settlement.
($1 = 1.3671 Canadian dollars)