Yearly Archives 2012

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona held a community discussion, Think Tank 2020, on May 2. Nearly 100 community members representing diverse ages and backgrounds met at the Tucson Jewish Community Center to begin framing the issues to be explored as part of the Federation’s strategic planning process. The… Read more »

Window Rock in Arizona, where the spiritual leaders of two tribes met at the Navajo Nation Museum to talk about sacred lands. (Edmon J. Rodman)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — A Reform rabbi, a Navajo medicine man and a professor walk into a museum. It sounds like the opening of a joke, but on a recent May Shabbat at Window Rock, Ariz., capital of the Navajo Nation, it’s the beginning of a cross-cultural discussion that… Read more »

An Egyptian woman casting her vote in the city of al-Mahalla in northern Egypt, May 23, 2012. (Nehal ElSherif via CC)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Egyptians stunned even themselves in the vote to elect their next president — and observers are warning that the United States and Israel should be ready for continued uncertainty in their relations with Egypt. Two finalists emerged following the roller-coaster first round at the polls… Read more »

(Jewish Ideas Daily) — First, the bad news: Sexual, physical, and emotional abuse occurs in Orthodox Jewish communities. Next, the worse news: Though there is no evidence that such abuse occurs more frequently among the Orthodox than in other populations, two recent front-page New York Times stories are just… Read more »

Yana Levy, left, and her husband, Harry, and their three children inside their apartment in Sofia. (Courtesy Bulgaria Office of the American Joint Distribution Committee)

SOFIA, Bulgaria (JTA) — The stories – some months or years in the making — started trickling in last year. Young successful families were showing up desperate. As Bulgaria’s program director for the American Joint Distribution Committee, Julia Dandalova ran social services programs for the Jewish community’s most needy:… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Ari Babaknia doesn’t expect that Iran’s president will ever read his four-volume series of Holocaust books written in the Farsi language. But the author says he is confident that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad knows the books exist. “I’ve done 10, 11 television interviews,” Babaknia said — interviews that… Read more »

GREENSBORO, N.C. (JTA) — The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” Since the May 8 vote to approve North Carolina’s Amendment One referendum, which constitutionally bars the state from recognizing as legal any marriage… Read more »

(Jewish Ideas Daily) — There is a lot of hand-wringing these days about whether the rising costs of Jewish day schools are sustainable. The discussion has been about money, but this misses the point: The largest costs of day school tuition are not financial but moral, and the key… Read more »

Members of the Korean community in Israel gathered in Kfar Menachem, May 10. (Dr. Kangkeun Lee)

KFAR MENACHEM, Israel (JTA) – It’s become a mainstay of Saturday nights on the Ben Yehuda Street pedestrian mall in Jerusalem. Between the crowds of Israeli revelers and American teens at the frozen-yogurt shops, a group of Koreans singing hymns vies for attention. It’s one of the most public… Read more »

Justice Gabriel Bach, the prosecutor in the trial of Adolf Eichmann, in front of the Vossius Gymnasium in amsterdam. (Cnaan Liphshiz)

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Gabriel Bach knew he was Jewish and that the Nazis were a serious threat, but at 13, leaving his new school and home in Amsterdam proved heartwrenching. What if, the boy wondered, he could stay just a few more weeks to finish the academic year? Bach… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – There was common ground on Iran and preserving the social safety net at a meeting between Democratic senators and Jewish community leaders, although subtle tensions on both issues emerged. In the back-and-forth on Capitol Hill, the senators pushed back against the notion that the Obama administration… Read more »

Congressional candidates for the upcoming special CD8 election, Democrat Ron Barber, Republican Jesse Kelly and Green candidate Charlie Manolakis, debate at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on May 23, 2012. (Marty Johnston/TJCC)

Democrat Ron Barber, Republican Jesse Kelly and Green candidate Charlie Manolakis sparred politely at their last debate before a Congressional District 8 special election on June 12. But the three candidates, vying to complete the term of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, clearly delineated their battle lines before an audience… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — By the time he was 26, Jan Karski had been imprisoned by the Soviets, tortured by the Gestapo, and nearly drowned while escaping from a hospital in German-occupied Slovakia. Had he chosen then to end his service in the World War II-era Polish underground, few would… Read more »

James Lago, a street merchant in Juba, South Sudan, with the Israeli flag. (Armin Rosen)

JUBA, South Sudan (JTA) – This city in the world’s newest country is not your typical Arabic-speaking capital. For one thing, most of the city’s inhabitants are Christian. For another, the Israeli flag is ubiquitous here. Miniature Israeli flags hang from car windshields and flutter at roadside stalls, and… Read more »

Rabbi Alona Lisitsa, a Reform rabbi, participated in a religious council in Mevasseret Zion, a town west of Jerusalem, May 2012. (Rabbi Alona Lisitsa Facebook Page)

Non-Orthodox movements continue making inroads in Israel By Mati Wagner JERUSALEM (JTA) — After a Jerusalem-area’s religious council allowed a female Reform rabbi to participate in its proceedings, some advocates of liberal Judaism in the country are hailing their inroads into the Orthodox-dominated religious infrastructure. At the beginning of May,… Read more »

Vice President Joe Biden, left, speaking with Richard Stone, chairman, and Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice president, of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, May 21, 2012. (Joshua Roberts)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The differences between the U.S. and Israeli positions on Iran’s nuclear program are about to become very clear, and the Obama administration is reassuring the Jewish community that the divide is not so vast. Administration officials in a meeting Monday with Jewish communal leaders emphasized that… Read more »

JUDY BERG, Ph.D., RNC, WHNP, FAAN, FAANP, a clinical professor at the University of Arizona College of Nursing, has been elected to serve as president of the Western Institute of Nursing for a two-year term. As president, she will also serve on the steering committee of the Council for… Read more »

THE HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS EDUCATION GROUP of the Coalition for Jewish Education of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, coordinated by Bryan Davis, received a 2012 Salpointe Catholic High School Volunteer of the Year Award, along with Salpointe alumna Karen Kalil Callan. The award honors those “who have contributed to… Read more »

EZRA JOSEPH LYONS, son of Hilary and Patrick Lyons, will celebrate becoming a Bar Mitzvah on Saturday, June 2 at Congregation Chaverim. He is the grandson of Enid Bluestein of Los Angeles, Calif., and Kathleen Lyons of Crown Point, Ind. Ezra attends BASIS Tucson Middle School, where he is… Read more »

JOSHUA CHARLES BURKE, son of Roslyn and Charles Burke, will celebrate becoming a Bar Mitzvah on Saturday, June 2 at Congregation Or Chadash. He is the grandson of Barbara and Don Champion, and Dorothy and Bob Burke, all of Tucson. Joshua attends Andersen Junior High School in Chandler, Ariz.… Read more »