In Focus

In Focus 5.12.17

Community commemorates Yom HaShoah

Haley Dveirin lights a candle with her grandmother, Holocaust survivor Annique Dveirin

Some 200 people attended the Jewish community’s 2017 Yom HaShoah commemoration on Sunday, April 23 at Temple Emanu-El. The event, organized by the Jewish History Museum, explored the theme of “Art and Totalitarianism: 80 Years After the ‘Degenerate Art’ Exhibition” and included a Holocaust survivor processional and candle lighting ceremony.

Honoring Israel’s fallen

(L-R) Israelis Or Maoz, University of Arizona Hillel Foundation Israel Fellow; Bar Alkaher, Tucson shinshin; Netanel Achituv, Tucson Hebrew Academy teacher-emissary; Yuval Barel, daughter of Tucson shlicha Oshrat Barel; and Leah Avuno, Tucson shinshin, perform at the Yom Hazikaron ceremony on April 30. (Marty Johnston)

The Weintraub Israel Center held a Yom Hazikaron (Israeli Memorial Day) ceremony, honoring Israel’s fallen soldiers and victims of terror, Sunday, April 30 at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. More than 100 people attended the ceremony, which was preceded by “My Israel Moment” reminiscences from local rabbis and Jewish community leaders. Marking the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem, the ceremony included reflections on the 1967 Six-Day War.

Shinshinim program thanks

Bar Alkaher posted this photo on Facebook, commenting, “This photo basically explains the whole year — Leah Avuno and I happily sharing anything about ourselves and our country with the wonderful Jewish community in Tucson and surrounded by the kids we love so much! … Thanks for everyone for coming to our event, it was very powerful and emotional for me, and of course a special thanks to Oshrat Barel Tucson Shlicha who made it all possible!” (Marty Johnston)

More than 100 people turned out May 1 for a Weintraub Israel Center party thanking Tucson’s shinshinim (Israeli teen emissaries) Leah Avuno and Bar Alkaher; their host families, the Silvermans, the Weiners and the Barels; and the site supervisors from the schools they worked with this year. The shinshinim will continue their year of service (shnat sherut in Hebrew) as counselors at the Tucson Jewish Community Center’s Camp J until the beginning of August. The party, fittingly, was held on Yom Haatzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day.