News

Orthodox activists and victims asking NY to change sex abuse reporting laws

Orthodox activists, like these protesting outside a Brooklyn yeshiva, are asking institutions to do more to report and investigate allegations of child sexual and physical abuse. (Courtesy of Chaim Levin)
May 2, 2016 / Debra Nussbaun-Cohen, JTA

  NEW YORK (JTA) – Advocates for sexual abuse victims in the Orthodox Jewish community will be descending on New York’s state capital on May 3 to lobby the legislature to eliminate the statute of limitations for child sex abuse offenses. A bill to change the statute of limitations… Read more »

JFSA to hold ‘Platinum Edition’ of annual awards celebration

Shelly Silverman (left) and Stuart Shatken are the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona's Woman and Man of the Year
April 28, 2016 / Phyllis Braun, AJP Executive Editor

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona will launch a year of 70th anniversary celebrations at its annual meeting and awards celebration on Wednesday, May 11. The “Feddys Platinum Edition” event will be held at 7 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Heading the list of those who will… Read more »

Chefs bringing flavors of Israel to Tucson festivities

(L-R) Chefs Yael Shamir, Maya Klein, Orli Varon Shushan and Sahar Refael from the Weintraub Israel Center’s Partnership2Gether region in Israel will spend a week in Tucson. (Courtesy Weintraub Israel Center)
April 28, 2016 / Phyllis Braun, AJP Executive Editor

Four celebrity chefs from Israel will arrive in Tucson next month for the third annual Tucson Celebrates Israel Week, May 9-15. “Food is known to be a great bridge between people and cultures,” says Oshrat Barel, director of the Weintraub Israel Center, which organizes the festivities. Chefs Orli Varon… Read more »

Tucson students place in top 5 in Israeli tournament

(L-R) Gregory School students Daniel Leighou, Elaine Wright, Jaiveer Katariya, Moritz Gloesslein and Tianyi Zhu, with teacher Dennis Conner, took fourth place in the International Shalhevet Freier Physics Tournament at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel.
April 28, 2016 / Kaye Patchett, Special to the AJP

Earlier this month, a team of talented physics students from Tucson’s Gregory School placed fourth in the world in the April 5-6 International Shalhevet Freier Physics Tournament at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel, where they displayed their outstanding skills in high-tech safecracking. Israel is an international leader in… Read more »

Downtown Shabbat: Hot music, cool venue draws more than millennials

Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon (front) and the Armon Bizman band at a Late Night Downtown Shabbat at the Jewish History Museum on March 25. (Karen Schaffner/AJP)
April 28, 2016 / Charlotte Lowe, Special to the AJP

Tucson, a.k.a. the Old Pueblo, is known for its laid back attitude, not for bucking a trend. Enter Temple Emanu-El’s Late Night Downtown Shabbat, which is roping in the millennials coming of age in the 21st century, statistically a hard group to round up for synagogue participation. According to… Read more »

In Mexico City, finding a cohesive, timeless Jewish community

Members of Tucson’s Next Generation Men’s Group atop the Teotihuacan Pyramid in Mexico City. Top row (L-R): Rob Glazer, David Goldstein, Hillel Baldwin, Stuart Gross and Bobby Present. Center: Jeff Kay, Marty Waldbaum, Peter Marcus, Jeffrey Katz, James Wezelman and Steve Silverman. Bottom: Terry Perl, Danny Gasch, Tom Warne, Larry Gellman and Barry Weisband. Not pictured: Stuart Mellan, Gary Kippur, Dan Asia, David Hameroff and Jeff Katz. (Courtesy Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona)
April 28, 2016 / Karen Schaffner, AJP Intern

Jeffrey Katz of Tucson, a retired physician, just came back from Mexico City and what he saw made quite an impression. “The most unique part (of the trip) was seeing how closely knit a Jewish community exists,” he says. “We were at what is described as a secular Jewish… Read more »

Great Adventure: How an amusement park goes Orthodox for Passover

Six Flags Great Adventure, an amusement park in New Jersey, on Passover becomes the site of an annual Orthodox Jewish pilgrimage. (Uriel Heilman)
April 27, 2016 /

JACKSON, N.J. (JTA) – Pinchas Cohen spent most of Monday wandering around Six Flags Great Adventure under a blazing sun, wearing a knee-length black coat and carrying a big box of shmura matzah under his arm. An imposing, Russian-born Chabad-Lubavitch Hasid who now lives in Brooklyn, Cohen came to… Read more »

