Senior Lifestyle

Tucsonan Bobby Present, right, defeated Barry Danser of London, left. (Courtesy Bobby Present)
Tucsonan Bobby Present, right, defeated Barry Danser of London, left. (Courtesy Bobby Present)

Local’s Maccabi experience: tennis and history in Vienna

Tucsonan Bobby Present competed in the Maccabi Games in Vienna, Austria, this summer, playing in the masters tennis men’s 55+ category — and doing well until an injury forced him to default for the first time in his tennis career. “It was unfortunate timing,” he told the AJP, because he’d won his first two matches. [...]

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Lillian Mizrahi, left, one of many Peace Corps volunteers over age 50, poses with her Macedonian host "mother" -- who is younger than Mizrahi. (Peace Corps)
Lillian Mizrahi, left, one of many Peace Corps volunteers over age 50, poses with her Macedonian host "mother" -- who is younger than Mizrahi. (Peace Corps)

Peace Corps at 50 draws volunteers over 50

Lillian Mizrahi is not your typical Peace Corps volunteer. A Jewish woman from the Bronx who is now 69 years old, Mizrahi first considered joining 40 years ago, when she moved to Los Angeles from New York, but her life got busy with children and a career. “Two years ago, I got a postcard that [...]

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Alene Schwartz has lost more than 125 pounds in three years. (Bryan Schwartz)
Alene Schwartz has lost more than 125 pounds in three years. (Bryan Schwartz)

Tucsonan’s weight loss is journey of self-discovery

Alene Schwartz weighed 265 pounds in 2008 when she embarked on an exercise and diet — or as she says, “live it” — program. “I just decided that as I got older, I wanted to have the strength to pick up a grandchild, bend down to get something, and take care of myself,” says Schwartz. [...]

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A 1905 postcard ashows a badkhn insulting a bride at her wedding ceremony. (Mel Gordon Archives)
A 1905 postcard ashows a badkhn insulting a bride at her wedding ceremony. (Mel Gordon Archives)

Purim feature: Badkhn Belt? Jewish humor was born in 1661, prof says

BERKELEY, Calif. (JTA) — The Chmielnicki massacres weren’t particularly funny. From 1648 to 1651, nearly 100,000 Jews were slaughtered throughout Ukraine by Bohdan Chmielnicki and his roving bands of Cossacks. It was arguably the worst pogrom in history, leaving hundreds of Jewish communities in ruins. Yet according to Mel Gordon, a professor of theater arts [...]

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Prof. Daniel Michaelson

Good diets fight bad Alzheimer genes

Tel Aviv — Scientists today agree that there are five molecules that are known to affect or cause Alzheimer’s disease, which plagues an estimated five million Americans. The potency of these molecules is linked to environmental factors such as diet and lifestyle. Professor Daniel Michaelson of Tel Aviv University’s department of neurobiology at the George [...]

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Terry Perl
Terry Perl

Retired CEO parlays caring career into new leadership roles

Terry Allen Perl started his career in 1969 operating summer camps and day programs for the physically and mentally challenged. The Baltimore native joined Chimes International, a multi-service agency for the disabled, as its first residential director in 1971. His four-decade career at Chimes, he says, helped define his life. As of Jan. 1, Perl [...]

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Sandy Heiman (left) and Myra Dinnerstein
Sandy Heiman (left) and Myra Dinnerstein

Longtime Tucson friends explore many facets of ‘Becoming Older’ via blog

While sickness, care-giving and other negative scenarios have long been associated with aging, there’s another side to the story. “There’s a certain amount of freedom getting older. I decided it was a good thing, although I had approached it with a certain amount of trepidation,” says Tucsonan Sandy Heiman, 70, who with longtime friend Myra [...]

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Stephen Stone (Sheila Wilensky/AJP)
Stephen Stone (Sheila Wilensky/AJP)

Tucson exercise physiologist advocates ‘return to senses’

Tucsonan Stephen Stone, 70, conducted what may have been one of the first studies of obesity in American children, a precursor to First Lady Michelle Obama’s current childhood health mission. “Childhood Obesity: Identification, Management and Prevention,” his research project that began in 1985 at the University of Maryland, identified cardiovascular risk factors, says Stone, and [...]

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Olympia Dukakis and her husband, Louis Zorich, urge older Americans to get free diabetes screenings.
Olympia Dukakis and her husband, Louis Zorich, urge older Americans to get free diabetes screenings.

Free diabetes tests are Medicare benefit

(StatePoint) — Could you have diabetes and not know it? Approximately seven out of 10 adults aged 65 or older have diabetes or pre-diabetes and many don’t know it. Almost half of older Americans with diabetes aren’t aware they have the disease. Fortunately, Medicare has been offering free diabetes screening to those at risk since [...]

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Former Tucsonan Harvey Brooks, 65, a bass guitarist who once played with Bob Dylan, is among a growing number of older American Jews making aliyah.
Former Tucsonan Harvey Brooks, 65, a bass guitarist who once played with Bob Dylan, is among a growing number of older American Jews making aliyah.

Making aliyah in the golden years

In 1948, Harold Levine of the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn was rumbling through Israel’s Negev Desert in a mobile dental clinic servicing recruits of the fledgling Israeli army. He did not know it would take him more than 60 years to fulfill his dream of making the country his home. Last December, Levine finally made [...]

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