Posts By Debe Campbell

Tucson J and Arts for All will integrate, expand programs

Taglit participants, friends, and Tucson Jewish Community Center staff gather for a semi-formal dance at the J on April 19, 2019. (Photo JCC)

The Tucson Jewish Community Center will expand its capacity to serve people with disabilities by integrating Arts for All, a Tucson-based organization founded in 1985, into its programming early next year. Arts for All provides opportunities for adults and children with and without disabilities to participate in performing and… Read more »

CAI scholar-in-residence to animate Shabbat with song, story

Rabbi Cantor Hillary Chorny, left, and Cantorial Soloist Nichole Chorny

Update 11.22.19: This scholar-in-residence weekend is supported by The Rabbi Marcus Breger Fund at Congregation Anshei Israel. Rabbi Cantor Hillary Chorny of Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles will bring new music and innovative, interactive Shabbat services to Tucson as Congregation Anshei Israel’s scholar-in-residence, Dec. 13 and 14. Her… Read more »

Through JFCS, national fund boosts safety net for local Holocaust survivors

Tucson Holocaust survivors (L-R) Sidney Finkel, Wolfgang Hellpap, Walter Feiger, and Pawel Lichter (Photo: John Pregulman)

Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona recently partnered with a national initiative that provides emergency funding to local Holocaust survivors. Assistance from the Seed the Dream Foundation and KAVOD-Ensuring Dignity for Holocaust Survivors now is available for any Holocaust survivor through the new KAVOD Survivors of the… Read more »

BSTC star party to feature comet-finder Levy

Astronomer David Levy with Cupid, a Questar telescope that was a wedding gift from his wife, Wendee. Photo Wendee Levy)

Beth Shalom Temple Center in Green Valley will host a star-gazing evening with acclaimed astronomer and author David H. Levy, Ph.D., on Wednesday, Dec. 4. Levy is among the most successful comet discoverers in history, having discovered or co-discovered 23 comets, nine of them using his own backyard telescopes.… Read more »

Pozez lecture will tackle ‘Aliyah of the Mind’

David Hazony

David Hazony, Ph.D., will present “Aliyah of the Mind: Zionism as Jewish Emancipation” on Monday, Dec. 16 at 7 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, as part of the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies’ Shaol & Louis Pozez Memorial Lectureship Series. Most people think Zionism is about supporting… Read more »

Local psychologist takes ‘Leap of Power’ in new addiction treatment book

Robert Schwebel, Ph.D., a Tucsonan since 1981, is the author of ‘Leap of Power.’

Imagine telling adolescents, “You don’t have to say you’re going to quit using drugs” and then dealing with their parents and community. Imagine encouraging young clients to talk about what they like about drugs instead of focusing on the harm drugs can cause. Counter-intuitive and certainly non-traditional, these approaches… Read more »

Special needs group has new facilitator

Teresa Corbin

Women caring for children of all ages with disabilities can find support with the Jewish Mothers/Grandmothers Special Needs Support Group, which meets at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. “It really doesn’t matter what the special need or disability is, the feelings around it are very similar,” says Joyce Stuehringer,… Read more »

JFSA women open Zehngut nominations

Erika Spivack

The Women’s Philanthropy Advisory Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona is seeking nominations for the 14th annual Bryna Zehngut Mitzvot Award, recognizing an outstanding Jewish teenage girl. The award honors Zehn-gut, a community leader who died in 2005. Nominees should be high school juniors or seniors who… Read more »

Hadassah event to celebrate 2019 Woman of the Year

Hadassah Southern Arizona will announce its Woman of the Year for 2019 and install its 2020 officers at a wine and chocolate philanthropy event on Sunday, Dec. 8 at 1:30 p.m. at the Ruth and Irving Olson Center for Jewish Life, 180 W. Magee Road, Suite 140. The Enchanted… Read more »

Brazilian-born Holocaust survivor has bar mitzvah at age 91

RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) – At 91, Holocaust survivor Andor Stern no longer fears the Nazis who imprisoned him in Auschwitz. Living in his native Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest metro area of nearly 25 million, what scares him today are burglars – his modest house has been broken into… Read more »

Quentin Tarantino and Israeli wife Daniella Pick rent home in Tel Aviv

JERUSALEM (JTA) — U.S. filmmaker Quentin Tarantino and his Israeli wife, actress, and model Daniella Pick, are renting a home in Tel Aviv. The home in an affluent neighborhood in the northern part of the city rents for nearly $23,000 a month, the Israeli business daily Globes reported. It is… Read more »

NASA renames cosmic body after nicknaming it with term used by Nazis

(JTA) — NASA has renamed the most distant object ever explored by a spacecraft after it was criticized for calling it by a name with Nazi connotations. It will now be called Arrokoth, which means “sky” in the Native American Powhatan language. The trans-Neptunian object’s official designation is 2014… Read more »

Haim, Jack Black and more record songs for a Hanukkah album

(JTA) — Adam Sandler is finally getting some competition in the Hanukkah music world. Haim, Jack Black, the Flaming Lips, Yo La Tengo and other prominent artists have recorded songs for a Hanukkah album titled “Hanukkah+,” the record label Verve Forecast has announced. The album is out Nov. 22 and also features contributions from folk… Read more »

In Veterans Day address, Trump told story of American who defied Nazi command to identify Jewish soldiers

Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds refused a Nazi command to identify Jewish American soldiers. (Yad Vashem)

NEW YORK (JTA) — President Donald Trump told the story of an Army sergeant who defied a Nazi command to identify which of his fellow American soldiers were Jewish. During his Veterans Day speech Monday in New York, Trump told the story of Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds, Military.com reported. Edmonds, who… Read more »

Ruth Bader Ginsburg misses courtroom arguments due to illness

(JTA) — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg missed courtroom arguments on Wednesday due to illness. She was not on the bench for oral arguments in two cases, NBC News reported. Chief Justice John Roberts announced from the bench that Ginsburg was “indisposed due to illness.” A court spokesman… Read more »

JHM learning trip digs deep into southern border migration issues

Eduardo “Lalo” Garcia of the Alliance for Global Justice, left, speaks at the border wall between Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, on the Oct. 24 Jewish History Museum learning day trip. (Courtesy Jewish History Museum)

“Migration is not beautiful, it is a result of violence and poverty and influences that make it impossible for people to stay in their homes. The task is to reflect on how to impact governments from intervening in countries.” — Eduardo “Lalo” Garcia, Alliance for Global Justice Prison Imperialism… Read more »

JFSA’s new Olson Center open in Northwest

(L-R) Todd Rockoff, Tucson Jewish Community Center president and CEO; Fran Katz, Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona senior vice president; Phyllis Gold, director of the Ruth and Irving Olson Center for Jewish Life; Stuart Mellan, JFSA president and CEO; and Nancy Mellan at the Olson Center opening brunch, Oct. 27. (JFSA)

The Oct. 27 dedication for the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s Ruth and Irving Olson Center for Jewish Life in the Northwest received high marks from approximately 100 attendees at the brunch and open house event, says Alan Kendal, Olson Center advisory committee chair. By that day, the center’s… Read more »