Yearly Archives 2012

Jacob Vogelman and Jessie Streich-Kest, pictured together in this 2007 photo. The young Jewish couple from Brooklyn was killed when a tree felled by Hurricane Sandy struck them while they walked their dog on Oct. 29, 2012. (Facebook)

(JTA) — Two young Jews were killed in Brooklyn by a falling tree during superstorm Sandy. The pair were out walking a dog Monday night in the storm’s high winds. The dead were identified by The New York Observer as Jessie Streich-Kest, 24, who worked as a high school… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — “To be good Americans, we must be better Jews.” When Justice Louis Brandeis spoke these words, he sought to inspire our nation’s Jewish community to live by our ideals and our principles, to serve as active citizens in a thriving democracy founded on the right to… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — As Will Rogers said, “When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!” In the last four years, the Obama administration has dug our country deeper and deeper into several painful and dangerous holes. It’s time to stop digging and find better solutions. President Obama’s economic… Read more »

Damage to New York City infrastructure, like this one inside a New York subway station, was extensively documented online as Hurricane Sandy washed ashore. (@HeyVeronica via Twitter)

NEW YORK (JTA) – At 10 p.m. on Monday, as the full brunt of Hurricane Sandy was bearing down on the northeastern United States, filmmaker Sandi Dubowski posted an urgent online message. DuBowski’s elderly parents had declined to leave their home in Manhattan Beach, a neighborhood of southern Brooklyn… Read more »

Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, of Likud and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman of Yisrael Beiteinu holding a joint news conference announcing that their two parties are joining forces ahead of the upcoming Israeli general elections, Oct. 25, 2012. (Miriam Alster/Flash90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Political pundits have long debated who is the real Benjamin Netanyahu. Is he a pragmatist handcuffed by his right-wing support base and fealty to his late father’s nationalist vision? Is he a true right-wing ideologue whose apparent concessions to Israeli-Palestinian peace are but feints? Or… Read more »

President Barack Obama, left, and challenger Mitt Romney differ on several issues of importance to the Jewish community. (Graphics by Uri Fintzy)

NEW YORK (JTA) -- JTA reviews the positions of presidential candidates Barack Obama, the Democratic incumbent, and Republican challenger Mitt Romney on some issues of importance to the Jewish community.… Read more »

With the rise of medical technology as well as the number of educated women who can support a family themselves, more single Jewish women are opting to have children on their own. (Courtesy Single Mothers by Choice)

NEW YORK (JTA) — When Emily Wolper broke her engagement six years ago, she promised herself that if the time came when she felt ready to have a child and she was still single, she’d have one on her own. Now 37, Wolper, a college admissions consultant in Morristown,… Read more »

Harry Ettlinger, right, and Dale Ford, U.S. soldiers who served in the Monuments Men, are shown in 1945 or 1946 inspecting a Rembrandt self-portrait in a salt mine where the Nazis stored stolen and hidden art. (Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration)

The “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost friends and relatives. BALTIMORE (JTA) — Like many immigrants from Germany who fought in the U.S. military during World War II, Harry Ettlinger served his adopted country by translating captured materials and interpreting during interrogations of enemy prisoners. But within… Read more »

Mitt Romney speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition presidential candidates' forum, Dec. 7, 2011. (Republican Jewish Coalition)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Mitt Romney’s record as a moderate Republican governor would seem to have made him ideally suited to peel off Jewish votes from President Obama. The problem is that he spent much of the past half decade running from that past. Now, however, as the campaign draws… Read more »

President Obama addressing the biennial conference of the Union for Reform Judaism, Dec. 16, 2011. (URJ)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The moment in the final presidential debate when President Obama described his visit to Israel’s national Holocaust museum and to the rocket-battered town of Sderot seemed to be aimed right for the kishkes. The “kishkes question” — the persistent query about how Obama really feels about… Read more »

Elie Berrebi, director of the Jewish Consistory of Marseille, at the city's Great Synagogue, Oct. 14, 2012. (Cnaan Liphshiz)

MARSEILLE, France (JTA) — At a time when Jewish institutions across France resemble military fortresses for their security, entering the great synagogue and main Jewish center of this picturesque city on the Mediterranean coast is as easy as pushing open the front door. The only obstacles on a recent… Read more »

Bar-Ilan University historian Ariel Toaff being served a double-roasted goose and baked onion salad by a "medieval" waitress in Bevagna, Italy. (Ruth Ellen Gruber)

BEVAGNA, Italy (JTA) — In a medieval tavern in 21st century Italy, waitresses in archaic costumes served a tepid, chalk-white substance the texture of oatmeal to tables filled with slightly skeptical diners. Sweet yet salty, and flavored with a mix of unexpectedly tangy spices, it turned out to be… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Growing up secular in Tel Aviv, Gilad Kariv often would spend Saturdays hiking around rural Israel with his family, appreciating its nature and telling its history. But one Shabbat early in his childhood, Kariv decided to go to his neighborhood Orthodox synagogue. “To the place my… Read more »

Mitt Romney, left, and President Obama, shown onscreen during their debate on Oct. 22, 2012, were generally in agreement on the Middle East at the Florida one-on-one on foreign policy. (Rosa Trieu/Neon Tommy via Creative Commons)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israel, a heated issue throughout the campaign, finally took center stage at the final presidential debate. It was mentioned a total of 31 times by President Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney at Monday night’s foreign policy debate at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla. Actual… Read more »

BRIELLE RACHEAL KALISH-LEBARGE, daughter of Toni Kalish and Marc LeBarge, will celebrate becoming a Bat Mitzvah on Saturday, Nov. 3 at Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging with Congregation Or Chadash. She is the granddaughter of Cindy Carvill of Massena, N.Y., and Bruce LeBarge of Ogdensburg, N.Y. Brielle attends… Read more »

JACOB BENJAMIN SPIER, son of Monique Kornell and Jeffrey Spier, will celebrate becoming a Bar Mitzvah on Saturday, Oct. 27 at Congregation Anshei Israel. He is the grandson of Vicki and Jerry Spier of Tucson, Beatrice Spier of Boston and the late Bernice and Simon Kornell of Edmonton, Canada.… Read more »

SPENCER MAXWELL LEWIS, son of Gayle and Robbie Lewis, celebrated becoming a Bar Mitzvah on Saturday, Oct. 13 at Congregation Chaverim. He is the grandson of Mary Mihailoff and Marcia and George Andrew, all of Tucson, and the late Selma and Sam Lewis of Yonkers, N.Y. Spencer attends Orange… Read more »

ARIZONA PUBLIC MEDIA’S PBS 6 won six Emmy awards on Oct. 6. The station was nominated for 10 Emmys, more than any television station in the Tucson market, and second highest among public TV stations in the Rocky Mountain Southwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and… Read more »

Formerly the director of communications at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, HELEN GOMEZ BERNARD is now leading the external and alumni relations team at the University of Arizona College of Humanities.       Marsha Drozdoff, a clinical social worker for more than 30 years, launched her new website… Read more »

Israeli police arresting Anat Hoffman after she said the Shema Israel prayer at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Oct. 16, 2012. (Women of the Wall)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Last week’s episode was hardly the first time Israeli police stopped activist Anat Hoffman while she was leading a women’s prayer service at the Western Wall in violation of Israeli law. But this time, police actually arrested Hoffman — a first, she says — and… Read more »