Here’s the onlysimchas announcement of Ori Kanefsky’s engagement to Rena Greenfield (daughter of Bruce and Anne Greenfield of North Hollywood).
Here is an article on him from a 2007 edition of the Jewish Journal:
From: YULA Boys School
To: Yeshivat Har Etzion and Yeshiva University
If you are one of the several-hundred people Ori Kanefsky makes a point of meeting at a youth group convention, your conversation with him may quickly go from “Hey, what’s up?” to “What are your goals in life?” or “What would you do if you found out today you weren’t Jewish?”
Intense and enthusiastic, Kanefsky likes to get beyond small talk and find out what is really going on with people. In one instance, he was even able to talk a peer out of considering suicide.
“I think the idea of religion is that its commandments and rules and opportunities can transform us into an incredibly ethical and moral person who seeks to go out and always do the right thing and make the world as good a place as we can,” said Kanefsky, a YULA senior and the vice president of education for the Southwest Region of the Orthodox Union’s National Conference of Synagogue Youth.
Kanefsky is a founder and the president of the Jewish Teen Action Group (J-Tag). The group made and handed out thousands of peanut-butter-and-jelly sack lunches to the homeless in Santa Monica and downtown, and another time made a barbecue for the needy on Venice Beach.
He is a counselor and tutor to younger kids, and a liaison to the Etta Israel Center, rustling volunteers to staff Shabbatons and events for disabled children and adults.
