Careful readers of The Shofar might think that the editors have erred by running an announcement of shul member Adrianne Greenberg’s golf championship a second time. Not so. Indeed Adrianne did win the Women’s Flight A Golf Championship in a nail-biting finish at Island’s End Golf Club, as reported in the September issue of The Shofar.  But Adrianne makes the top of the Jews in the News leader board again this month by winning the Women’s Flight B Championship at the Pine hills Golf Course, barely a breath from her first win.

This time, the format was stroke play, where the winner is determined by the fewest number of strokes after two 18-hole rounds. It was another nail-biter for Adrianne, who “squeaked out a victory,” she said, by a single stroke. Not only did she win it, she won it on her birthday. Nice present, and a fantastic finish to an extraordinary year in golf.

Israeli cyclist Guy Niv made history on Sept. 20 by becoming the first Israeli cyclist to complete the Tour de France. He was riding as part of Team Israel, which was competing in the tour for the first time. Completing the biggest professional cycling race represents a remarkable accomplishment for the 26-year-old who, until three years ago, was primarily a mountain biker and had little experience in road racing.

“I have done it for the next generation of young Israeli cyclists,” Niv said. “They can now dream of achieving this and more.”

Niv’s accomplishment has been covered widely in the Israeli medias, making him one of the country’s most celebrated athletes in a sport usually eclipsed by football and basketball.

Shul member Adrianne Greenberg makes the top of the “Jews in the News” column this month for her nail-biting first-place finish in the Islands End Women’s Flight A Golf Championship. To hear Adrianne tell it, the final match in the Match Play format came down to the final hole.  Adrianne was one-up, having taken the 17th hole, and she putted successfully on the 18th. Now it was Bonnie Palmer’s turn. If her opponent tied her on the 18th, play would continue. Palmer had been sinking long putts throughout the match.

Clearly under pressure, Palmer putted. Her ball tracked to the hole, but veered a quarter-inch left, sealing yet another championship in Adrianne’s impressive career list.

Mazel tov, Adrianne. Yasher Koach.

Peter Madoff, brother of disgraced financier Bernie Madoff, has been released from federal custody. He served a 10-year sentence in a federal prison in Miami for his involvement in his brother’s Ponzi scheme, which was worth almost $65 billion — the largest in history and one that inflicted heavy financial losses on investors, many of them Jewish.

In June 2012, under a plea deal, he admitted guilt to charges of conspiracy and fabricating investment records. He was sentenced the following December and was transferred from the Miami federal prison to home confinement in November 2019. Bernie Madoff, 82, pleaded guilty to 11 crimes in 2009 and is currently serving a 150-year sentence at a federal prison in Butner, NC.

Former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has been sentenced to 6-1/2 years in prison for bribery and extortion. He was also fined $1 million. As previously reported by The Jewish Voice, close to $5 million was received by Silver from estate developers and a cancer researcher in exchange for Silver using his position of influence for their gain. The funds were then laundered in private investment vehicles.

Silver was first convicted in 2015, which was affirmed in 2018. After various appeals, District Judge Valerie Caproni of Federal District Court in Manhattan rejected the appeals, calling Silver “guilty of corruption, plain and simple,” and imposed sentence.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has said that her cancer has returned, but ruled out retirement from the nation’s highest court. Ginsburg, 87, said in a statement released by the Supreme Court, that she has been receiving chemotherapy every two weeks since May 19, which has reduced lesions on her liver. “I have often said I would remain a member of the court as long as I can do the job full-steam,” she said. “I remain fully able to do that.”

Ginsburg’s statement was released one day after she was released from Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for the treatment of a possible infection. Ginsburg, who has sat on America’s highest court since 1993, has experienced a number of health issues over the past few years. Earlier this year, she was hospitalized with an infection in her gallbladder. In August 2019, she underwent radiation for a tumor on her pancreas. In December 2018, she had surgery to remove cancerous nodules from her lungs.