A Tucson Tu B’Shevat
More than 100 people attended a Tu B’Shevat celebration on Thursday, Jan. 16 sponsored by the Weintraub Israel Center, the Tucson Jewish Community Center and the Congregation Or Chadash religious school. The holiday is known as the “New Year for the Trees” and the event included the planting of three trees (fig and pomegranate) outside the JCC as part of Mayor Jonathan Rothschild’s 10,000 trees campaign and a Seder with traditional fruits and nuts. Capt. Richard Johnson of the Tucson Fire Department, one of seven local firefighters who traveled to Israel in October on a Firefighters Without Borders mission, spoke of planting a tree on Mount Carmel with the parents of Elad Riven, a young Israeli firefighter killed in the 2010 Mount Carmel forest fire. Johnson presented a stainless steel plaque honoring Riven and two other Israeli firefighters killed in the blaze, Uri Smandayev and Dani Hayat, to the JCC. The plaque was donated by Alan and Marilyn Speert of Tucson’s The Metal Man, along with a second plaque the firefighters’ Israeli guide, Eitan Blumeberg, took back to Israel to place on Mount Carmel.
Lions on the red carpet
Forty-five Lions of Judah from the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Women’s Philanthropy attended a screening of “Beyond the Boundaries” with filmmaker Nina Zale, who is also a Lion of Judah, on Wednesday, Jan. 15. The film is about the Golshim L’Chaim/Ski to Live program in Aspen, Colo., for injured veterans of the Israeli Defense Forces. The event was held at the Loft Cinema.
