The recent Next Gen Men’s Group trip to Israel was no run of the mill tour. Participants returned believing that Israel-Palestine issues are far more complicated than they thought before the journey, says participant Larry Gellman. What defined the trip for Gellman and others was the unique opportunity to… Read more »
My mother died a day before Shavuot, two years ago. Three months later, at Yom Kippur services, I knew that I was finally an adult (at age 49) because, for the first time ever, I stayed in the sanctuary for the Yizkor memorial service. A year ago, at Passover,… Read more »
Building Bridges spring break Sarah Cassius, finishing her junior year at George Washington University with a dual major in international affairs and geography with a concentration in sustainability, traveled on a Building Bridges trip to Israel and the Palestinian Territories over spring break. The trip was sponsored by GWU’s… Read more »
Rabbi Yehuda Ceitlin (Britta Van Vranken) Search online for “Mount Sinai” and Google Maps will swiftly point you to a marker in Jabal Mousa, Arabic for Mount Moses, located in the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. Consult with a biblical scholar or geographer and you will hear about other locations such as… Read more »
Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, right, presents Temple Emanu-El’s commemorative plaque to Rabbi Richard Safran (Steve Shawl) Rabbi Richard Safran honored with ‘Love and Laughter’ Temple Emanu-El held a brunch with the theme “Love and Laughter” on Sunday, April 29 to honor its adjunct rabbi and Tucson’s longtime community chaplain, Rabbi Richard Safran. The event, held at Hacienda Del Sol Guest Ranch Resort, included entertainment from… Read more »
Miriam Arden placed as a semifinalist at the 35th Annual National Shakespeare Competition in New York City on April 23, Shakespeare’s birthday, competing against 55 students from around the country. Arden, the daughter of Susan Brish and Scott Arden, and a junior at Catalina Foothills High School, won the… Read more »
David A. Berk, son of Debbie and Bill Berk, will celebrate becoming a bar mitzvah on Saturday, May 26 at Congregation Or Chadash. He is the grandson of Arlene and Marty Zuckerman of Tucson, and Sally and Mike Berk of Bonita Springs, Florida. David attends Orange Grove Middle School… Read more »
GABRIELLE ERBST has been named director of admissions at TUCSON HEBREW ACADEMY. A native Tucsonan and the first alumnus in this role, Erbst has been THA’s director of student support services for the past four years. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona with a bachelor’s in… Read more »
Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, at a Capitol Hill hearing on moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, Nov. 8, 2017. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Last year, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations updated its secret rules to ban “insults, ad hominem attacks, and name-calling” among member organizations and instituted a special committee to consider complaints in strictest confidence. On May 2, the committee met, in strictest confidence,… Read more »
Palestinians protest at the border fence with Israel in Gaza City as mass demonstrations continued on May 14, 2018. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Despite growing condemnation for the deaths of 60 Palestinians on the Gaza border yesterday, Israel defended its military’s actions as an act of self-defense in the face of a mass attack. “We didn’t want it to happen, but we understood these were Hamas’ intentions,”… Read more »
Winner of the eurovision 2018 song contest Netta Barzilai preforms at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on May 14, 2018. Photo by Tomer Neuberg/Flash90 *** Local Caption *** úøáåú
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(JTA) — Hours before the Eurovision song contest’s kickoff, Rafi Kishon posted on Facebook a sobering message and a picture of himself wearing a head of lettuce for a hat. Israel’s entrant, he said, didn’t stand a chance of winning in anti-Semitic, anti-Israel Europe. “I’m sorry to disappoint you,”… Read more »
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The #MeToo movement has empowered women to speak up against harassment and abuse. It is heartening to see many men standing as allies and organizations beginning to hold themselves accountable for establishing policies, procedures and transparency and for changing the workplace culture. For those of us working in youth-serving… Read more »
Patrick Little was kicked out of the California GOP convention on May 5. He was captured on video outside the convention stomping and spitting on an Israeli flag. (Courtesy of Little)
SAN FRANCISCO (J. the Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — Patrick Little is more than an hour into an anti-Jewish tirade that doubles as the centerpiece of his campaign to unseat U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein when he issues a blunt warning. “The longer the Jews try to… Read more »
The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem sits on a traffic circle recently named for President Donald Trump. The compound is in the middle of Arnona, a quiet residential neighborhood in the city's south. (Ben Sales)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — As he strolled on his leafy, narrow street overlooking what is now the United States Embassy in Israel, Ben Katz stepped back to dodge the side-view mirror of an oncoming truck, which had jutted onto the sidewalk. A few hundred feet past Katz’s garden apartment, four… Read more »
People watching President Donald Trump speak on a video shown at the opening ceremony of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, May 14, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli leaders and citizens responded with euphoria as the Trump administration moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem on Monday, designating a pre-existing consular building as the official U.S. diplomatic mission to the Jewish State. Hundreds of revelers, many wearing Trump’s signature red baseball caps commemorating the… Read more »
President Donald Trump displays a signed presidential memorandum at the White House after announcing that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, May 8, 2018. (Xinhua/Ting Shen via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Donald Trump may have expected fanfares when he announced the U.S. would be leaving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and certainly Israel, Saudi Arabia, a number of Jewish groups and some foreign policy hawks exulted. But some of that support was tempered by Republicans and Democrats… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shown after delivering a speech on Iran's nuclear program at his country's defense ministry in Tel Aviv, April 30, 2018. Some have said his speech helped sway President Donald Trump to leave the Iran deal. (Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images
(JTA) – On Sunday, Benjamin Netanyahu began his week by meeting his Cypriote and Greek counterparts to finalize the commercial export to Europe of Israeli gas that he has pushed to exploit for about a decade. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from nuclear… Read more »
A woman walks across Israel square in Guatemala City, Dec. 27, 2017. (Orlando Estrada/AFP/Getty Images)
(JTA) — President Donald Trump’s decision in December to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital drew wide international criticism, with 128 countries including the United Kingdom, Germany and Canada voting in favor of a United Nations resolution condemning it. But several countries saw Trump’s decision in a different light: as… Read more »
A view of the Blue Mosque in Amsterdam. (Wikimedia Commons)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — On the national day of mourning for Holocaust victims in the Netherlands, a major mosque in the kingdom’s capital celebrated the conversion to Islam of a Jewish survivor of that genocide. At least, that’s what Amsterdam’s Blue Mosque said. According to its Facebook, 87-year-old Sal van… Read more »
The front page of Yediot Aharonot, one of Israel's leading papers, on May 9, 2018 juxtaposed pictures of President Donald Trump withdrawing from the Iran deal and a family sitting in a bomb shelter. (Ben Sales)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — When war broke out on Israel’s northern border in 2006, Avigdor Guy remained calm. He lived in the northern port city of Haifa, but he didn’t think the war would hit home — until, that is, it did. “Twelve years ago, they asked me if… Read more »
