Yearly Archives 2010

Photo exhibit at JCC celebrates THA kids’ love of learning

A photographic exhibit by Tucson Hebrew Academy, “The Art of Making a Difference,” is on display at the Tucson Jewish Community Center’s Fine Art Gallery through the end of the month. Established for THA’s Tikkun Olam event on Oct. 24 honoring Tucson’s rabbis, the exhibit “is a celebration of… Read more »

Jewish heritage helped push Phillies’ manager Ruben Amaro into baseball

Ruben Amaro Jr., right, the general manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, joins Mayor Michael Nutter and the team’s mascot at a pep rally in Philadelphia during the playoffs in 2009. (Darryl W. Moran)

PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — The son and grandson of professional baseball players, Ruben Amaro Jr. was as good a candidate as any to become a baseball lifer. Yet soccer was actually his “first love” as a kid, and he was good enough at the sport to qualify for a youth… Read more »

With good works, delicious food, local restaurateurs nurture community

Spectacular views of the Catalina Mountains, live nightly music and globe-spanning cuisines all contribute to Tucson’s trendy dining out scene. Many local restaurants are also extending their role in the community beyond the creation of sumptuous dishes. Fire + Spice: An Arizona Grill at the Sheraton Tucson Hotel and… Read more »

THA tidbits: Lecturer illumines Hebrew origins

Rabbi Eliezer Ben-Yehuda enlightened Tucson Hebrew Academy middle school students about the origins of modern spoken Hebrew in a lecture at the school on Monday, Oct. 4. “My grandfather wanted to teach Hebrew as a living language so you could go to the store and buy a Coke,” Ben-Yehuda,… Read more »

Jewish thrift store moves to bigger, better location

The used book section at the 1st-Rate 2nd-Hand Thrift Store

The 1st-Rate 2nd-Hand Thrift Store has moved to new, bigger digs at 5851 E. Speedway Blvd., but the extra 2,000 square feet of space is only part of the improvement, says manager Amy Sandler-Stuchen. The interior of the new store, which is just a few blocks east of the… Read more »

What drives the Jews? Your opinion wanted

I opened the e-mail from my daughter Lauren, who has been living in Guatemala for almost a year. I cherish the “conversations” we have in cyberspace because they give us a chance to share differently than we do in our phone calls, where we tend to discuss more immediate… Read more »

Israel’s settlements are not the real problem, only a red herring

With each passing year, the Arab-Israeli conflict seems to get an additional facelift in the media headlines. Many notable news sources seek to demonize Israel in the most “objective” manner possible, concentrating on angles irrelevant to the real conflict. Subsequently, when foreign journalists come to Israel with their notebooks,… Read more »

JCRC issues statement against Prop. 302

The Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona has issued a position statement in opposition to Proposition 302 on the 2010 Arizona ballot. The statement notes that in 2009, the JCRC chose to focus its social justice efforts on the needs of local youth at… Read more »

First Things First helps Arizona children succeed: vote no on Prop. 302

Are you as tired and frustrated as we are at seeing Arizona ranked at or near the bottom on state rankings of education and the well-being of its children? First Things First was supported by the voters of Arizona in 2006 to provide the opportunity for high quality early… Read more »

Election 2010: Local candidates discuss immigration, Israel

In advance of the Nov. 2 elections, the Arizona Jewish Post sent questions to the Arizona candidates for U.S. Senate and the local candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives. Here are their unedited responses. U.S. Senate Rodney Glassman, Democrat Q: Given the controversy generated by Arizona SB 1070,… Read more »

Harvard professor to lead Holocaust teachers event

An inservice workshop, “Teaching the Holocaust through Diaries, Personal Correspondence and Memoir,” with Harvard professor Susan R. Suleiman, will be held on Thursday, Oct. 28 from 4 to 8 p.m. at the University of Arizona Poetry Center, 1508 E. Helen St. Suleiman is C. Douglas Dillon professor of the… Read more »

