Barbara Shore and her daughter Deborah Shore participate in a project at Handmaker during the Israeli Artists Exchange in February. (Photo: Lori Riegel) Coming from a Jewish family that valued education propelled Barbara Shore, now 91, into academia. Becoming a feminist happened along the way. Her husband, Jack Shore, whom she married in 1942, was instrumental in that progression. “We didn’t call it then,” Shore told the AJP in her apartment… Read more »
An IDF soldier during a training exercise of the Desert Reconnaissance Battalion of the Gaza Division, which is primarily composed of Bedouins, Nov. 2010 On an August weekday afternoon, 19-year-old Mohammed Kernowi stands in front of a small store in Israel’s largest Bedouin city, a hot plate in front of him with small pancakes sizzling in preparation for the end of that day’s Ramadan fast. At his age, many Israeli men have been… Read more »
Tucson Jewish Community Center President and CEO Ken Light Twenty-six years ago, when Ken Light took the helm of the Tucson Jewish Community Center, the landmark edifice on River Road hadn’t even been built. Light had come to town with the understanding that financing and permits were all in place, but it would take three more years of… Read more »
After the 1967 Six-Day War, much of the radical left in the West predicated its militant anti-Zionism on the illusory notion that the Palestinians represented a revolutionary and “progressive” vanguard that could one day mobilize the Arab masses in the cause of social revolution. But in 2011, when revolution… Read more »
New mom (Susan Kovitz) shares the joys and woes of parenting in a scene from ‘Motherhood Out Loud’ coming to the Invisible Theatre. (Susan Claassen) The Invisible Theatre will begin its 2012-2013 “Season of Love” with the Southwest premiere of “Motherhood Out Loud.” A series of vignettes covering every aspect of motherhood — from stepmoms to single mothers, immigrant moms to grandmothers, new moms to empty nesters, — “Motherhood Out Loud” was written by… Read more »
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), left, Democratic National Committee chair and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. (Photos by Gage Skidmore, graphic design by Uri Fintzy) WASHINGTON (JTA) – Get set for a political double feature with much of the same plot, but with different outcomes for the issues that tend to preoccupy Jewish voters. The same key words and themes will bounce around Jewish events at next week’s Republican convention in Tampa, Fla,. and… Read more »
Portrait of Sir Ludwig Guttman, founder of the Paralympic Games (Photo via Stoke Mandeville) LONDON (JTA) — In 1917, Ludwig Guttmann, a young German Jew volunteering as an orderly in the local Accident Hospital for Coalminers, came across a strong miner with a broken back. The patient, he was told, would be dead within three months. In fact, he died after five weeks.… Read more »
Israeli analysts say that signals from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and his leadershipare showing a call for an unequivocal commitment from the administration of President Barack Obama, right, to come to Israel's aid in case of a strike against Iran, led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (Photos by Creative Commons, design by Uri Fintzy) WASHINGTON (JTA) — How much noise does Israel’s leadership have to make to get the Obama administration to say what it wants to hear about Iran? It’s a question now preoccupying Israel, along with its corollary: How much noise is too much and risks precipitating a crisis between Jerusalem… Read more »
(N.Y. Jewish Week) — They’ve moved beyond the chess games on Ocean Parkway and the Brighton Beach boardwalk strolls, those clichéd markers of the Russian immigration wave of the 1980s and ‘90s. “We’re night and day from our parents’ generation,” said Esther Lamm, a native of Lvov who leads… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Kim Drapkin says she has gunpowder in her blood. She loves to shoot, but you won’t find her on a range with goggles and a pistol, or out in a forest with a hunting rifle and a camouflage vest. A reproduction of an 1861 model Springfield,… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — Cooking has been a passion for me, and passing on my knowledge and experience to a new kosher audience one of my greatest joys. When my two earlier books were published — “Kosher Cuisine” and “Helen Nash’s Kosher Kitchen” — that joy was mingled with… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The older generation always thinks of the younger generation as losing its traditional values, wondering “Why can’t they be just like us?” But in a time of expanding globalism, open social networking and greater geographical disbursement, a surprising finding of a recent poll we conducted shows that… Read more »
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (JTA) — In our busy lives, there are lots of decisions to make. Though we know that quick judgments made without all the facts can be faulty, we do not have the time to dwell on each decision, and we learn to live with a kind… Read more »
Rina Elchai, shown here in 1958, hopes to "close a circle" and reconnect with Aryeh "Leon" Sevilla, shown here in 1957 with a note he wrote in Hebrew reading "To the Beloved Rina." (Courtesy Rina Elchai) The “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost friends and relatives. BALTIMORE (JTA) – Rina Elchai’s first love was Aryeh “Leon” Sevilla. The two met in the early 1950s at the Youth Aliyah village of Kiryat Yearim, then dated as students attending the Ben-Shemen agricultural boarding school in… Read more »
Australian Jewish News publisher Robert Magid stirred controversy with his article arguing that Muslim boat people deprive sanctuary to legitimate refugees. (Australian Jewish News via AJDS) SYDNEY (JTA) – An article on illegal boat people by the publisher of Australia’s main Jewish newspaper has ignited a storm of protest, with some critics savaging it for “vilifying Muslims” and promoting “xenophobic, Islamophobic and heartless sentiments.” Titled “Curb your compassion,” Robert Magid’s article published in the Aug.… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — The following is a review of the news highlights of the Jewish year 5772. September 2011 An Egyptian mob breaks into the Israeli Embassy in Cairo and Israeli personnel are stuck inside for hours until Egyptian commandos arrive at the scene. Israeli Air Force jets… Read more »
BOULDER, Colo. (JTA) — For many of us, let’s face it, the upcoming High Holidays will be anything but a high. Oh, we’ll pack every pew in the synagogues, dressed in our holiday best. We’ll be there for hours, rising when told to, sinking thankfully back into our seats,… Read more »
Laurence Gavron, a French-born filmmaker whose film "Black Jews, Juifs noir en Afrique" tells the story of African tribes that claim to have Jewish ancestry. (Courtesy Laurence Gavron) PRETORIA, South Africa (JTA) – Filmmaker Laurence Gavron is on a journey to document lost Jewish tribes in Africa. The French-born Gavron, who has made Senegal her home since 1989, says she was immediately taken by the project, which she says combines her passion for Africa with the mystery… Read more »
A Haredi man and his son standing next to the army recruiting office in Jerusalem on August 1, 2012. (Noam Moskowitz/Flash 90/JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) – The controversy had sparked a national debate, raucous protests in the streets and the collapse of a historic government. That came in the months after the Israeli Supreme Court had nullified a law exempting haredi Orthodox Israelis from military service and given the government until… Read more »
Marika Weinberger, a Holocaust survivor and former president of the Australian Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants. (Henry Benjamin) SYDNEY (JTA) — In a court ruling that is bringing new attention to Australia’s failure to prosecute alleged Nazi-era war criminals, the government will not surrender to Hungary the man believed to be the country’s last World War II war crimes suspect. The nation’s High Court ruled Wednesday that… Read more »
