Yearly Archives 2013

(JTA) — In 1992, Edgar Bronfman was preparing to leave North America for Paris for his first meeting with then-French President Francois Mitterand at the Elysee Palace when at the last minute Bronfman decided he wanted to take an unexpected meeting in Geneva instead. So he asked Serge Cwajgenbaum, Bronfman’s right-hand… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Growing up in the Urals, Pavel Polev was a precocious ice skater and a member of the Soviet Union’s national youth figure-skating team. But in 1992, at age 15, Polev’s life was upended when he joined the massive wave of Jews immigrating to Israel from… Read more »

(JTA) — So, you think you know what’s going on in the Jewish world? Test just how closely you followed the year’s news (and remember it) with our end-of year-news quiz. 1. Berlin’s Jewish Museum provoked controversy this year with … a) an exhibit exploring the origins of the… Read more »

Rabbi Lody van de Kamp

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) — On a busy street near the Dutch Parliament, three white musicians in blackface regale passersby with holiday tunes about the Dutch Santa Claus, Sinterklaas, and his slave, Black Pete. Many native Dutchmen view dressing up as Black Pete in December as a venerable tradition,… Read more »

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — This past May, I made a YouTube video with the Israeli NGO Rabbis for Human Rights that drew a parallel between my role as Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof,” in which the Jews in Sholem Aleichem’s tale faced expulsion from the Russian shtetl of… Read more »

Jewish Agency chief Natan Sharansky called for the release of Jonathan Pollard in his speech to the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly in Jerusalem, Nov. 12, 2013. (Yonatan Sidnel/Flash90)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — The disclosure last week that American intelligence spied on former Israeli prime ministers has given new momentum to the effort to secure a pardon for convicted spy Jonathan Pollard. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several leading members of Knesset members have called in recent… Read more »

KIEV, Ukraine (JTA) — As I stood as one of the few Americans among the masses of protesters at Kiev’s Independence Square, the frigid cold reminded me that this was my fourth year trying to survive a harsh Ukrainian winter. The crowd seemed be warming up thanks to the… Read more »

French comedian Dieudonne demonstrating the quenelle, a vaguely Nazi-like gesture whose popularity has soared in France. (YouTube)

PARIS (JTA) — To outsiders, they seem like ordinary men striking macho poses for the camera. But there is a dark side to the photos that are appearing with growing frequency in the French media. The men — and less frequently women — are performing the “quenelle,” a gesture… Read more »

Edgar Bronfman, philthropist and Jewish communal leader, dies at 84.

NEW YORK (JTA) — Edgar Bronfman, the billionaire former beverage magnate and leading Jewish philanthropist, died Saturday at the age of 84. As the longtime president of the World Jewish Congress, Bronfman fought for Jewish rights worldwide and led the successful fight to secure more than a billion dollars… Read more »

Major League Baseball's official historian, John Thorn, pictured holding a royal decree knighting his great-grandfather, says the past enhances the present in sports as well as family matters. (Hillel Kuttler).

CATSKILL, N.Y. (JTA) – The past escorts John Thorn home from the moment he greets a visitor at a 139-year-old railroad station, crosses the Rip Van Winkle Bridge and arrives at his residence, a county historical landmark. Clad in a facsimile jacket of the defunct Negro Leagues’ Kansas City… Read more »

A section of New York's Bayside Cemetery in Queens after the UJA-Federation-funded cleanup. (Courtesy of the Community Association for Jewish At-Risk Cemeteries)

NEW YORK (JTA) — For years, the historic Jewish cemetery was so overgrown with weeds, plagued by toppled headstones, and littered with fallen branches, beer cans and snack-food wrappers that at least a quarter of its graves were impossible to reach. Even now, after a $140,000 cleanup and improved… Read more »

Last weekend, like other fellow Jerusalemites, I was confined to my home, besieged by the horrendous snowstorm that plagued our city. When power was cut off in our Beit HaKerem neighborhood for two agonizing days, I proudly lit my wood-burning stove. For years, I have been a victim of… Read more »

(JTA) — It started as barely a blip on the radar. At its annual conference last April, the Association for Asian American Studies, or AAAS, unanimously approved a resolution calling for an academic boycott of Israeli universities to protest the country’s treatment of Palestinians. While the BDS (boycott, divestment… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – Last spring, I found myself averting my eyes when my 4-year-old mentioned something about the Easter bunny in front of my dad. We were at my parents’ home in Michigan for Passover and my son said, “When I get back to Brooklyn, the Easter bunny… Read more »

Sophie Anna Holtzman, daughter of Kyra and Barney Holtzman, will celebrate becoming a Bat Mitzvah with her cousin Lola Maas on Thursday, Dec. 26, 2013 at the Hadassah Medical Center Synagogue in Jerusalem, Israel. She is the granddaughter of Barbara Holtzman and the late Stuart Holtzman of Tucson and… Read more »

Lola Olivia Maas, daughter of Billie Holtzman Maas and Galen Evans, will celebrate becoming a Bat Mitzvah with her cousin Sophie Holtzman on Thursday, Dec. 26, 2013 at the Hadassah Medical Center Synagogue in Jerusalem, Israel. She is the granddaughter of Barbara Holtzman and the late Stuart Holtzman of… Read more »

THE RABBI SAMUEL S.  AND A. IRMA COHON MEMORIAL FOUNDATION will present the Cohon Award for 2013 to two winners: Harriet Rossetto, founder and CEO of Beit T’Shvuah, the House of Return in Los Angeles, which uses Jewish spirituality, 12-step recovery and psychotherapy to rescue people from addiction; and… Read more »

A son, ITAYI SIMON NYAMUZUWE, was born Sept. 13, 2013 to Emily Simon and John Nyamuzuwe of Oakland, Calif.  Grandmother is Dr. Miki Paul of Tucson.… Read more »

KERI SILVYN, a partner in Lazarus, Silvyn & Bangs, P.C., has been selected as the 2013 Woman of the Year by  Greater Tucson Leadership. Silvyn is co-founder and chair of Imagine Greater Tucson, president of the Jewish Communitty Foundation, serves on the boards of the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of… Read more »

Andra Karnofsky and Chuck Gannon with Andra’s Chanukah dessert creation.

Making history come alive On the crisp morning of Sunday, Nov. 17, Barry Friedman led a Jewish pioneers tour of Tucson’s Evergreen Cemetery. Friedman, board president of the Jewish History Museum, began by making a disclaimer. He is not a historian, but rather a retired doctor who finds history… Read more »