News

Tucson Jewish Community Center partners with Federation on JPride

The Tucson Jewish Community Center has added JPride to its programming roster. JPride, then known as the LGBT Jewish Inclusion Project, began in 2005 when the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona became one of the first federations in the country to create an outreach program for lesbian, gay, bisexual… Read more »

Exploration of justice kicks off Jewish History Museum chats

Cantor Avraham Alpert at the Holocaust History Center at the Jewish History Museum Sept. 2 (David J. Del Grande/AJP)

Driving one of Tucson’s new Israeli teen emissaries, Leah Avuno, from a lunch and learn on the University of Arizona campus to her next destination, Cantor Avraham Alpert found his talking point. Avuno, originally from Ethiopia, told him Ethiopian Jews would never have made it to Israel if it… Read more »

Project Isaiah food drive to start

The Tucson Jewish community will hold its annual Project Isaiah food drive benefiting the Community Food Bank from Sept. 15-Oct. 15. The project, timed to coincide with the High Holy Days, is named for the Prophet Isaiah, who when asked why we fast on Yom Kippur, responded, “Is it… Read more »

New Jewish Cub Scout pack seeking members

The Temple Emanu-El board of directors has unanimously voted to be a chartering organization for a Cub Scout pack of the Boy Scouts of America. Recruitment is beginning in both the Jewish and general communities for charter members of Pack 613, says Herbert A. Cohn, assistant district commissioner, Spanish… Read more »

JFSA Women’s Philanthropy welcome on tap

Leah Avuno

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Women’s Philanthropy will hold its annual welcome, “Making Our Mark in Tucson, Israel and around the World” on Wednesday, Sept. 28 at 7 p.m. at Hacienda del Sol Guest Ranch Resort. The guest speakers will be Leah Avuno, one of two Israeli teens… Read more »

Poll: Israeli Jews favor Hillary, but say Trump is better for Israel ‘policy’

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton celebrating their respective victories in the New York primaries in New York City, April 19, 2016. (Spencer Platt and John Moore/Getty Images)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Most Israeli Jews would prefer Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump as the next president of the United States — even though more of them think Trump would be better for the “Israeli government’s policy.” According to a poll released Wednesday, 43 percent of Israeli Jews prefer Clinton as president, compared to 34 percent who… Read more »

Newly found KGB document names PA President Abbas as Soviet spy

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) at the presidential compound in Ramallah, May 31, 2016 (Ehud Amiton/TPS)

The Hebrew University researcher who unearthed evidence that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas served as an agent for the Soviet Union during the 1980s says that this should not derail Russia’s current attempt re-ignite Israel-Palestinian peace talks. But at least one senior MK said the revelation is serious enough to… Read more »

One place swing-state voters won’t see Clinton and Trump this season

Rabbis in swing states say their High Holidays sermons won't address the election head on, but will touch on more general civic themes. (Lior Zaltzman)

NEW YORK (JTA) — When Rosh Hashanah came around last year, Rabbi Aaron Gaber wanted to grapple with an issue roiling the country. So he decided to focus his sermon on racism. But several members of Brothers of Israel, a 120-family Conservative synagogue in suburban Philadelphia, weren’t pleased. “Some of the… Read more »

Haredim look to Trump as a pro-Israel, traditionalist tough ‘guy’

A flier posted in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn lists why haredi Orthodox Jews should vote for Donald Trump in November. (Courtesy of Jewish Democrats for Trump)

NEW YORK (JTA) — American Jews are likely to vote for Hillary Clinton in November, but American Jewry’s fastest-growing community is likely to go the other way. A solid majority of haredi Orthodox Jews will vote for Donald Trump, say experts and Republican operatives in the haredi enclave of Borough… Read more »

Trump, Clinton talk tough on Iran following controversial report

Hundreds of demonstrators in Los Angeles protesting the Iran nuclear deal, July 26, 2015. (Peter Duke)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Trump and Clinton campaigns issued tough-on-Iran statements in the wake of a report alleging that negotiators allowed Iran secret loopholes in the nuclear agreement. The Institute for Science and International Affairs, a think tank founded by a former United Nations nuclear weapons inspector, David Albright,… Read more »

This Israeli and Palestinian duo owns Berlin’s hippest hummus joint

Jalil Dabit, left, an Arab Christian from Ramle, and Oz Ben David, who grew up Jewish in Beersheba, opened the restaurant together. (Toby Axelrod)

BERLIN (JTA) – In a corner of former East Berlin, where shabby, red brick buildings meet cobblestone streets, lies a new Promised Land. Kanaan — a casual, vegetarian Middle Eastern restaurant named for the biblical lands before they were conquered by the Israelites — is something of a dream come true. And that’s not just… Read more »

Bernie Sanders’ new movement endorses candidates with a range of Israel views

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., waving on the day of the New Hampshire primary in Concord, New Hampshire, Feb. 9, 2016. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A Florida state senator caught up in a boycott-Israel controversy. A Wisconsin state representative who combated anti-Israel bias on his campus. The diversity of Israel-related outlooks among the 63 candidates endorsed by Our Revolution underscores the eclecticism of the left-leaning movement launched last week by Bernie… Read more »

Muslims look to Jewish example in campaigning for school days off

Students at a Muslim elementary school in Morton Grove, Illinois, praying in the school gymnasium, Sept. 22, 2006. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

  NEW YORK (JTA) — When Jessica Abdelnabbi-Berrocal wanted her local public schools in Jersey City, New Jersey, to close for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha in September, she looked to her Jewish heritage. The daughter of a Sephardic Jewish mother and Catholic father, Abdelnabbi-Berrocal never had any… Read more »

Why Tel Aviv is so crazy about dogs

Mira Marcus, the city of Tel Aviv's director of international press, with her dog Shani at the Kelaviv dog festival in Tel Aviv, Aug. 26, 2016. (Andrew Tobin)

It’s not every day you see a dog getting a massage. But in this Israeli city, somehow it seems expected. At Tel Aviv’s first official dog festival, hundreds of dogs took over Yehoshua Park and its dog park on Friday afternoon. As canine customers wandered among vendors selling dog-related products… Read more »

Cable car tourist project in Jerusalem sparks controversies

Sunset over the Old City of Jerusalem, as seen from the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem. ( Andrew McIntire/TPS)

Jerusalem (TPS) – The Jerusalem Municipality has been promoting a unique initiative to build a cable car that would connect the city’s western neighborhoods with the Old City and Mount of Olives in its east. While the city intends for the project to serve its residents as well as… Read more »

Why do Florida’s Orthodox Jews support Trump? Because they fear Clinton

Donald Trump at a rally at the Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Fla., Aug. 3, 2016. (Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Rebecca Raab was shopping recently in a South Florida Costco, wearing the trademark Orthodox outfit of a long skirt and baseball cap, when an employee waved to her and said “Shalom! We’re voting for Trump because we can’t have Hillary in the White House. She’s… Read more »

Anti-immigrant and white supremacist, maybe. But is the alt-right anti-Semitic?

Pepe the Frog, an internet meme, has become a symbol of the alt-right. (Twitter/Lior Zaltzman)

  WASHINGTON (JTA) – Can you go alt–right without going anti-Semitic? The movement that has emerged from conservatism — and in some ways has turned against it — appears to be nudging its way into the American mainstream as it attaches itself to the success of Donald Trump, the… Read more »