News

Yom HaShoah rites to mark ghetto resistance

‘Freedom Fighter’ by Robert Russin, in the Tucson Jewish Community Center Sculpture Garden (Courtesy Jewish History Museum)

“Resistance and Resilience: Facing Hatred with Courage Yesterday and Today,” marking the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, will be the theme of this year’s commemorative observance of Yom HaShoah at Congregation Anshei Israel on Sunday, April 15 at 2 p.m. The uprising lasted from April 19 to… Read more »

Camp builds character, resilience says new Camp J director

The Tucson Jewish Community Center’s Camp J — the only day camp in town accredited by the American Camping Association — is gearing up for summer with a new director, Josh Shenker; 11 specialty camps, including a new junior robotics camp; traditional camps that cater to four age groups;… Read more »

Annual forum will address sexual violence

The annual local leaders’ forum breakfast will be held on Friday, April 20, addressing “How does our community respond to sexual violence?” The discussion with local leaders is grounded in the #MeToo movement in Tucson, says Jewish History Museum program coordinator Jamie Luria. Panelists will include April Ignacio, Indivisible… Read more »

SHJC speaker to cover atheism, Judaism, Israel

The Secular Humanist Jewish Circle will co-sponsor, with Freethought Arizona, two free talks by Herb Silverman, founder of The Secular Coalition for America.  Silverman will speak on Sunday, April 15, at 10 a.m. and at 1 p.m. at Banner Medical Center’s Duval Auditorium, 1501 N. Campbell Ave. The morning… Read more »

Local genealogist to reveal how shtetl film helped him discover family history

Joel Alpert with the English translation of a Yizkor book memorializing a lost Jewish community in Ukraine

Local publisher and genealogist Joel Alpert has expanded his credentials to include sleuth. On Friday, April 13, in a Jewish History Museum gallery chat at 11:30 a.m., he will reveal how he unraveled family mysteries, reconnecting people and events, through research. Focusing on a 70-year-old black and white film… Read more »

Temple Emanu-El to present ‘Music of the Shoah,’ Arizona Repertory Singers’ ‘King David’ oratorio

Arizona Repertory Singer member Betty Sproul rehearses her ‘King David’ role, the off-stage voice of the Witch of Endor, with music director Elliot Jones. (Eleonore Rowe)

Temple Emanu-El continues its concert series with two notable performances later this month, “Music of the Shoah” and the “King David” oratorio. On Wednesday, April 11 at 7 p.m., the eve of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), Temple Emanu-El will present a concert of Jewish music either composed during… Read more »

Author will discuss historical novel at brunch

Author Paul Boorstin will discuss his novel, “David and the Philistine Woman,” at a brunch on Sunday, April 29 at 10 a.m. at Congregation Bet Shalom. Critics compare the novel, which reimagines the Biblical story of David and Goliath, to Anita Diamant’s “The Red Tent.” The program is co-sponsored… Read more »

Tucson plans big festival to celebrate Israel@70

Children march in the parade opening the Israel Festival in 2013. (Guy Gelbart)

On Sunday, April 22, Tucson will celebrate Yom Ha’atzmut, Israel’s 70th Independence Day, with the Israel@70: A Living Bridge festival, featuring live music, food, and activities for all ages. Admission is free for the festival, which will take place on a field between the Tucson Jewish Community Center and… Read more »

Israeli tennis star making her mark at UA

Talya Zandberg (Courtesy Zandberg)

Tucson’s latest import from Tiberias, Israel, is Talya Zandberg, the University of Arizona’s new tennis star. Zandberg began playing tennis at age 5, inspired by watching her older brother play. After serving two years in the Israeli Defense Forces, she committed to continuing her tennis career and furthering her… Read more »

Partnership2Gether strengthens Tucson-Israel bonds

Concluding the Partnership2Gether annual budget meeting in Israel in February, from left: Revital Lavy, Hila Keren-Yogev, Goggy Davidowitz, Adi Shacham, Edit Asor, Oshrat Barel, Dvorah Attal, Isaac Amar, Robyn Schwager, Vered Hangali-Mashiach, Ella Mosinzon, Shneor Katash and Yedidya Green. (Courtesy Weintraub Israel Center)

Tucson’s Partnership2Gether program, part of the Weintraub Israel Center, builds a bridge between Tucson and its partner communities in Israel, the city of Kiryat Malachi and the Hof Ashkelon region. “And there is no doubt, over the past few years, we have built the program to a point that… Read more »

Iceland welcomes its first rabbi while considering a ban on circumcision

Rabbi Avi and Mushky Feldman with their daughters in Reykjavik, March 26, 2018. (Courtesy of Avi Feldman)

REYKJAVIK, Iceland  (JTA) — At a windswept harbor of this Nordic capital, a bearded man wearing a black hat dips eating utensils into the icy water while hissing from pain induced by the bitter cold. Perplexed by the spectacle, a caretaker helpfully offers to let the man and his… Read more »

New technology alliance aims to spur business between Arizona and Israel

The World Economic Forum calls Israel a “tech titan.” Israeli tech companies raised $4.8 billion in venture capital last year. Things many of us use daily — the Intel PC processor, the USB flash drive and Google’s Suggestion function — all were invented in Israel. The Arizona Israel Technology… Read more »

Donald Trump wants the U.S. out of Syria. Israel thinks that’s a problem.

A view of a U.S. military base in Syria between Aleppo and the northern town of Manbij, April 2, 2018. (Delil Soueiman/AFP/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Meeting last month with Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came away satisfied that he and the American president were in agreement on a wide range of issues, including Syria, where Israel wants to limit Iranian influence as the Syrian civil war wraps up. “We don’t have… Read more »

Why Netanyahu is blaming this organization for Israel’s migrant crisis

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at the U.N. General Assembly at the world body's headquarters in New York, Sept. 19, 2017. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — It’s been a busy, confounding week for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and the question of the African migrants. On Monday afternoon, after months of threats to deport the lot of them, Netanyahu said he reached an agreement with the United Nations that would have resettled half… Read more »

Deaths on Gaza border hand Hamas a PR victory and Israel an angry internal debate

A Palestinian protester burning tires during clashes with Israeli forces near the border of the southern Gaza Strip, April 2, 2018. (Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — When the smoke from the rifles of Israeli sharpshooters and the firebombs thrown by Gaza Palestinians cleared in the wake of the Palestinian March of Return, there were at least 15 Palestinians dead and hundreds of protesters injured. Israel, meanwhile, had a huge PR mess. Israeli… Read more »

Israel at 70: How 1948 changed American Jews

David Ben-Gurion, who was to become Israel's first prime minister, reads the new nation's Declaration of Independence in Tel Aviv, May 14, 1948. (Zoltan Kluger/Israeli Government Press Office via Getty Images)

(JTA) — One year after Israel’s establishment, in the dead of night, three students ascended a tower at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and raised the Israeli flag. The next morning, the Conservative rabbinical school’s administration took it down. That act of surreptitious Zionist protest was one… Read more »

Paris vigil for murdered Holocaust survivor brings together family, politicians and a Muslim rescuer of Jews

Daniel Knoll, on the left side of the podium with white kippah and no tallit, at a vigil for his mother at the Tournelles Synagogue in Paris, March 28, 2018. (Cnaan Liphshiz)

PARIS (JTA) – French Jews mourning a Holocaust survivor murdered in her Paris apartment welcomed the presence of France’s interior minister, Gérard Collomb, at a vigil in her memory. “We appreciate authorities’ swift action for justice and continued support,” Joel Mergui, the president of the Consistoire Jewish group, said… Read more »