Yearly Archives 2013

Bullying is an issue of concern nationally; in a 2011 study, 44 percent of 10- to 17-year-olds reported being bullied. Awareness of this problem is on the rise in response to recent violent incidents, including school shootings and highly publicized cyberbullying. To address parents’ concerns, two local Jewish organizations,… Read more »

  The public face of world Jewry will change this summer. Come September, both England and Israel will install new chief rabbis. Jonathan Sacks, the brilliant and widely published chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, is retiring to be succeeded by the affable Ephraim Mirvis, currently rabbi of the… Read more »

One of the seminal slogans of the 20th century was the historic refrain “Never again!” This cry that rose from the ashes of the Holocaust was meant to ensure that there would be no repeat of the greatest tragedy in modern European history. The refrain remains hollow if it… Read more »

Guy Gelbart

Is creating a Palestinian state truly in the best interest of hu­man rights? This fundamental question is often ignored. Many, including myself, refer to a two states for two peoples solution as the best possible option. I personally tend to support this approach, yet I have some significant concerns.… Read more »

A support group for Jewish mothers of children of any age with disabilities will hold its inaugural meeting later this month. In a letter to prospective participants, organizer Joyce Stuehringer, who has an adult son born with a disability, wrote of her hope that in discussing common experiences, “we… Read more »

The Jewish Federation-Northwest will offer Healthy-Steps chair exercise classes on Tuesday mornings from 9 to 10 a.m., beginning Feb. 12. The gentle whole body workout is set to big band, jazz and swing era music. Based on the Lebed Method, it includes deep breathing, slow stretching and therapeutic exercises.… Read more »

Holocaust survivor Klara Swimmer tells her story to a group of Tucson area high school students during the Air National Guard 162nd Fighter Wing’s Holocaust Remembrance event, March 17, 2009. (Photo: Staff Sgt. Jordan Jones)

Tucsonan Klara Swimmer was a 14-year-old schoolgirl in Hungary when she read a book about Madame Curie that set the course of her life. “I decided that I wanted to do something similar she did and that was medicine.” Swimmer, 88, didn’t allow the Holocaust to knock… Read more »

Joanne Caras, author of “The Holocaust Survivor Cookbook” and “Miracles & Meals”

Chabad of Tucson will host an evening with cookbook author Joanne Caras on Sunday, Feb. 17 at 7 p.m. at Congregation Young Israel. Caras’ cookbooks, “The Holocaust Survivor Cookbook” and its sequel, “Miracles & Meals,” memorialize lives lost in the Holocaust. The Port St Lucie, Fla., resident collected more… Read more »

Three years ago, transportation programs for Jewish seniors (60+) and adults with disabilities were begun through grants from the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s Task Force for Seniors and Adults with Disabilities to Congregations Or Chadash and Bet Shalom. Last year Congregations Anshei Israel, Chaverim and M’kor Hayim and… Read more »

Joe Pasternack (University of Arizona)

University of Arizona Assistant Basketball Coach Joe Pasternack will talk about this year’s top-10 Wildcats team at the UA Hillel Foundation alumni and friends’ dinner on Wednesday, Feb. 20 at 6:45 p.m. Pasternack is in his second year as UA assistant coach under Coach Sean Miller. The event, which… Read more »

Robert Klein will headline a live radio broadcast celebrating the 10th anniversary of "Too Jewish" (Courtesy Temple Emanu-El)

The “Too Jewish” radio show with Rabbi Sam Cohon and Friends will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a live radio variety show broadcast from the Fox Theatre on March 2 at 7:45 p.m., featuring comedian Robert Klein along with Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, U.S. Rep. Ron Barber, Amy Hirshberg Lederman,… Read more »

Eran, a gay Israeli-Frenchman, with his son, Elai-Gabriel, attending a demonstration in Paris in favor of allowing same-sex marriage, January 2013. (Courtesy Eran)

(JTA) — Wide-eyed and smiley, Elay-Gabriel seems utterly unaffected by the French media’s sudden interest in him. A dozen French journalists have visited the 18-month-old in recent months because he is trapped in a sort of legal limbo: He cannot obtain citizenship because the state does not recognize children… Read more »

A chart said to belong to SEBIN, Venezuela's secret service, implicating Rabbi Pynchas Brener as the Mossad's top spymaster in the country. (Analises24)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Espacio Anna Frank says its goal is to promote tolerance by teaching the life story of the teenage diarist murdered by the Nazis. But is there something sinister lurking behind the Venezuelan organization’s benevolent facade? SEBIN, the Venezuelan intelligence service, seems to believe so. According… Read more »

Even in his late 80s, political endorsements from Ed Koch, who served as New York City's mayor from 1978 to 1989, were prized. He appeared in this 2012 video supporting President Obama's bid for reelection. (Obama Campaign/YouTube)

NEW YORK (JTA) — One of the proudest moments of Ed Koch’s life came during a trip to Israel in 1990, in the midst of the first Palestinian intifada. Koch had recently left City Hall after 12 years as mayor of New York City and was touring Jerusalem when… Read more »

Israeli postal workers distribute gas masks to Jerusalem residents amid warnings of chemical weapons used by both sides in the Syrian civil war, Jan. 30, 2013. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israeli planes reportedly struck a Syrian weapons transport on the Lebanese border amid increasing fears that the country’s chemical weapons stockpile could fall into the hands of Hezbollah. The strikes, which occurred in the early hours of Wednesday morning, were reported to Reuters by a… Read more »

Yesh Atid chief Yair Lapid addressing party supporters in Tel Aviv following the release of exit poll results from the Israeli elections, Jan. 22, 2013. (Avishag Shaar Yashuv/Flash 90/JTA)

(JTA) — This week’s election in Israel was a watershed — but not in the ways one might think. In almost every election cycle, the campaign has been about one thing. To adapt James Carville’s famous adage: It’s about security, stupid. Except this time, it wasn’t. The reason is… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Preaching to a preacher man — or woman — doesn’t always play out as planned. That’s the lesson learned this week by officials at the National Cathedral after several clergy, including three rabbis, made impromptu changes to the readings they were given to deliver at a… Read more »

Left to right, Baltimore Ravens' coach John Harbaugh, late owner Art Modell and general manager Ozzie Newsome at the Ravens training facilities, 2008. (Courtesy Baltimore Ravens)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Every Sunday during the football season, a group of 30 diehard Jewish Baltimore Ravens fans suit up in purple pants, jerseys, socks, face paint and special Ravens tzitzit to watch the game together. If the game falls on a Saturday, the club gathers for a… Read more »

The American-born Rabbi Dov Lipman of the Yesh Atid party says there is no contradiction between working, serving the country and being haredi Orthodox. (Yossi Zeliger/Flash90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) – Last week’s Israeli election saw a major shakeup in the country’s government, with 53 new members elected to its parliament, the Knesset. Some already have received wide attention, including Yair Lapid, the middle class-focused chairman of Yesh Atid; Naftali Bennett, the high-tech entrepreneur who chairs… Read more »

Ron Prosor, Permanent Representative of Israel to the UN, speaks at a special event on “Children and the Holocaust”, held to mark the annual International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, on Jan. 27, 2012.(UN Photo/Devra Berkowitz)

NEW YORK—Speaking in a voice fraught with emotion at the United Nations General Assembly, Israeli ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor proclaimed, “The loss is unimaginable… the riches lost to the world untold. But, their spirit lives on, their dreams never died… Nothing can break the… Read more »