Yearly Archives 2020

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Monday was supposed to have been a good news day for Joe Biden: The venerable New York congresswoman Nita Lowey convened hundreds of women on a phone call to launch a new group, Jewish Women for Joe. The timing, though, was not auspicious. The same day,… Read more »

Amir Eden

Amir Eden has started teaching “Israeli Spirit” classes for middle school students from all over the U.S. through the Israeli-American Council’s new Ofek Learning Hub — Looking Beyond the Horizon. For more information, visit www.ofekhub.org. Eden holds a B.A in political science and international relations from Florida Atlantic University and… Read more »

The Jewish History Museum will receive a CORE grant of $15,000 from the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona, which has granted over $2.1 million to nonprofit organizations providing immediate relief during the coronavirus crisis. The most recent round of grants includes $120,000 from CFSA’s COVID-19 Response Funds, $720,000 in general… Read more »

A daughter, Stav Adar Singer Hurvitz, was born Feb. 21, 2020, to Emily Singer Hurvitz and Yaron Hurvitz in Irvine, California. Grandparents are Shelley and Steve Singer of Tucson and Mickey and the late Udi Hurvitz of Ramat HaSharon, Israel. Stav is also welcomed by her big brother, Aviv.… Read more »

William S. “Sandy” Louchheim, Jr. of Los Angeles, 89, died April 14, 2020. After graduating from Yale University, Mr. Louchheim joined the Navy in 1952. He and his wife, Marlene, married in October of that year. He spent 16 years in the Navy, commanding two ships and retiring as… Read more »

Marcia Sue Edberg, 83, of Henderson, Nevada, died April 7, 2020. Mrs. Edberg was born in Brooklyn, New York, on April 1, 1937 to Shirley and Irv Ostroy. She moved with her family to Tucson at the age of 9. She lived in Tucson for 45 years, then moved… Read more »

Manya Tepelboym, 91, died April 6, 2020. Mrs. Tepelboym, a Holocaust survivor, was born in Proskurov, Ukraine, on Dec. 31, 1928. She was 12 years old when World War II started. After the war, she went on to become an accountant for the City of Starokonstantinov, where she met… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Yair Netanyahu, a son of the Israeli prime minister, called for the return of a “free, democratic and Christian” Europe in a tweet that criticized a joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial ceremony for Israel’s Memorial Day. Netanyahu’s post on Tuesday, Yom Hazikaron in Israel, was in response to… Read more »

The Jewish Federations of North America are hosting a  Facebook Live worldwide celebration of Israel’s Independence Day on Wednesday, April 29. The event celebrating Israel’s 72nd birthday can be viewed on JFNA’s Facebook page or its YouTube page. No login is required. Beginning at 11 a.m. Mountain Standard Time,… Read more »

The Weintraub Israel Center and the Tucson Jewish Community Center will host a virtual event for Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s memorial day, on Monday, April 27 6:30 p.m. via Zoom. All those in Tucson and beyond are invited to gather as a community to honor the memory of Israel’s fallen… Read more »

(JTA) — Midway through Lila Duke’s bat mitzvah ceremony, her family’s cat made an appearance. Minnie’s interruption was one of many ways that Lila’s coming-of-age ceremony was different from what she had expected. While the 12-year-old still read her Torah portion in front of more than 100 people, still… Read more »

The Tucson Festival of Books will hold a Facebook Live session with author Jennifer Rosner today, April 22 at 3 p.m.MST. Rosner will speak about her recently released novel “The Yellow Bird Sings,” To participate, follow Tucson Festival of Books on Facebook.  Once you are on the page, make… Read more »

(JTA) — Anti-Semitic hate speech has risen dramatically since the start of the coronavirus crisis and must be rejected, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief said. “I am extremely concerned to see that certain religious leaders and politicians continue to exploit the challenging times… Read more »

(JTA) — Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust imagery continue to be mainstays at anti-lockdown protests against governors and in state capitols. A placard at an anti-lockdown protest held Saturday in Columbus, Ohio, in front of the state capitol bore the image of the body of a rat standing on… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The worldwide population of Jews stands at 14.7 million, still falling short of the pre-World War II numbers, according to a report by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics. The figures, which are similar to the population of world Jewry in 1925, were released ahead of Yom… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz signed a deal Monday to form a “national emergency government” that keeps Netanyahu as the prime minister for now. Israel has spent more than a year under a caretaker government as neither Netanyahu, who heads… Read more »

(JTA) — Colorado Gov. Jared Polis became emotional during a news briefing about the coronavirus crisis in his state when a reporter said that the public has compared his stay-at-home order to Nazism. “As a Jewish American who lost family in the Holocaust, I’m offended by any comparison to… Read more »

(JTA) — The Sacramento Bee apologized for running a two-page ad that the Californian daily said contained anti-Semitic language. The ad appeared on April 10 and 12, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, and featured a poem signed by a person named Robert Forest, the Jewish News of Northern California… Read more »

(JTA) — Israeli author and historian Yuval Noah Harari has pledged $1 million to the World Health Organization, or WHO, to mitigate the suspension of U.S. funding. “Unfortunately, the US president has chosen this moment to halt funding to the WHO,” Harari and Itzik Yahav, his husband, wrote in… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — This time of year — the convergence of Passover, Easter and Ramadan — is peak tourism time for this city. This year is the first time since 1992 that all three festivals fall in the same month. But traveling as a tourist to Jerusalem right now… Read more »