Yearly Archives 2011

Jewish Family & Children’s Services is joining with local synagogues and other agencies for its annual “Matza & More Passsover Project,” collecting food items for nearly 200 Passover baskets that volunteers will deliver to families in need on April 17. Since 1970, JFCS has helped to ensure that local… Read more »

The Weintraub Israel Center and Temple Emanu-El will present an Israeli-Moroccan Mimuna celebration on April 26. A traditional North African Jewish celebration held at the end of Passover, Mimuna marks the start of spring and the return to eating chametz (leavened goods), explains Guy Gelbart, director of the Weintraub… Read more »

Joel Chasnoff, author of "The 188th Crybaby Brigade"

Unlike aspiring doctors or lawyers, would-be artists have no set career path, says author and stand-up comedian Joel Chasnoff. But even by the free-wheeling standards of the arts, the former Ivy Leaguer’s path took an unusual detour — right through the Israel Defense Forces, an experience he chronicles in… Read more »

Ishmael Khaldi

Israel’s first Arab Bedo­uin diplomat, Ishmael Khaldi, will speak at a breakfast event hosted by the Weintraub Israel Center, the Israel Consulate in Los Angeles and the America-Israel Friendship League on Friday, April 15, 8:15-9:30 a.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Khaldi, who currently serves as an advisor… Read more »

Cindy Sadowsky with pre-school students at Temple Emanu-El

Temple Emanu-El’s Olga and Bob Strauss Early Childhood Education Center will add a full-day kindergarten class beginning in fall 2011. The kindergarten will include a fully integrated secular and Judaic curriculum, with an emphasis on emergent education, in which a teacher observes children’s natural interests and expands on them… Read more »

Max Rusinov, UA Hillel Israel Fellow, points to information about suicide bombings prevented by the Israeli-Palestinian border fence, posted on the mock border fence on the UA campus, March 23. (Sheila Wilensky)

If there’s a difference between the U.S.-Mexico border wall and the one dividing Israel and the Palestinian West Bank, you might not have known it by looking at the nearly 1,000-foot mock border fence on the University of Arizona campus last month. The fence was erected by student members… Read more »

You know when you’re having lunch with your friend in the local diner and even though you know you shouldn’t, you start gossiping about someone you both know? And all of a sudden you realize you’re in the local diner and the room just got really quiet, so you… Read more »

One of the best decisions I made before making Aliyah was the decision to let my husband lead the way. This was not easy for me. I’m a born supervisor and taskmaster. I met Avi a little more than ten years ago when I was a madricha (counselor) on a… Read more »

Dear Avi and Adele: I’m a 27-year-old guy, and I met a girl recently at a function. Okay, I admit it, it was at a shiva (mourning for the dead). And somewhere between the chopped liver platter and the pickled herring, I found myself locking eyes with her. I… Read more »

Dear Avi and Adele: My wife and I are an interfaith couple and we have been married for two years. I’m Jewish and she is Greek Orthodox. For the most part, we’ve been on the same page about how we will manage both religions at the same time in… Read more »

Dear Avi and Adele, I’ve been friends with Josh for more than two years now. I really adore him as a friend and enjoy his company. However, he’s been clear that he wants me to be his girlfriend. And as many times as I tell him I just want… Read more »

MADISON, N.J. (JTA) — There are two things you need to know about “Our Haggadah: Uniting Traditions for Interfaith Families,” one of the many new Passover haggadahs hitting the shelves this spring. The first is it’s not quite a haggadah. The second is that it’s by Cokie and Steve… Read more »

Arthur Szyk's magnificently illustrated Haggadah is being released this spring in its first widely available format since 1940. (Courtesy Abrams)

SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — Nearing its 80th birthday, perhaps it was time the most printed Passover Haggadah in history had a major facelift. The Maxwell House Passover Haggadah, which has had more than 50 million copies published, hits the shelves — and supermarkets — this spring featuring its first… Read more »

NEW YORK (N.Y. Jewish Week) — From the highest elevation in Itamar you can see everything but the future. On a clear day, says Rabbi Moshe Goldsmith, Itamar’s mayor, “We can see the three seas”: the Dead Sea, the Mediterranean and the Kinneret (Galilee). To the west, “We can… Read more »

Paula Shoyers "The Kosher Baker" features a chapter on Passover baking that excludes the taboos of flour and yeast. [Michael Bennett Kress]

NEW YORK (JTA) — With all the restrictions, are decent desserts even possible during Passover?       “My particular talent is working around restriction,” says Paula Shoyer, author of “The Kosher Baker: Over 160 Dairy-free Recipes from Traditional to Trendy” (Brandeis University Press, 2010). Her cookbook contains a… Read more »

WALTHAM, Mass. (JTA) — The relationship between American and Israeli Jews is changing. For most of Israel’s history, the American Jewish community was larger, wealthier and more powerful than its “poor cousin” in the Middle East, but now the differences between the two communities have greatly narrowed. More Jews… Read more »

President Obama and Israeli President Shimon Peres at their White House meeting talked about the Washington Post Op-Ed by U.N. investigator Richard Goldstone rescinding his conclusion that Israel had committed war crimes in the 2009 Gaza War, April 5, 2011. (Mark Neyman, Israel Government Press Office)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would launch an international campaign to cancel the Goldstone Report after its author, ex-South African Judge Richard Goldstone, wrote in an Op-Ed in the Washington Post that Israel did not intentionally target civilians as a policy during the Gaza War,… Read more »

JOHN GARRARD, professor emeritus of Russian studies at the University of Arizona, and his wife and co-author CAROL GARRARD will deliver the Jack Fischel Lecture at the 31st Annual Millersville University Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide in Millerville, Pa., April 6-8. The Garrards will speak on the Holocaust… Read more »

MORT TULLER and HOWARD TULLER of TULLER TROPHY AND AWARDS were featured in an article in the industry magazine, Recognition Review, which focused on successful family businesses.… Read more »

NICHOLAS SHANE MILLER, son of Yolanda Kelly Miller and Phillip Miller, will celebrate becoming a Bar Mitzvah on Saturday, April 9 at Congregation Chaverim. He is the grandson of Roslyn and George Miller and the late Ruth Miller, all of Tucson, and Sheila and Oscar Kelly of Sahuarita, Ariz.… Read more »