Posts By Lauren Bookwalter

The Arizona Balalaika Orchestra’s 40th Anniversary Concert of traditional music and dance of Russia, Poland, Ukraine, and other Slavic countries is Saturday, March 7, at 7 p.m. at Pima Community College Center for the Arts. The 25-member orchestra, founded in 1980 by Mia Bulgarin Gay, presents a wide spectrum… Read more »

The Tucson Jewish Community Center recently added rest and relaxation to its vast array of services and activities. iBalance Wellness Spa now delivers on-the-spot massage services, with regularly scheduled appointments. Therapies include therapeutic, deep tissue, and rehabilitative massage with therapists professionally trained in acute and chronic pain and stress… Read more »

After the findings from a national Adverse Childhood Experience Study recognized that a third of the population of the United States suffers from trauma, Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona worked to make the organization a more trauma-informed space. Melissa Zimmerman, vice president of clinical services at… Read more »

“The Healing Power of Sound” will be introduced by Tucsonan Tryshe Dhevney at CHAI Circle’s March meeting. Dhevney is a harmonic and vocal sound energy expert, author, speaker, and crystal bowl-recording artist. She has decades of experience assisting others in creating health, wealth, and wholeness through the properties of… Read more »

Editor’s note: Due to precautions against the spread of COVID-19 announced by Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, the performances of “From Brooklyn to Broadway in Only 50 Years!” have been postponed to Saturday, May 16 at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. For more information visit www.invisibletheatre.com. Invisible Theatre will present… Read more »

In 1945, “Rien où poser sa tête” was quietly published in Geneva, Switzerland. In the memoir, translated as “No Place to Lay One’s Head,” the author tells the story of her escape from the Nazis, how she smuggles herself into Switzerland. She writes about Kristallnacht, the Nazi occupation of… Read more »

Bella Wexler

Editor’s note: The March 8 Connections event has been postponed to the fall due to concerns about the spread of coronavirus. Bella Wexler, a junior at Catalina Foothills High School, will receive the Bryna Zehngut Mitzvot Award March 8. The Women’s Philanthropy advisory council created the award, which recognizes… Read more »

Harold J. Lisberg died February 14, 2020. Mr. Lisberg was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal for his service as a B24 pilot during World War II. He was predeceased by his wife, Elaine. Survivors include his sons William (Patti) of Minneapolis,… Read more »

Ronald S. David, M.D., 80, died Feb. 10, 2020. Dr. David was raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. He obtained his bachelor’s and medical degrees from Stanford University, and after a stint in the Army, went on for specialty training in psychiatry at the Bronx Municipal Hospital Center in New… Read more »

Edith Weingarten Fox, a Holocaust survivor who settled in Buffalo, New York, and moved to Tucson in her later years, died Feb. 16, 2020. Mrs. Fox was born in Czechoslovakia and was 13 when World War II started. She survived a Polish ghetto and the Auschwitz and Theresienstadt concentration… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — For the past three years, Esther Possick and her son have avoided the hassle of hosting Passover at their Long Island home by traveling to kosher hotels in foreign locales. In 2017, they spent the holiday at a resort in Stresa, a resort town on… Read more »

This is an evolving story. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency will provide updates as they become available.   NEW YORK (JTA) — Three Jewish day schools have temporarily closed, while 600 congregants and two university students have been required to self-quarantine as a result of the coronavirus. Here’s what we know… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Two Yeshiva University students are in self-quarantine as a precaution after potential exposure to coronavirus. According to an all campus alert sent by the university on Tuesday, the second confirmed case of coronavirus in New York — a Westchester County attorney in his 50s — … Read more »

(JTA) — James Lipton, who hosted the “Inside the Actors Studio” on the Bravo channel for 23 seasons, has died. He was 93. Lipton interviewed about 275 actors, writers and directors. In the first season alone his guests included Paul Newman, Alec Baldwin, Neil Simon, Sally Field, Dennis Hopper… Read more »

Beaten and abused by her husband, Robina was just 25 when she set herself on fire, preferring death by suicide to the “dishonor” of leaving her spouse. In Iran, a woman considered to be dressed immodestly is forced, screaming, into a police car. In Pakistan, a girl tells her… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Donald Trump will speak at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual conference for the second consecutive year. The venue for the March 14 appearance, the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas, is owned by Sheldon Adelson, a major benefactor of the RJC and Republican campaigns, including Trump’s.… Read more »

(JTA) — The National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia filed for bankruptcy protection, saying it owes more than $30 million to bondholders. Much of the debt is from the construction of its building on Independence Mall, the museum said in its Chapter 11 filing, the Philadelphia Inquirer… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Election workers in Israel refused to touch the envelopes with special ballots cast by those in home quarantine over possible coronavirus exposure, leaving the counting to senior election officials. Members of the Central Elections Committee, including its director, will count the 4,076 special ballots on Wednesday… Read more »

RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — Three attackers assaulted a kippah-wearing Jewish man walking on a street in Brazil while yelling anti-Semitic slurs. They held down the 57-year-old victim, broke his teeth and tore his kippah with a pocketknife on Thursday in Jaguariuna, a city of 50,000 located in southeastern… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Most of the votes in Israel have been counted from Monday’s election, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party has the most seats in the parliament, gaining four from the balloting in September to regain the top spot. But the right-wing bloc, while also picking up… Read more »