The Arizona Friends of Chamber Music will open its 66th season with the Jerusalem Quartet in two performances. The quartet will perform an all-Shostakovich concert on Wednesday, Oct. 16 at 7:30 p.m. and a matinee on Thursday, Oct. 17 at 3 p.m. in the Leo Rich Theater at the… Read more »
Yearly Archives 2013
Israelpalooza to bring flavors of Israel to UA mall
Israelpalooza, a one-day Israeli culture fest at the University of Arizona, will be held Oct. 16 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. This year, the UA Hillel Foundation is partnering with Chabad of Tucson, Jewish Arizonans on Campus, the World Zionist Organization, Associated Students of the University of Arizona… Read more »
JCC chief will speak at Shalom Tucson brunch
Shalom Tucson, a program of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and the Tucson Jewish Community Center, will hold a “Gateway to our Jewish Community” bagel brunch on Sunday, Oct. 20, 10 a.m. to noon, at the JCC. Representatives from synagogues, Jewish agencies and organizations will be on hand.… Read more »
In Kiryat Malachi, saving Ethiopian families and lives
The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona fund a variety of programs in our TIPS (Tucson, Israel, Phoenix, Seattle) partnership city of Kiryat Malachi, Israel, including counseling for Ethiopian immigrants. Every Tuesday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., there is an unusual… Read more »
Watchdogs of Palestinian incitement failing to stir alarm
TEL AVIV (JTA) — In late July, the Palestinian Authority’s official television channel featured a girl reciting a poem with the words “our enemy is Satan, Zion with a tail.” Two days earlier, the Palestinian Authority minister of religious affairs had compared the recently restarted Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations to… Read more »
At centennial, United Synagogue aims to retool Conservative Judaism
NEW YORK (JTA) — It’s being billed as the “Conversation of the Century.” When the main synagogue organization of Conservative Jewry gathers this weekend in Baltimore to celebrate its centennial, there will be a lot to talk about. The number of synagogues affiliated with the group, the United Synagogue… Read more »
How to inspire a Jewish future in America
NEW YORK (JTA) — Last week, the Pew Research Center released the first national demographic study of Jewish Americans in more than a decade. Like all such studies, there are disagreements at the edges about the accuracy of some of the results, but the study’s most significant findings have… Read more »
OBITUARY: Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, founder of Shas and Sephardic sage, dies at 93
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the Israeli sage who founded the Sephardic Orthodox Shas political party and exercised major influence on Jewish law, has died. Yosef died Monday at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem. He was 93. He served as Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbi from 1973… Read more »
Pew points the way toward more avenues to Jewish life
NEW YORK (JTA) — Since the release of the Pew report on American Jews, the question I’ve been asked most often is what surprises me about it. What surprises me most is that anybody is surprised. The Pew report points to a series of phenomena that are well known… Read more »
Mashup: Jewish leaders respond to Pew survey
NEW YORK (JTA) — What would happen if some of the biggest players in American Jewish life sat down and debated the implications of the new Pew Research Center’s survey of U.S. Jewry? After last week’s landmark study, I talked to nine Jewish philanthropists and organizational leaders about the… Read more »
Reporter’s Notebook: One in 800,000 at Rav Ovadia’s funeral
JERUSALEM (JTA) — I didn’t need to ask directions. Stepping out of the Jerusalem Central Bus Station, I saw them, men in hats and coats walking together slowly, a steady stream moving east along one of Jerusalem’s central thoroughfares to the funeral of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. At 5 p.m.,… Read more »
TEEN HEROES: With school supplies drive, Daniel Sobajian shows Students Do
WASHINGTON (JTA) — In 2008, Daniel Sobajian listened to President Obama’s inaugural speech and liked what he heard. “He said go out and help your community and make a difference,” recalled Sobajian, then an eighth-grader at the Sinai Akiba Academy in Los Angeles. “I realized just how privileged I… Read more »
Through Jewish filmmaker’s lens, Detroit revival looks much less sunny
DETROIT (JTA) — Take heart, America. Together we can save Detroit while earning some fabulous prizes. For a mere $500, you can have an abandoned home. Pony up $25,000 and get your name name engraved on City Hall. A cool $50 million will earn you the deed to the… Read more »
London’s American-style JCC seeking lead role in Anglo Jewry ‘renaissance’
(JTA) — At his office in London’s newly opened, $80 million Jewish community center, Raymond Simonson fumbles with a state-of-the-art telephone switchboard. “Sorry, I’m embarrassed, but we’ve only just moved into our offices,” says Simonson, the 40-year-old boss of London’s first American-style JCC, which opened Sunday. “Now the article… Read more »
From Iran sanctions to yoga time, federal shutdown casts long shadow over Jewish D.C.
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Meals on Wheels may disappear, Iran sanctions are at risk and yoga is filling in the gaps. This is what the federal government shutdown looks like in Jewish Washington. While national Jewish organizations are sorting through the essential services that the impasse may cut, regional Jewish… Read more »
Amid negative engagement trends in Pew study, Jewish funders see validation
NEW YORK (JTA) — If you’re pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into Jewish identity building, what do you do when a survey comes along showing that the number of U.S. Jews engaging with Jewish life and religion is plummeting? That’s the question facing major funders of American Jewish… Read more »
For Nairobi Jews, mall attack undermines already fragile sense of security
(JTA) — When Rina Attias phoned to say that she was trapped with terrorists inside Nairobi’s Westgate mall, her husband Albert replied with a short instruction: Hang up right now. Albert Attias, the head of the Jewish community in the Kenyan capital and an Israeli military veteran, wanted to… Read more »
Israel’s Netanyahu approaching moment of truth on peace accord
Imagine this scenario: President Obama delivers an address to the nation, in which he says he would use force if Syria doesn’t strip itself from its chemical arsenal. Later, on the same day, National Security Advisor Susan Rice appears in a public event and dismisses the president’s words, quoting… Read more »
Netanyahu talks tough on Iran, leaves door open to ‘meaningful’ diplomatic solution
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The “credible military threat” against Iran that Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to hear while he was in the United States this week eventually emerged — from his own lips. The Israeli prime minister, in a blunt speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, warned that Israel… Read more »
Pew survey of U.S. Jews: soaring intermarriage, assimilation rates
NEW YORK (JTA) — There are a lot more Jews in America than you may have thought — an estimated 6.8 million, according to a new study. But a growing proportion of them are unlikely to raise their children Jewish or connect with Jewish institutions. The proportion of Jews… Read more »