Yearly Archives 2014

Congregation Anshei Israel will present a three-week adult education series offering a wide range of speakers on being Jewish and Judaism. The series will take place on Wednesdays, Jan. 22, 29 and Feb. 5, from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. A different keynote speaker will open each evening from… Read more »

Hava Tirosh-Samuelson

“Judaism and the Contemporary Pursuit of Happiness” will be the topic of the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies Shaol & Louis Pozez Memorial Lecture on Monday, Jan. 13 at 7 p.m., at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, of Arizona State University, will discuss happiness as a central… Read more »

Rabbi Thomas Louchheim

Happy New Year, my friends. I know that some of you are saying to fellow Jews, “Happy secular New Year,” as if perhaps we are unable to distinguish between Jan. 1 and Rosh Hashanah. And yet, I tell my congregants, we are fortunate to have two calendrical opportunities to… Read more »

Twenty-five percent of adults in the United States have a mental illness — from depression and anxiety, to bipolar disorder and schizophrenia — according to a 2011 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, “Mental Illness Surveillance among Adults in the United States.” The percentage of Jewish adults with… Read more »

Aurora tallit by Beth Surdut

                                    Beth Surdut, a designer of tallitot from Santa, Fe., N.M., will discuss the importance of personalized prayer shawls on Sunday, Jan. 12 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish… Read more »

(Above) Members of Team Tamara at Liver Life Walk Tucson on Dec. 14. Front row (L-R): Lavina Tomer, Bryan Kaplan, Tamara Novak, Sandra Wortzel, Judith Weiser, Lyla Michelson, Rabbi Helen Cohn, Joel Alpert; back row: Gabi Zimerman, Linda Horowitz, Renate Wasserman, Carol Weinstein, Marlyne Freedman, Kenny Wortzel, Nan Rubin, Tanya Fleisher, Nancy Lefkowitz, Ann Markewitz, Byron Michelson. (Courtesy Congregation M'kor Hayim)

As my wife, Tamara, and I anxiously awaited news of a liver donor, it seems as if the third time truly was the charm. Three years ago she started gaining weight and experienced an unfamiliar level of fatigue. She could barely make it out of the house for more… Read more »

The Women’s Philanthropy Advisory Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona is seeking nominations for the eighth annual Bryna Zehngut Mitzvot Award. The award, honoring the late Bryna Zehngut, recognizes the outstanding achievements of a Jewish teenage girl in Tucson. Award nominees must be high school juniors or… Read more »

Desert Caucus President Chuck Gannon, M.D., in the waiting room of his ophthalmology office. (Nancy Ben-Asher Ozeri)

Although it’s been around for 37 years and currently has over 200 members, the Desert Caucus has a reputation as the best-kept secret in Tucson’s Jewish community. President Chuck Gannon would like to see that change. According to Gannon, an ophthalmologist who has been with the organization for the… Read more »

(JTA) — NBA star Tony Parker has apologized for performing an anti-Semitic salute after a three-year-old photo was published in the French media. The photo shows Parker, a French national born in Belgium, performing the quenelle salute with its inventor, the French comedian Dieudonne Míbala Míbala. The quenelle is… Read more »

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

In the coming days, many eulogies will attempt to capture the magnitude of the loss suffered this week by the Jewish community. Really, though, all you need are eight words: Edgar Bronfman was a prince of his people. There are other machers who devote much of their time and… Read more »