Yearly Archives 2014

I am the chairman of the Jewish community of Turku, Finland. We received a donation of four books by an author who was a Jewish resident of Tucson. The books were donated to our community library in memory of the late Richard Parrish. The donation was made by his… Read more »

The Lappin Foundation is planning a study of our Youth to Israel Adventure’s impact on Jewish identity. To help us contact at least 75 percent of Y2I alumni from 1971 to 2007, please send names and email addresses to [email protected] or 978-740-4410. Y2I was also known as LGI. We… Read more »

Steven Weitzman will present “King Solomon’s Mines Revisited: A Misadventure Story,” the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies 2014 Marcus Breger Memorial Lecture, on Tuesday, Jan. 21. Weitzman, the Daniel E. Koshland Professor of Jewish Culture and Religion at Stanford University, will speak at noon at the University of Arizona… Read more »

(L-R) Nina Isaac, Randi Levin, Cheryl Wortzel, Shaun Kozolchyk and David Plotkin at a past Hava Tequila event.

Hava Tequila, a party with a 1920s theme sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Young Leadership department, will be held Saturday, Feb. 8, 8 to 11 p.m. at Hotel Congress. The event, for ages 21 and over, will include a DJ, dancing, photo booth, hors d’oeuvres, signature… Read more »

Scholarships for Jewish overnight camps, funded by the Moe and Frances Beren Family Scholarship Fund, are available through the Coalition for Jewish Education of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona. “As in past years, these funds are critical in both showing the community’s recognition of the positive impact Jewish… Read more »

The Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona has announced the fifth annual Goldman Family Israel Scholarship Grant, with available funding of $2,500. The deadline for application is 5 p.m. on Feb. 7. The Elliot S. Goldman Israel Scholarship Fund and the Goldman Family Scholarship Fund are endowment funds held… Read more »

One of the new technological wonders in golf, says Scott Gregoire of Van’s Golf Shop, is the Big Bertha Alpha driver coming out next month from Calloway, a company that had been struggling in recent years. Over the last two years, Calloway’s new CEO, Chip Brewer, “turned Calloway around… Read more »

Gavin Cohen watches a shot.

Tucson is a golfer’s paradise — and not just for retirees and sun-seeking vacationers. Many Tucsonans develop a love of the game at an early age, including several teens in the Jewish community, such as 15-year-old Gavin Cohen. “Gavin Cohen is a pretty good stick,” says Scott Gregoire, general… Read more »

Harvey Pollack

Fittingly, Harvey Pollack was the one who scribbled the number 100 on the most famous photograph in basketball history: Wilt Chamberlain holding the piece of paper signifying his astounding point total in a 1962 game for the then Philadelphia Warriors. After all, Pollack is basketball’s ultimate numbers and public… Read more »

“Phoenix 1” serigraph by Shraga Weil

Congregation Anshei Israel will hold a “Festival of Israeli Art Show and Sale” Feb. 13 to 16 to benefit CAI’s youth and education programs. More than 1,500 works of art by over 100 known and upcoming Israeli artists will be on display. Presented by Safrai Gallery of Israel, the… Read more »

Adisa Ayaso

Adisa Ayaso arrived in Israel in January 1984, but her family’s aliyah wasn’t the typical airplane flight of so many modern-day Jews. Ayaso, now 33, was born in the village of Gedlia Murim in Ethiopia. She was 3 when her family began the 1,000-mile trek across the mountains of… Read more »

Enriqueta Fassler

Enriqueta “Neneng” Fassler is a 71-year-old dynamo who earned her third college degree in May. She was the oldest graduate of Pima Community College, earning her post-graduate certificate — with honors — as a paralegal. Fassler holds two college degrees in education: one in physical education from her native… Read more »

J. Edward Wright, director of the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies and the J. Edward Wright Endowed Professor of Judaic Studies, will lead “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow — Israel and Palestine,” a Magellan Circle excursion to Israel from May 25 to June 4. The Magellan Circle excursions are group… Read more »

A scene from 'Out in the Dark'

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s LGBT Jewish Inclusion Project is sponsoring a film, “Out in the Dark,” at the Tucson International Jewish Film Festival on Jan. 23. What begins as a tender romance between a privileged Israeli lawyer and a Palestinian student becomes an edge-of your-seat thriller, says… Read more »

Super Sunday co-chairs Kris and Ben Silverman

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona will hold its annual fundraising phone-a-thon, Super Extraordinary Sunday, on Jan. 26 at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Several mitzvah projects, including a Red Cross blood drive and a Gift of Life bone marrow registry, will help make the day special. “Arizona is… Read more »

Israeli soldiers try to evacuate Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005. (Yossi Zamir/Flash90)

NEW YORK (JTA) — When I first heard about Ariel Sharon’s stroke — the first one, a minor brain attack about four weeks before he suffered the massive hemorrhage that would leave him comatose for the final eight years of his life — I was having dinner at a… Read more »

 WASHINGTON (JTA) — More than half the United States Senate has signed on to a bill that would intensify sanctions against Iran. But in a sign of the so-far successful effort by the White House to keep the bill from reaching a veto-busting 67 supporters, only 16 Democrats are… Read more »

Sen. Bernie Sanders addressing a rally on Capitol Hill in 2013. (Courtesy photo)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont and the only self-described socialist in Congress, has long been an outspoken voice in Washington on issues of economic inequality. But with the vanishing middle class figuring prominently in the campaign for mayor of the country’s largest city, and… Read more »

Food writer Mark Bittman wants you to eat more plants. (Courtesy photo)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Mark Bittman is not a religious man by any stretch of the imagination, least of all his own. A longtime food writer for The New York Times who three years ago shifted from cooking to food policy columnist, Bittman has made a living eating the… Read more »

French soccer star Nicolas Anelka performing the quenelle after scoring a goal at a match in London, Dec. 28, 2013. (Christopher Lee/Getty Images)

(JTA) — When West Bromwich Albion striker Nicolas Anelka exposed British soccer fans to the vaguely Hitlerian salute now sweeping his native France, Jewish groups were confident a strong response was coming. After all, Britain is considered a leader in the fight against xenophobia in sports thanks to its… Read more »