Posts By Jigsaw Digital

ATLANTA — PunkTorah has announced the fundraising launch for OneShul.org, the world’s first web-based, community ran synagogue. OneShul was inspired by group of PunkTorah volunteers who began meeting online to daven with one another, using PunkTorah’s recently released Indie Yeshiva Pocket Siddur (available online and through ModernTribe.com). With the… Read more »

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Israeli director Yael Hersonski fought long and hard to bring the Warsaw Ghetto documentary “A Film Unfinished” to the screen, but she couldn’t beat Hollywood’s rating board. Earlier this month the Motion Picture Association of America upheld a previous decision of an R rating for… Read more »

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — The place is the Warsaw Ghetto, the year 1942, and the black-and- white footage shows fashionably dressed men and women, with yellow Stars of David as accessories, having a high time at a champagne ball. Later we see emaciated kids rooting through mounds of garbage… Read more »

NEW YORK (Forward) — Imagine the scene: Four bearded rabbis sit for hours around a table, swaying before their open volumes of the Talmud, debating whether a Jew who owns a gate tower near the entrance to his mansion is required to hang a mezuzah on it. A synagogue… Read more »

Question: My wife and I decided not to buy High Holidays tickets this year because they’re so expensive. What can we do to mark the holidays at home on our own? –Norman, Chicago Answer: Every year as the High Holidays approach I hear people grumbling about the price of… Read more »

Larry Lokey has pledged to give away all of his $700 million, with the next $60 million going to Israel. (Photo courtesy The Giving Pledge)

NEW YORK (JTA) — The philanthropic world got a happy jolt when 40 members of the world’s wealthy elite — including 13 Jews — announced that they would give away more than half their money before they died. The participating philanthropists were responding to a challenge issued earlier this… Read more »

MARLENE BURNS and KEN MIRMAN have created KAVANAH PRESS, a printing company that will reproduce Burns’ Hebrew prayer painting series as greeting cards, prints and giclée reproductions. They will offer fundraising opportunities to synagogues and will donate a portion of local sales to Jewish community needs. They may be… Read more »

U.S. ARMY CAPT. ISAAC GREENBERG will speak at the National Jewish War Veterans 2010 Annual Conference, which will be held Aug. 8-15 in Savannah, Ga. A member of the local JWV Friedman-Paul Post 201, Greenberg  is serving his third term as the national JWV vice chairman for the global… Read more »

David and Bryna Ben-Asher announce the engagement of their daughter, Judy Ben-Asher, to Dan Hirshfeld. Dan is the son of Theo Hirshfeld of Buffalo, Wy., and Kathie Day of Mineral Wells, Texas. The couple lives in Westlake Village, Calif., and are planning to marry in the spring of 2011.… Read more »

RACHEL ELIORA FREUND, daughter of Suzanne and Ross Freund, will celebrate becoming a Bat Mitzvah on Saturday, Aug. 21 at Congregation Anshei Israel. She is the granddaughter of Belle and Ralph Freund of Tucson, and Marie and the late Floyd Jacobus of Albuquerque, N.M., and Tucson. Rachel attends Tucson… Read more »

NOAH RAPHAEL SANDERS, son of Debra Huffman and Arthur Sanders, will celebrate becoming a Bar Mitzvah on Saturday, Aug. 14 with Congregation Or Chadash at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Noah attends St. Gregory Preparatory School. He enjoys soccer, tennis,volleyball and kayaking. For his mitzvah project, he volunteers at… Read more »

D. Joann Lyons, 78, died July 26, 2010. Survivors include her husband, Jerrold M. Lyons; children,  Pamela (Moises), Ronald (Ann) of Tucson and Scott (Leslye) of Tucson; sibling, Tivoli Wacks; and four grandchildren. Services were held at Evergreen Mortuary with Rabbi Robert Eisen officiating. Interment followed in the  Congregation… Read more »

Meyer Neuman, 95, died July 26, 2010. He was born in Volovo, Czechoslovakia, and his father died in World War I before he was born. Raised by his widowed mother, Mr. Neuman quit school when he was 12 to help provide for the family by working as a porter… Read more »

Alvin Fleischman, 87, died July 26, 2010. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Pa., Mr. Fleischman graduated from Penn State University. During World War II, he fought in the Philippines. After the war, he moved to Los Angeles and met  his wife, Doris, on a blind date. He got a… Read more »

Ellen Pinnas, 68, died July 12, 2010. Born in New York, Mrs. Pinnas graduated with a B.S. in biochemistry and an M.A.T. in biology from the University of Chicago. She taught science at the high school and college levels. She later volunteered at her children’s schools in leadership positions… Read more »

Jean Myerson, 95, died July 7, 2010. Born in Denver, Colo., Mrs. Myerson moved to Tucson in 1940. She was a life member of the Brandeis National Committee, Hadassah and City of Hope. Mrs. Myerson was preceded in death by her husband, Joseph Myerson, and brothers, Louis and Nathan… Read more »

Audrey Nemeroff Ellen, 74, died June 28, 2010. Mrs. Ellen was preceded in death by her son, Andrew. Survivors include her daughters, Julie (Jim) Beirow of Gilbert, Ariz., and Marissa (John) Fordyce of Tucson; sister, Margot (Richard) Silver of Tucson; and six grandchildren. Graveside services were held in the… Read more »

Lillian Esther Baggin-Bein, 89, died June 26, 2010. Born in the Bronx, N.Y., Mrs. Baggin-Bein worked as an escrow officer. Mrs. Baggin-Bein was preceded in death by her husbands, Lawrence Baggin and Arthur Bein. Survivors include her children, Mark (Teresa) Baggin of Tucson, Steve Baggin of Los Angeles, Calif.,… Read more »

Sarah Ann Pruitt and Martin “Marty” Douglas Johnston were married Sunday, March 21, 2010 at Regency Garden in Mesa, Ariz. Sarah is the daughter of John and Nancy Pruitt of Mesa, granddaughter of Vincent and Emma (Saul) Pruitt of “everywhere,” and Robert and Rosa (Moore) Babb of Walnut Creek,… Read more »

A YouTube video of a family singing and dancing at Auschwitz has received more than half a million hits and mixed reaction. Australian artist Jane Korman filmed her 89-year-old father Adolek Kohn, a former inmate at Auschwitz, and her three children dancing outside the infamous death camp in Poland,… Read more »