RACHEL ANNE RICHTER, daughter of Allison and Michael Richter, will celebrate becoming a Bat Mitzvah on Monday, Dec. 19 aboard the Oasis of the Seas cruise ship. She is a member of Congregation Chaverim. She is the granddaughter of Leah and the late Fred Richter, and Sandra and Sid… Read more »
YAPHET FELIX, son of Margarita and Simcha Felix, celebrated becoming a Bar Mitzvah on Saturday, Dec. 3 at Congregation Anshei Israel. He is the grandson of Daniel P. Dias and Julia Rocha, both of El Dorado, Mexico. Yaphet attends Tucson Hebrew Academy, where he is a member of the… Read more »
Michael H. Stein, 73, died Dec. 2, 2011. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Mr. Stein graduated from James Madison High School and Long Island University. He served in the U.S. Army. Mr. Stein had a 50-year career as an accountant. He was predeceased by his sister, Carolyn (Michael) Pfeifer. Survivors… Read more »
Beatrice Schochet Palant, 90, died Oct. 31, 2011. Mrs. Palant was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. She was predeceased by her brothers, Louis and Jules Schochet and sister, Lillian Zwerling. Survivors include her children, Elysa Ellen (Robert) Crum of Tucson and Harry Dennis (Rhonda) Palant of Merrick, N.Y.; and four… Read more »
At a Nov. 20 event in New Brunswick, N.J., sponsored by the People of Abraham United Against Hunger, Muslim and Jewish volunteers gathered to prepare and serve meals to the homeless. (Zamir Hassan) NEW YORK (JTA) — Daisy Khan seemed right at home in the ornately decorated main sanctuary of B’nai Jeshurun, a large and vibrant synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. “I want to thank you for inviting us into this sanctuary, which is very much like a mosque,” said Khan,… Read more »
LOS ANGELES (The Jewish Journal) — The USC Shoah Foundation Institute is home to more than 52,000 videotaped testimonies about the Holocaust, and people searching the archive’s index enter a single keyword into their queries more than any other: “Auschwitz.” “Auschwitz seems to be the one that people go… Read more »
JTA’s new column, “Seeking Kin,” aims to help reunite long-lost friends and relatives. BALTIMORE (JTA) — The Ellbogen children, Edna and Michael, nearly became Mordechai “Moti” Malkin’s adopted siblings in early 1950s Israel. Six decades later, the 66-year-old Herzliya resident wants to know what’s become of them. When Paul… Read more »
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Have I got a secret agent for you! When Hamas is smuggling missiles, and Iranians are building A-bombs deep underground, to whom can Israel turn? 007? No way. He’s busy playing baccarat or keeping the world from being fried by space lasers. He hasn’t time for the… Read more »
LOS ANGELES (Jewish Journal) — In the course of an election campaign, most presidential candidates talk about what they’ll do if — or, if they’re particularly bullish, when — they’re elected. But Fred Karger isn’t like other Republicans running for president, and not just because he’s openly gay and… Read more »
(Jewish Ideas Daily) — The organization Tzohar has just resumed performing its popular “alternative” weddings in Israel, ending a dispute with the Ministry of Religious Services that was resolved only after a media war and a high-level Knesset meeting. Tzohar won — but has not won much. After Prime… Read more »
Members of Gibraltar's largely Sephardic, largely Orthodox community pick up children from the communiyt's primary school, which is seeing record enrollment. (Alex Weisler) GIBRALTAR (JTA) — Four synagogues, a mikvah, a kosher coffeehouse and separate boys and girls religious high schools. Combined, they suggest a community far larger than just 750 Jews. But Gibraltar — the tiny British overseas territory of 30,000 that sits at the foot of Spain and at the… Read more »
Guy Gelbart I recently came back from a four-day conference held by the Jewish Agency for Israel, with 250 of its shlichim (emissaries) posted across North America. Each year, hundreds of shlichim from Israel are sent to work with Federations, youth movements, Hillels on college campuses, Jewish community centers, people interested… Read more »
Some of the hundreds of Israelis demonstrating March 13, 2010 against the segregation of men and women on buses in certain neighborhoods in Jerusalem. On the No. 3 bus line in Jerusalem, women passengers pay their fare and walk directly to the back to find a seat. Men, most of them haredi Orthodox, sit in the front section. Behind them, following a space of about two feet separated by the rear doors of… Read more »
Do you, your family, neighborhood, Jewish agency or synagogue engage in a tikkun olam (repairing the world) project for Chanukah? Tell us about it! Send your story — no more than 300 words — to [email protected] by Dec. 14. If we print it in the Dec. 23 AJP, you’ll… Read more »
Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging will hold a multicultural holiday celebration on Tuesday, Dec. 20 at 2:30 p.m., focusing on winter holidays from around the world, including Chanukah, Christmas and Kwanzaa. Entertainment will include harpist Vesna Zalusky, who will play a medley of holiday songs. Activities will include… Read more »
The Weintraub Israel Center will hold its first community-wide, family-oriented early Chanukah party on Sunday, Dec. 18, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. “There are only two Jewish communities in which this holiday is so significant — the United States and Israel,” says Guy… Read more »
Tucson artist Lynn Rae Lowe in her Metal Arts Village studio (Sheila Wilensky) Judaism is a profound part of life for Tucson metal artist Lynn Rae Lowe, who is known for her award-winning chanukiot and other Judaica. But it wasn’t always so. Men like her father who returned from World War II wanted to assimilate into American society. “They didn’t want to… Read more »
This fall, the Jewish Education Tax Credit Organization (JETCO) added another kindergarten to the list of schools that receive scholarships from Tucson’s only Jewish private school tuition tax credit program. Temple Emanu-El’s Olga and Bob Strauss Center for Early Childhood Education and Kindergarten joins Congregation Anshei Israel’s Esther B.… Read more »
Karla Ember Congregation Chaverim is creating a brick patio in memory of Karla Ember, former cantorial soloist, who was stabbed to death in September 2010. A former boyfriend was convicted of first-degree murder in the case on Dec. 6. “Karla was one of the bright lights of our congregation and there… Read more »
Members of Mitzvah Magic, a program of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, packed Chanukah gift baskets for needy families. In August, in the heat of the summer, a Boston-area mother of three began to worry about how she would pay for Chanukah gifts. Across the country in San Francisco, a 33-year-old Russian-born mother of six said that thinking about this Chanukah made her cry. Both women — Lauren… Read more »
