Posts By PHYLLIS BRAUN - AJP Executive Editor

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Meeting last month with Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came away satisfied that he and the American president were in agreement on a wide range of issues, including Syria, where Israel wants to limit Iranian influence as the Syrian civil war wraps up. “We don’t have… Read more »

 (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is freezing an agreement made with the United Nations that would have relocated thousands of African asylum seekers to Western countries. His decision leaves in limbo the fate of up to 40,000 African asylum seekers in Israel; an Israeli government plan to deport them… Read more »

Jack Wertheimer (Courtesy of Wertheimer)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Large donors and foundations are responsible for an increasing share of American Jewish giving, and are exercising greater influence on Jewish communal priorities than they were in previous generations, according to a new study. The mega-donor trend was quantified in the study of American Jewish… Read more »

(JTA) — Israeli doctors performed surgeries to fix severe spinal deformities as part of a weeklong medical mission to Ethiopia. Eight doctors, two nurses and one physical therapist from the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem traveled on the mission last week to the city of Mekelle, in the African… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — An omnibus spending bill approved by Congress more than doubles spending for security grants that have been overwhelmingly tapped by Jewish institutions. The $1.3 trillion bill approved Thursday includes $60 million for the security grants, up from $25 million last year. More than 90 percent of… Read more »

The Café at the J will be open Monday, April 2 through Thursday, April 5, during the chol hamoed (intermediate days) of Passover, with a special menu of kosher-for-Passover meals. This the first time the café at the Tucson Jewish Community Center will be open during Passover. The café… Read more »

A sample of goods donated by the Jewish community for children who had been removed from their adoptive parents’ home.

Community aids children in distress Members of the Tucson Jewish community provided clothing and funds to help four children from the Flowing Wells School District who were recently removed from their adoptive parents’ home. After reading about the children’s plight in local media, Mary Ellen Loebl, coordinator of “Making… Read more »

OSHRAT BAREL, the Weintraub Israel Center’s first woman director and its sixth shlicha (emissary from Israel) completes her transition this month to vice president of the JEWISH FEDERATION OF SOUTHERN ARIZONA’s community engagement department. The new department will facilitate collaboration among three existing program areas: the Jewish Community Relations… Read more »

Michael Charles Sattinger of Show Low, Arizona, 62, died March 5, 2018. Survivors include his wife, Lorese; mother, Joyce Sattinger, and father, Irwin Sattinger, both of Tucson; stepchildren, Frank (Amy) Russell and April Russell, both of Show Low; brother, Stephen (Rachel) Sattinger of Tucson, and sister, Kim Sattinger of… Read more »

Richard H. Love, 95, died Feb. 27, 2018. Mr. Love was born in Detroit. He flew a B24 Liberator in World War II as a first lieutenant in the Army Air Force.  He was a manager at the Michigan branch of Dominion Risk Management, an insurance provider. Mr. Love… Read more »

There was a wealthy Jewish merchant in London who would frequently invite individuals soliciting charitable donations to his home. He would invite his child to come to those solicitations to listen to the charitable request. After the request was made, he would ask his son to bring his checkbook… Read more »

(JTA) — Itzhak Perlman, arguably the most famous violinist in the world, has heard plenty of questions in his 50-year career. But when asked if his religious heritage has affected his playing, he sounds stumped. “I’m a violinist. I’m Jewish, so that makes me a Jewish musician,” he tells… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Though Rachel Laser is the new executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, she prefers a different term for the cause for which she now advocates: separation of religion and government. That difference may be subtle, but it speaks to the… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — President George W. Bush’s first act as president, on Jan. 29, 2001, was to open an office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Church-state separations that had hindered such partnerships, he said in a statement, were “inherently unfair.” Jewish groups, civil libertarians and Democrats immediately raised concerns,… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Trump administration sided with the Palestine Liberation Organization in a terrorism lawsuit that the Supreme Court may soon consider, drawing an angry rebuke from conservatives, including one of its most steadfast Jewish community defenders, the Zionist Organization of America. In 2015, a federal jury in… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Knesset bill that would exempt haredi Orthodox yeshiva students from the mandatory draft has brought the possibility of snap elections closer in Israel. But it is only one variable in a complicated political dance involving the haredi parties, Israel’s colorful defense minister, the 2019 budget… Read more »

(JTA) — Both have unequivocally condemned Louis Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism. Both say that fighting anti-Semitism is a necessary part of the broader struggle against bigotry and oppression. Both seek to build alliances with other minority groups in that fight. So an alliance would seem natural between the Anti-Defamation League, a… Read more »

(JTA) — When Boruch Gorin, a well-known rabbi in Moscow, traveled for the first time from Russia to the United States, a U.S. Customs officer asked him whether he was Russian. “I said, ‘No, I’m not Russian — I’m Jewish,’” Gorin recalled Monday, 27 years after the exchange at… Read more »

ALMA HERNANDEZ is a candidate for the Arizona State House of Representatives in Legislative District 3 for the Democratic primary. A native Tucsonan, Hernandez is a former Jewish Community Relations Council coordinator for the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and sings in the choir at Congregation Chaverim where she… Read more »

(JTA) — Throughout his senior year in high school, Ryan Deitsch has stayed busy. A month ago, the 18-year-old filled his time outside of classes performing in an doing improvisational theater group he started at his school, producing TV content for the school’s newsroom and working as a busboy… Read more »