In Nevada primary, a Muslim facing a Jew says he was passed over for his faith

Jesse Sbaih in his law office, April 8, 2016. (Ron Kampeas)
April 27, 2016 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

HENDERSON, Nev. (JTA) – Come November, Nevadans in this suburban Las Vegas district may well elect to Congress Jacky Rosen, a software developer and president of her synagogue. A Jordanian-American lawyer says her win would be at his expense, and it’s because of his Muslim faith. But Jesse Sbaih isn’t blaming… Read more »

After weeks of brickbats, Bernie Sanders offers Hillary Clinton a bouquet

Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders greet each other at the CNN Presidential Debate in Brooklyn, N.Y., April 14, 2016. (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)
April 27, 2016 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) – The combative tone in Bernie Sanders’ campaign statements faded on Tuesday evening to a softer pitch of suasion. “I congratulate Secretary Clinton on her victories tonight, and I look forward to issue-oriented campaigns in the 14 contests to come,” Sanders’ statement began after his rival for… Read more »

Paul Ryan, out of the running for president, asks to be seen as foreign policy maven

House Speaker Paul Ryan speaking with reporters at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., April 13, 2016. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
April 27, 2016 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Paul Ryan wants you to know he’s not running for president, he’s no fan of the Obama doctrine and he’s not a neoconservative. What the Wisconsin congressman wants to be, he suggested at an April 14 breakfast in his Capitol Hill offices with foreign policy reporters, is the leader of… Read more »

New documentary asks if we’re ready to laugh at the Holocaust

Mel Brooks doing a Hitler bit in an interview for "The Last Laugh," director Ferne Pearlstein's new documentary about Holocaust humor. (Tangerine Entertainment)
April 26, 2016 / Andrew Silow-Carroll, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — In “The Last Laugh,” a new documentary about humor and the Holocaust (you read that right), the comedian Judy Gold tells this joke: If the Nazis forced her to stand naked on a line with other women, would she hold her stomach in? How you,… Read more »

Maryland’s wild primary and other snapshots from the ‘other’ Super Tuesday

Reps. Chris Van Hollen and Donna Edwards participating in a Democratic forum at the Woodlawn Senior Center in Gwynn Oak, Md., April 9, 2016. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
April 26, 2016 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Maryland goes to the polls Tuesday – one of five states where the two remaining candidates in the Democratic presidential race and the three in the Republican race are facing off. The headline: It’s the new Super Tuesday, at least for the Democrats. This could be… Read more »

How a graphic novel kept this Dutch Jewish couple close but out of Nazis’ reach

Emmanuel and Hetty Joels in Amsterdam in 2012. (Courtesy of Jet Naftaniel)
April 26, 2016 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — As a Dutch Jewish couple hiding separately from the Nazis, Emmanuel Joels and Hetty van Son were literally drawn together by a comic book of Emmanuel’s romantic invention. After narrowly avoiding deportation to Auschwitz thanks to a policeman’s tip, the young couple spent 2 1/2 years living less than… Read more »

Tucson rabbis’ panel stresses similarities among Jews

Rabbi Robert Eisen speaks at Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging on April 10, as panelists Rabbi Yossie Shemtov (center) and Rabbi Thomas Louchheim look on. (Nanci Levy/Handmaker)
April 25, 2016 / Korene Charnofsky Cohen, Special to the AJP

Three Tucson rabbis representing the Orthodox, Reform and Conservative branches of Judaism presented their basic beliefs at a panel discussion at Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging on April 10. About 100 people, including Handmaker residents and members of the Tucson community, discovered more about the similarities rather than… Read more »

In Europe, the far right doesn’t quite know what to make of Trump

Demonstrators protesting against the arrival of Muslim immigrants to Europe in The Hague, Netherlands, April 10, 2016. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
April 24, 2016 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) —  Donald Trump’s xenophobic views are neither new nor particularly shocking in Europe, where fears of jihadism and the challenges of illegal immigration are blowing winds into the sails of a rising far right. Although the Republican presidential hopeful’s statements on immigrants, Mexicans and Muslims are often… Read more »

Knesset member Merav Michaeli wants Israel to stop playing the victim card

Merav Michaeli, shown in the Knesset, came to the United States with the message that Israel is still improving. (Michal Fattal)
April 24, 2016 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — When a pro-Israel U.S. lawmaker greeted a member of Israel’s Knesset here last week, the former may not have anticipated the candor of the latter. “Give me good news,” Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., told Merav Michaeli on April 13, a typical request when the ranking Democrat on the… Read more »