Gala dinner will highlight Taste of Israel week

Clara Davidov, in traditional Bukharan costume, participated in last year’s “Israel Ethnic Epi­curian Gala.” (Photo courtesy of Sue Schergin)

The second annual “Israel Ethnic Epicurean Gala,” sponsored by the TIPS (Tucson, Israel, Phoenix and Seattle) partnership, will be held Nov. 3 with food prepared by nine ethnically diverse Israeli women from our Partnership 2000 region of Kiryat Malachi and Hof Ashkelon. The women, who will spend a week… Read more »

Holocaust expert will parse ‘A Film Unfinished’ at Loft Cinema

The place is the Warsaw Ghetto, the year 1942, and the black-and-white footage shows fashionably dressed men and women, with yellow Stars of David as accessories, having a high time at a champagne ball. Later we see emaciated kids rooting through mounds of garbage and excrement for scraps of… Read more »

Downtown gallery shows Tel Aviv artist’s mythic works

"Man Adrift in Box" by Benjamin Levy

A private collection of works by Israeli artist Benjamin Levy is on display through Monday, Oct. 18 at M.A.S.T., 299 S. Park Ave. The collection includes paintings, drawings, lithographs and prints from the 1960s to 1990s. Much of Levy’s art is rooted in mythic family tales and remembrances. Near… Read more »

Seinfeld, Midler to headline Philly museum’s opening bash

Jerry Seinfeld will emcee the Nov. 13, 2010 gala to celebrate the official unveiling of the renovated National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. Courtesy of NMAJH

NEW YORK (JTA) — Two of the country’s most famous Jewish performers will highlight the opening of one of the most ambitious Jewish museum projects in years. Jerry Seinfeld will emcee and Bette Midler will headline a Nov. 13 gala to celebrate the official unveiling of the renovated National… Read more »

At San Diego Jewish school, snacks must be kosher — pigskin allowed

San Diego Jewish Academy helmets feature the Hebrew letter lamed-shaped L for Lions. (Edmon J. Rodman)

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (JTA) — The snack bar is always kosher and the games are never on Friday night. The roster is packed with names like Adam, Isaac, Benjamin and Micah, with an Ori, Ethan, Yuval and Noam thrown in. The players huddle to say the Sh’ma before taking… Read more »

Battle over court access for survivors’ claims reaches Congress

WASHINGTON (Forward) — Holocaust survivors denouncing the Jewish establishment would be a spectacle in almost any venue — all the more so when it’s under the bright lights of a congressional hearing. The issue at hand recently before the U.S. House of Representatives’ subcommittee on commercial and administrative law… Read more »

Draft of anti-Jewish measure changing views of Vichy head

PARIS (JTA) — Nearly 70 years to the day since the passage of a pivotal anti-Semitic law in Vichy-occupied France, new evidence about who drafted the law is transforming some historians’ views of France’s wartime head of state, Philippe Petain. Until now the Oct. 3, 1940 law — dubbed… Read more »

Orthodox unsure how to react to anti-gay violence, discrimination

Meeting with an Orthodox group in Brooklyn, New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, seated, saw an audience receptive to his message that children shouldn't be "brainwashed" into thinking being gay is OK, Oct. 10, 2010. (Creative Commons/azipaybarah

NEW YORK (JTA) — When the Republican candidate for New York governor, Carl Paladino, addressed an Orthodox crowd on Sunday about his opposition to gay pride parades and how children shouldn’t be “brainwashed” into thinking being gay is OK, he clearly thought he’d find a receptive audience. He was… Read more »

Westboro case poses dilemma for Jewish groups

A girl affiliated with the Westboro Baptist Church pickets the offices of the Anti-Defamation League in the Pacific Southwest region, June 19, 2009. Creative Commons/k763)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Jewish defense organizations long — and proudly — have upheld a delicate principle in defending the First Amendment: Hate the speech, defend the speaker. But a Supreme Court case whose arguments were scheduled for Wednesday have put that precept to the test: A Maryland family is… Read more »