Yearly Archives 2012

(L-R) Gerda Weissman Klein, Diane Eckstein and John Eckstein, with the Eckstein's dog, Kipp, at a ‘Citizenship Counts’ assembly at Mansfeld Middle School in Tucson on Feb. 14. (Sheila Wilensky)

U.S. citizenship matters, especially for Holocaust survivor Gerda Weissmann Klein. On Feb. 14, the 87-year-old humanitarian told hundreds of eighth graders at Tucson’s Mansfeld Middle School why she founded Citizenship Counts, a national non-partisan, nonprofit organization based in Phoenix. Phoenix attorney Paul Eckstein offered tidbits of Arizona history to… Read more »

Yair Miller, left, and Ahron Guttman seek comfort from their fathers after losing the championship game, March 3, 2012. (Samantha Steinberg)

FORT WORTH, Texas (JTA) — In Texas, they say, high school athletics are a religion. But last weekend the saying took on a new meaning. The Robert M. Beren Academy, a small Modern Orthodox school in Houston, had captured national headlines during the week. Its boys’ basketball team had… Read more »

Ari Mandel at his wedding in Monsey, N.Y., August 2001. (Courtesy Ari Mandel)

NEW YORK (Yiddish Forward) — When Ari Mandel arrived at Army boot camp at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., in June 2007, it was a scorcher. His fellow soldiers, who had been accustomed to wearing airy shorts, T-shirts and flip-flops during the summer, groaned as they donned knee-high woolen socks,… Read more »

BERLIN (JTA) — A new documentary is shining light on Germany’s neo-Nazi music scene and the role it plays in cultivating a violent far-right subculture. The film “Blut muss Fliessen” (Blood Must Flow) looks at the neo-Nazi music scene in Germany, as well as in Austria, Italy and Hungary.… Read more »

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama meet in the White House Oval Office to talk about Iran and other issues, March 5, 2012. (Ron Kampeas)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may not have bridged their differences on how to deal with Iran, but each managed to give the other a measure of reassurance. In his speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Obama held his ground, declining… Read more »

Demonstrators in Moscow protest Vladimir Putin's re-election, including one carrying a sign reading "We are not an opposition, we are your employers!" with the word "fired" over a drawing of Putin's face, March 5, 2012. (Freedom House via CC)

(JTA) — With Vladimir Putin’s re-election as president of Russia pretty much a foregone conclusion, the question facing Russia was never what would result from last weekend’s election but what would happen after the vote. Thousands of protesters turned out Monday in a Moscow saturated with police and soldiers… Read more »

Last month, a contingent of leaders from the North American Conservative movement returned to the United States. All the members of this mission, rabbis, congregation leaders and philanthropists, had already been to Israel dozens of times. They are major activists in Jewish Federations, AIPAC, Hadassah, you name it. They… Read more »

Ruth Feigenbaum, founder of the Support Group of Families of the Terminally Ill in Zumbabwe, with AIDS orphan Ruth Thabini Dube. (Courtesy SGOFOTI)

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (JTA) — Two years after moving to Zimbabwe from South Africa 20 years ago, Ruth Feigenbaum noticed that her gardener, James Phiri, was losing weight and looking ill. With the help of a physician friend, Phiri was diagnosed: Like nearly one in seven Zimbabweans, he was… Read more »

(JTA) — Thirty years ago, a Jewish woman experiencing domestic violence had few places to turn. Community leaders strongly resisted acknowledging violence for fear that it would harm marriages and break up families. Few services existed for women seeking support in a Jewish setting. Prior to 1994, the U.S.… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — It ordered the West Bank security fence rerouted because it cut through private Palestinian property. It overturned state-backed discrimination against Arab Israelis on issues of land distribution and ruled against the Israel Defense Forces’ use of military methods deemed to cause “disproportionate” harm to Palestinian civilians.… Read more »

State Treasurer Josh Mandel, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Ohio, is shown during his service as a Marine in Iraq. (Citizens for Josh Mandel)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — As the 2012 campaign heats up in Ohio, Republicans are pinning their hopes on a young Jewish military veteran to unseat Democratic incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown. Josh Mandel, a 34-year-old U.S. Marine Corps veteran and the current state treasurer, has faced a number of challenges but… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Famed attorney Alan Dershowitz, former Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel — three prominent Jewish activists who have joined with other prominent people in a bid to remove a group with a blood-soaked history from the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — In advance of Super Tuesday, JTA takes a look at the stances of the four Republican presidential candidates on some issues of Jewish interest. The candidates are listed in alphabetical order. ABORTION Newt Gingrich: Has said that abortion should not be legal, though he makes… Read more »

Chris Cole, coach of the boys basketball team at the Robert M. Beren Academy in Houston, offering up some strategy for his squad. (Samantha Steinberg)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Chris Cole, the coach of the boys’ basketball team at the Robert M. Beren Academy in Houston, says his squad is peaking coming off its 27-point victory in the state tournament quarterfinals. Apparently the Stars, who with a record of 24-5 are having the best… Read more »

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama, shown at a September 2011 meeting at the United Nations in New York, are likely to meet again in Washington at the beginning of March, when decisions on Iran will be coming to a head. (Avi Ohayan/GPO/FLASH90)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — There will be the speeches, and they will resound like an echo. And then there will be the talk. When President Obama speaks on March 4 to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the group the following day,… Read more »

BALTIMORE (JTA) — Do the names Pavel Haas, Gideon Klein, Erwin Schulhoff and Viktor Ullman ring a bell? How about Ferdinand Hiller, Ignaz Moscheles, Henry Herz, Giacomo Meyerbeer and Karl Goldmark? They mean everything to Michael Wolpe, an Israeli pianist who considers himself first and foremost a composer —… Read more »

ARIZONA THEATRE COMPANY has launched BackstageCoach, a transportation program to bring patrons from communities such as Vail and Saddlebrooke to select Saturday 4 p.m. performances. For more information, call the box office at 622-2823.… Read more »

Pima County Attorney BARBARA LAWALL will receive the Public Service Award at the American Jewish Committee’s Judge Learned Hand Awards luncheon on March 14 in Phoenix. She is being honored for her contributions to the advancement of equality and democratic principles through her work in the nonprofit and public… Read more »

Jenna Kloosterman with project apparatus during testing in Antarctica

A Super Sunday Years ago, the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s Super Sunday consisted of a phone-a-thon only. On Jan. 29, not only did volunteers exceed the day’s projected fundraising goal but they performed acts of loving kindness. Activities on this expanded Mitzvah Day included an American Red Cross… Read more »

Bills or bug juice? With the economic recovery still struggling to take hold, many American Jewish families are finding they face a difficult question as deadlines for summer camp enrollment approach: Can they both pay their bills and send their kids to Jewish overnight camp? “It’s a difficult decision,”… Read more »