Yearly Archives 2015

NEW YORK (JTA) – The two men used to share the same synagogue pew. One’s wife was the other’s chief of staff. Now both share an ignoble distinction: guilty of accepting millions through illegal kickback schemes. There is one thing Sheldon Silver and William Rapfogel won’t share, however: a… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Ever since Zero Mostel imagined himself as a rich man in the original 1964 Broadway production, “Fiddler on the Roof” has been a cultural landmark on Broadway and in the Jewish sphere. It’s one of those musicals that always seems to be in rotation. Over… Read more »

(JTA) — Writer and director Jill Soloway grew up in what she calls a “somewhat normalish, upper middle class Jewish household” in Chicago. Her mom was a public relations consultant (she worked for Mayor Jane Byrne) and her dad a psychiatrist. But she always sensed that “something was a… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — When Neal Shusterman helped his son Brendan with a second-grade report on the Pacific Ocean’s Marianas Trench, he thought the name of its deepest location, Challenger Deep, would make a great title for a book. In fact, for a number of years, whenever Shusterman — the author… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Hamilton Jordan, President Jimmy Carter’s wunderkind adviser and chief of staff, discovered at age 20 that his family’s story wasn’t a straightforward Christian Southern experience. At the cemetery service for his maternal grandmother, Helen, Jordan was puzzled to discover her plot was nestled alongside that of… Read more »

The supervision over UNRWA schools, where 42% of Arab children in Jerusalem are educated, is loose, at best. Center for Near East Policy Research Director David Bedein has taken UNRWA schools on as a pet project. For years, the Education Ministry had been claiming that the UNRWA schools were… Read more »

The “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. (JTA) – When Brazil native Fabio Rosenfeld brought up launching a search for his grandfather’s sister who had survived the Holocaust, I opened my “National Geographic Atlas of the World” to locate her hometown of Reghin. A… Read more »

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — There’s a popular Chanukah song recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary, “Light One Candle.” Its chorus insists we “don’t let the light go out” — but I’ve been thinking that maybe we should. Not that I want to leave all those Maccabee children stumbling in the… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – Nonprofit organizations are preparing for a new but remarkably successful philanthropy holiday, #GivingTuesday, which this year falls on Dec. 1. Organizations are busy crafting special campaigns, creating new online giving portals and planning fundraisers for the holiday, which began in 2012 on the Tuesday after… Read more »

(JTA) — I first tasted latkes for brunch at a trendy eatery on the Lower East  Side about six years ago. Since then, I’ve seen them across the country on brunch menus everywhere from diners to Michelin Star restaurants. Latkes — or potato pancakes, as they’re known to non-Jews —… Read more »

Samuel Paul Goldfinger, son of Melissa and Tedd Goldfinger, will celebrate becoming a bar mitzvah on Saturday, Nov. 21 at Congregation Anshei Israel. He is the grandson of Sandi and Jerry Henderson of Colorado Springs, Colo., and Judi and Jerry Schumacher of Saddlebrooke. Samuel attends Tucson Hebrew Academy where… Read more »

Shmuel Moshe White, son of the Honorable James Garfield White and Hallie Bongar White, celebrated becoming a bar mitzvah on Saturday, Nov.14 at Congregation Young Israel. Shmuel is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and attends Tucson Hebrew Academy, where he plays on the basketball and football… Read more »

THE ARIZONA-SONORA DESERT MUSEUM has been recognized as a winner in the 2015 TripAdvisor Travelers’ Choice  awards for museums, ranking 11 out of 25. The 600 institutions recognized with Travelers’ Choice awards represent just 1 percent of all attractions worldwide. The Desert Museum is recognized on the TripAdvisor site… Read more »

A series of paintings by LAURA WILSON ETTER, “Medical Bodies,” is on display at the Hotel Congress Lobby Gallery through Dec. 9. Etter, a mixed-media artist, used vintage medical diagrams as inspiration for her pieces, which highlight the body parts that make us what and possibly who we are.… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — On Nov. 5, delegates to the Union for Reform Judaism’s 73rd biennial convention unanimously adopted a resolution on the rights of transgender and gender nonconforming individuals. It was a moment of great pride and celebration, tempered by the knowledge that just two days earlier — and… Read more »

NEWS ANALYSIS SCHAUMBURG, Ill. (JTA) – Conservative Judaism is at a crossroads. The movement’s constituents increasingly are leading lives at odds with the core values and rules of Conservative Judaism, especially when it comes to intermarriage. The number of Conservative Jews has shrunk by one-third over the last 25 years. And even some… Read more »

GLASGOW, Scotland (JTA) — Once the music started playing — not the “Hava Nagila” tune that made her the Jewish poster child of the London Games, but something equally folksy — Aly Raisman tumbled right out of bounds. On her first bit of gymnastics at her comeback World Championships here… Read more »

SILVER SPRING, Md. (Washington Jewish Week via JTA) — David Epstein went to his doctor in 1997 to see why he was going to the bathroom so frequently and what was causing his fingers to go numb. Years of doctor visits, medical testing and prescription medications led nowhere. Meanwhile,… Read more »

(JTA) — Admittedly, “The Man in the High Castle,” the new original series from Amazon Prime, is in a tough spot. Many TV fans are wondering if the much-hyped drama can live up to the standard set by its Emmy-award winning Amazon predecessor, “Transparent.” “High Castle” is based on — but… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) – The Israeli government has approved entry of the “last” group of Ethiopian Jews awaiting immigration to Israel. The move comes two years after the arrival of 450 Ethiopian Jews then deemed to be the “last” such group. Indeed, there have been several groups said to… Read more »