The first female spacewalking team, including a Jewish astronaut, exited the International Space Station on Oct. 18. Swedish-American-Israeli Jessica Meir and Christina Koch are repairing a broken part of the station’s solar-power network.

Meir became the fourth Jewish woman and the 15th Jewish astronaut overall to be part of a space mission.

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, has pledged a gift of $2.5 million to the Anti-Defamation League in support of ADL’s efforts to combat hate and bias in the United States and Europe. In a post on her personal Facebook page, Sandberg said she was moved to take action after hearing that on Oct. 8 — Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar — a synagogue in Halle, Germany, was attacked, leaving two non-Jewish people dead and two others wounded. German authorities confirmed the terror incident had an anti-Semitic motive.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a Supreme Court Justice and a pop-culture icon, has won the 2019 Berggruen Prize, given annually to a thinker whose ideas “have profoundly shaped human self-understanding and advancement in as rapidly changing world.” Ginsburg, 86, was chosen from more than 500 nominees. Reportedly, she intends to direct the $1 million prize money to a charitable nonprofit organization.

The prize committee hailed her as “a lifelong trailblazer for human rights and gender equality” and “a constant voice in favor of equality, the rights of workers, and the separation of church and state.”

The Berggruen Institute is a research organization in Los Angeles dedicated to improving governance and cross-cultural understanding.

Stefan Soloviev, son of New York real estate billionaire Sheldon Solow, just purchased a 53-acre winery in Cutchogue, NY. Soloviev, who changed his name to the original Russian Jewish name, is buying the Peconic Bay Winery in Cutchogue. The closing will take place this month.

Soloviev already owns 500,000 acres in Colorado, New Mexico and Kansas on which he grows crops, raises cattle, and even has a small railway, according to Jewish News Service. He also owns about 150 acres of planted vines on the North Fork, and a total of 1,000 acres in the region. He has not yet sold any wine, and reportedly is about “two or three years away” from producing wines available for sale.

Other wealthy landowners have purchased vineyards on the North Fork. Mexican mining mogul José Antonio Rivero Larrea bought Martha Clara Vineyards in Riverhead last year, and Randy Frankel, an ex-Goldman Sachs managing director and part owner of the Tampa Bay Rays purchased Croteaux Vineyards in July.

The U.S. State Department has named Cherrie Daniels as special envoy for Holocaust issues. Founded in 1999, the office of the special envoy for Holocaust issues “develops and implements U.S. Policy to return Holocaust-era assets to their rightful owners, secure compensation for Nazi-era wrongs, and ensure that the Holocaust is remembered and commemorated appropriately,” according to the State Department’s website.  The special envoy will also work on State’s efforts to combat anti-Semitism, said department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus.

Prior to her current role, Daniels served in the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, and at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo. She speaks Hebrew and other foreign languages, and has served in the U.S. Embassy’s American Center in Jerusalem.

Shul member Miriam Gabriel has won the Flight A Championship of the Pine Hills Ladies Golf League. It took shooting a 92 in the third round, played on August 29, to secure the championship in the league’s final major of the year. Pars on four of the last five holes clinched the victory.