Posts By Lauren Bookwalter

(JTA) — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that the Trump administration’s peace plan “or any part of this plan should not be considered as an international reference for negotiations.” “It leaves Palestine fragmented. It will end all basis for a peace plan,”… Read more »

BERLIN (JTA) – A surveillance video of the Yom Kippur attack on a synagogue in Halle, Germany, has raised questions about police response and readiness, leading to an investigation by the state government there. Concerns were triggered after German news organizations examined the synagogue’s security video. The state parliament… Read more »

(JTA) — A documentary filmmaker is suing the state of Georgia over its law against boycotting Israel, saying it violates the Constitution. Announcing her federal suit on Monday, Abby Martin said that after she refused to sign the required oath from the 2016 law pledging not to boycott Israel,… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Dozens of cars were vandalized and racist graffiti was painted on the wall of a mosque and other buildings in an Arab-Israeli town in northern Israel. Israeli news reports said as many as 170 cars had their tires slashed in Jish. The vandalism was discovered on… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Vered Noam of Tel Aviv University has been awarded the Israel Prize in Talmudic Studies — the first time that a woman has received the award. Noam, current chair of the university’s Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies and Archaeology and a full professor in the… Read more »

Phoenix Art Museum will present “India: Fashion’s Muse” Feb.  29- June 21, 2020. The exhibition examines the ways in which Indian dress, aesthetic, and artwork have inspired Western fashion designs from streetwear to couture. Spanning the 19th to the 21st centuries, the exhibition showcases nearly 40 garments and more… Read more »

A few years ago, Joe Gurski had never met a Jewish person and knew little about Judaism apart from things he had seen on television. Today the 25-year-old, who lives in Manchester, England, has many Jewish friends and can recite Shabbat prayers in Hebrew. Gurski, who grew up Catholic… Read more »

Tamara “T” Statman, a University of Arizona student/softball alumnus, was crowned Miss Tucson Del Sol 2020 at the Miss Tucson Scholarship Program on Jan. 18. She will educate people across the state about her platform, “Skin Cancer Prevention: Educate, Facilitate, and Legislate.” Statman will move on to the Miss… Read more »

Samuel Ellis Jacobson, son of Jeffrey and Rachel Jacobson, will celebrate becoming a bar mitzvah on Saturday, Feb. 15, with Congregation Or Chadash at the Jewish Community Center. Sam attends Tucson Hebrew Academy, and plays on basketball, football, and soccer teams. He enjoys travel. For his mitzvah project, he is collecting… Read more »

The Midbar Project located at Congregation Bet Shalom will host a Tu B’Shevat Farm Festival on Sunday, Feb. 9. This festival will include the garden’s first plantings, painting the fence and chicken coop, clearing and pruning space for the mindfulness area, along with face-painting, music, PJ Library books, and… Read more »

The national Safety Respect Equity coalition examines issues of sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the Jewish community. The movement addresses privilege and power inequity, and devises solutions to ensure that existing structures no longer negatively influence how community business is done. The focus is on the values and… Read more »

The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Arizona will host a two-day international conference, “Contradictions and Tropes of Anti-Semitism,” Feb. 23-24. “The conference will address the disturbing rise of anti-Semitism in this country,” says Gil Ribak, Ph.D., organizing committee co-chair with Ed Wright, Ph.D., and Günther… Read more »

Extremism has hijacked the global social media conversation. Most of our lives — not just social life but news and entertainment that form our worldview — is online. The once-beautiful dream of a free internet — now a huge, irredeemable dumpster fire — is increasingly corrupted by conspiracy and… Read more »

The Coalition for Jewish Education of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona is accepting applications for scholarships to Jewish overnight summer camps for the summer of 2020.  Funded by the Mo and Frances Beren Family Scholarship Fund  at the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona and the Loebl Scholarship… Read more »

PJ Library will partner with Camp Daisy and Harry Stein in Prescott, Arizona, for a family weekend getaway April 17-19. The first five families from Southern Arizona to register will get $100 off the event. “We are having family camp to give families the opportunity to spend the weekend… Read more »

Temple Emanu-El Men’s Club will hold a free health awareness seminar, “The Great Prostate Hoax,” with Richard J. Ablin, Ph.D., D.Sc. (Hon.), on Sunday, Feb. 16 at 9:30 a.m. Ablin is a research scientist and educator who serves as president of the Robert Benjamin Ablin Foundation for Cancer Research.… Read more »

Todd Purdum

The Brandeis National Committee Tucson Chapter 24th Annual Book and Author Events will take place March 4 and 5, with four nationally recognized authors: journalists Todd S. Purdum and Hank Phillippi Ryan, each with a departure from their usual beats; biographer James McGrath Morris; and park ranger turned mystery… Read more »

There is an inspirational feeling when you walk onto the site of the Bisbee-Douglas Jewish Cemetery, says Richard Rosen, who likens it to the emotional uplift of stepping off a plane in Israel. “There’s a feeling of positive spirituality,” he says. Established in 1904, the cemetery, just 100 yards… Read more »

Hello Friends, We have just returned from our vacation at home, in Israel. Our vacation was great, but it’s good to be back! We are excited to start again and see all of our friends. In this second half of our year in Tucson, we have so many fun… Read more »

Mary Jo Pollack lives life out loud, not only as a storyteller for Odyssey Storytelling, FST!, and Tellers of Tales Tucson, but as a general life philosophy. Pollack, 71, is an artist on the board of directors of Beading Divas to the Rescue, a group of Tucson women who… Read more »