Yearly Archives 2010

The Israel Scouts (Tzofim) Friendship Caravan will return to Tucson on Tuesday, June 15, with a free song and dance performance at the Tucson Jewish Community Center at 6 p.m. Four performing groups, consisting of five male and five female 17-year-old Israeli Scouts, travel across North America each summer.… Read more »

Baseball legend Sandy Koufax greets fans at the Jewish American Heritage Month celebration at the White House on May 27. (The Jewish Channel/JTA Photo Service)

The athletes, the astronauts, the alternative music, the black rabbi, the white dress uniforms and, above all, the left-handed baseball immortal: Welcome to Barack Obama’s Jewish America. The inaugural Jewish America Heritage Month celebration at the White House, held May 27, underscored the Obama administration’s determination not to be… Read more »

Diane Katz

The key to changing an organization or workplace is not to ascribe blame, says Diane Katz, organizational psychologist and author of the newly published “Win at Work! The Everybody Wins Approach to Conflict Resolution.” Katz founded her consulting company, The Working Circle, in 1995, the same year she moved… Read more »

Lester Ira Wortzel, 92, died May 23, 2010. Born in Newark, N.J., Mr. Wortzel was a furniture salesman from 1956 to 1999, when he retired at the age of 83. He moved to Tucson in 2005. Survivors include his wife of 69 years, Rachel; children, Karyle Klasz of Moab,… Read more »

Bernard “Bernie” Weinstein, 82, died May 23, 2010. Born in Milwaukee, Wisc., Mr. Weinstein grew up in Tucson, attending Roskruge Elementary, Wakefield Jr. High, Tucson High and the University of Arizona. He graduated from the UA Law School in 1954 and began a long career as an attorney. He… Read more »

SAMANTHA EMILY WEISBAND, daughter of Suzie Penn Weisband and Barry Weisband of Seattle, Wash., will celebrate becoming a Bat Mitzvah on Saturday, June 5 at Temple Emanu-El. She is the granddaughter of Robert and Lorraine Penn of Tucson, and Ruthe Schwartz of Los Angeles, Calif. Sami attends Esperero Canyon… Read more »

AMANDA HALEY BRESSLER, daughter of Meryl Bressler and Abraham Bressler, will celebrate becoming a Bat Mitzvah on Saturday, June 12 at Congregation Anshei Israel. She is the granddaughter of Marcia and Murray Kraus of Seaford, N.Y. Amanda attends Emily Grey Junior High School where she is an honor student… Read more »

ALYSSA MESHEL MONTGOM­ERY, daughter of Jodie and Brian Montgomery, will celebrate becoming a Bat Mitzvah on Saturday, June 5with Congregation Chaverim at La Paloma Country Club. She is the granddaughter of MaraLynn and Herbert Meshel and Patricia and Harvey Montgomery, all of Tucson. Alyssa attends Orange Grove Middle School… Read more »

The Israeli Navy, seen here approaching one of a flotilla of Gaza-bound ships, clashed with Turkish activists aboard one of the ships, the Mavi Marmara. (Moti Milrod/Pool/Flash90/JTA).

ASHDOD, Israel (JTA) — The blurry black-and-white video footage was not what any Israeli wanted to see: elite navy commandos armed with paint ball guns (the pistols were only to be used as a last resort) dangling by a rope onto a boat filled with activists wielding metal bars… Read more »

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — What stands for those who have fallen? As a small boy, I played with green plastic soldiers. Sometimes after they died in backyard battle, I would mark their passing with a little cross made of twigs. Even then it seemed off. This Memorial Day weekend… Read more »

I am simply amazed at the knee-jerk response of liberals – especially Jewish liberals – who are so vehemently opposed to the new Arizona “immigration” law. I guess they haven’t been following the Congress’ actions in recent years. Nearly every part of this new law is an exact copy… Read more »

Mazel tov on your new website, it is terrific! I would like to respond to the article in your 5/21 issue regarding the new immigration bill (“JCRC, Reform rabbis decry Arizona immigration law”). I hope the negative comments came from people who actually read the bill, and I’m truly… Read more »

Veit Harlan, left, directs actor Werner Krauss as Rabbi Loew in "Jew Suess," a Nazi-era propaganda film. (Zeiteist Films)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — German director Veit Harlan may have made 29 other films between 1935 and 1962, but his 1940 anti-Semitic classic “Jew Suess” guaranteed his position as the favorite director of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Even to this day the film casts its baleful shadow over his… Read more »

SONOMA, Calif. (JTA) — When I was a kid, the prospect of catching polio was terrifying. We could not dive into a public swimming pool for fear we would spend the rest of our lives in an iron lung. Two Jewish doctors vanquished that disease and removed such fears… Read more »

MOSCOW (JTA) — It took them five days and nights in four hotels through three countries to deliver two vans from London to the Jews of Latvia and Lithuania. Eight British volunteers went on a “Mission Impossible,” a program of the British charity World Jewish Relief, to aid Jewish… Read more »

Republican Jews are trying to figure out what to make of Rand Paul, a self-described Tea Party backer and son of former presidential candidate Ron Paul. (Gage skidmore/flickr)

WASHINGTON (N.Y. Jewish Week) — Rand Paul, the Tea Party insurgent who was the upset victor in last month’s Kentucky Republican Senate primary, could be the biggest headache yet for a Republican Party that hopes to capitalize on the populist surge without being tainted by the movement’s extremists. While… Read more »

NEW YORK (Tablet) — Inna Grade, the widow of the Yiddish writer Chaim Grade and a feared enemy of many within in the Yiddish literary world, died May 2. Her age was a matter of some uncertainty, but the rabbi who officiated at her funeral believes that she was… Read more »

MOSCOW (JTA) – After decades of community-building from the top down, often with the aid of donors from overseas, can Russia’s Jewish communities build themselves from the bottom up? That’s the question that a group of, well, donors from overseas are trying to determine with a new educational program… Read more »

SAN FRANCISCO (j. the Jewish news weekly of Northern California) — You have 73 new e-mails. Someone just posted on your wall. You have been tagged in a photo. You turn on your cell phone: “4 missed calls” … “2 new voice mails” … and a long string of… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Peter Beinart attends an Orthodox synagogue, once edited The New Republic (the closest thing to a smicha for Jewish policy wonks) and backed Sen. Joe Lieberman’s quixotic 2004 bid to become the first Jewish president. Which is why he’s always been counted among the Washington pundits… Read more »