Yearly Archives 2011

CONGREGATION ANSHEI ISRAEL has hired MICHAEL LANDY as executive director. Landy has a 25-year history of working with nonprofit Jewish communal agencies, with a focus on fundraising and marketing. He was recognized by the North American Association of Synagogue Executives as a Fellow in Synagogue Administration in 2006. Before… Read more »

STEVEN FREEDMAN, A.B., M.S., has written a novel, “Dinah Blu,” published by PublishAmerica. Freedman notes that he suffers from schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder, making his literary accomplishment “a triumph of the human spirit.”           BOBBY PRESENT will be a member of the United States masters… Read more »

TEDDY MAX HOROWITZ, son of Stephanie and Eric Horowitz, will celebrate becoming a Bar Mitzvah on Saturday, June 25 at Temple Emanu-El. Teddy is home-schooled and plays the piano. He won the Tucson Geography Bee and was among the top 10 in the state finals. He enjoys art history,… Read more »

Gideon Feldman, 77, died June 6, 2011. Born in Palestine, Mr. Feldman graduated from Lincoln High in Brooklyn, N.Y. He served in the U.S. Army and was a fireman during the Korean War. After the war, Mr. Feldman and his brother, Oded,  moved to Tucson and opened Arrow Liquors… Read more »

Oded Feldman, 82, died April 29, 2011 in Charlotte, N.C. Mr. Feldman was born in Petach Tikvah, Palestine, and grew up in Palestine and Brooklyn, N.Y. He was a U.S. Army World War II veteran. After his Army service, he moved to Tucson. He and his brother, Gideon, opened… Read more »

Seymour Bridge, 78, died June 2, 2011. Mr. Bridge served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. He spent most of his life managing kosher-style delicatessen restaurants in Baltimore, Md. He moved to Tucson in 2005. Survivors include his wife, Carol; children, Jeffrey (Erin) Bridge of Tucson,… Read more »

Harry Bee, 88, died May 27, 2011. A virtuoso on his favorite musical instrument, the harmonica, Mr. Bee was the last remaining member of the Harmonicats and performed with many renowned musical artists. He spent most of his life entertaining the public, including the troo­ps during World War II… Read more »

Sara Florence Rothaus Wallach, 92, died May 20, 2011. Born in Pittsburgh, Pa., Mrs. Wallach went to New York City at the age of 16  to attend art school and began producing art illustrations for the New York Times and Esquire Magazine. She married Albert Wallach during World War… Read more »

Monument fire view from Temple Kol Hamidbar parking lot in Sierra Vista (Ben Caron)

Usually a peaceful place, Dr. Samuel and Mary Caron’s house recently stood at the edge of a fiery maelstrom: the Monument wildfire, which as of Monday had burned 30,526 acres in Cochise County, but was considered 85 percent contained. The Caron home is at the bottom of Carr Canyon… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – When it comes to passing a gay marriage bill in New York State, even many supporters acknowledge that wide-reaching religious exemptions are crucial. After all, this is the state with the nation’s second-largest number of Catholics and largest number of Orthodox Jews, and many say… Read more »

Reform movement leader Maurice Eisendrath, with Torah scroll, meets President John F. Kennedy, left, in the White House Rose Garden, along with several other leaders in 1961. (Photo courtesy Washington Jewish Week)

While driving through Miami in the early 1950s, Kivie Kaplan spotted a sign that would change his life and eventually alter America’s political landscape. It read:”No dogs, no niggers, no kikes.” That jarring discovery caused Kaplan, a wealthy Jewish American businessman, to declare, “I’m going to spend the rest… Read more »

Newt Gingrich, a Republican candidate for president, speaks at the republican Jewish Coalition's California summer bash in Beverly Hills, June 12, 2011. (Zach Abrams)

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (JTA) – Israel and America are at a dangerous crossroads in which the survival of Israel and the safety of the United States both hang in the balance. Year after year, the forces of terrorism become stronger, and the claims of terrorists become more acceptable to… Read more »

Stuart Eizenstat (JPPPI)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A strong secure Jewish state of Israel, supported by the United States as a close ally, has been a central feature of my public and private careers. As a senior government official in several administrations, an American and a Jew, I see Israel from multiple perspectives.… Read more »

Rabbi Sergio Bergman (with microphone) speaks as he stands with Buenos Aires Mauricio Macri (left) and two other politicians at a May 23 event introducing the PRO party’s candidates for municipal elections. (Eliana Krumecadyk/JTA Photo Service)

Rabbi Sergio Bergman, already one of Buenos Aires’ most prominent spiritual leaders, has become one of the Argentine capital’s most highly visible political candidates. Bergman was tapped by the city’s incumbent mayor, Mauricio Macri, to lead his PRO party’s list for the municipal legislature. As the top candidate on… Read more »

Laura Kafif, the house mother at Sava A Child’s Heart, visits with one of her charges, Zeresenay Gebru, as he recovers from heart surgery at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, Israel, May 31, 2011. (Sheila Shalhevet/JTA Photo Service)

Just two days earlier, 8-year-old Salha Farjalla Khamis said goodbye to her parents and four siblings in her village on the African island of Zanzibar. Now, in a hospital in the Tel Aviv suburb of Holon, tears roll silently down her cheeks as she watches an Israeli nurse attach… Read more »

Billie Kozolchyk

My husband, Boris, and I always anticipate with excitement the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, but we could not imagine the magnitude of this year’s event. For the first time, there were more than 10,000 delegates including 1,500 students. Among the students were 215… Read more »

Rep. Anthony Weiner, shown campaigning for New York mayor in August 2009, resigned from Congress adter being pressured by leading members of his Democratic Party. (Rep. Anthony Weiner)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — What happens when new media scandal meets ancient political calculus? Anthony Weiner, the Democrat from New York, found out on Thursday, when he delivered his resignation following intense pressure from party leaders. Top Democrats described for JTA the key factors that led to Weiner’s ouster: Their… Read more »

President Obama is a stalwart friend of Israel. That’s the message some top Democratic Jewish figures are promoting to push back against the notion that Obama is out of step with the pro- Israel and Jewish communities. This month, two figures associated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee… Read more »

It was a sign that ties between the Obama and Netanyahu administrations remain strong despite the apparent tensions last month when the two leaders met at the White House. On June 6, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton shot down a French proposal for renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks… Read more »

The sexual scandal in which Dominique Strauss-Kahn now finds himself embroiled greatly distresses me on several levels. First and foremost, any assault, sexual or otherwise, perpetrated by one human being against another is an outrage. On a Jewish level, many of us Jews living in the 2lst century can… Read more »