Posts By PHYLLIS BRAUN - AJP Executive Editor

What Hank Greenberg’s friendship with Jackie Robinson can teach us today

From left: Jackie Robinson in 1945 (Hulton Archive/Getty Images); Hank Greenberg (Getty Images); Zach Banner (Katharine Lotze/Getty Images); and DeSean Jackson (Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Pittsburgh Steelers offensive tackle Zach Banner posted a video late last week in response to Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson’s anti-Semitic screed against Jews. After describing his horror at the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, Banner preached that as important as the work of Black… Read more »

Local religious schools, Tucson Hebrew Academy make multiple plans for fall

This year, essential school supplies will include face masks and hand sanitizer to help guard against COVID-19. (Photo: Tatevik Bagdasaryan/Shutterstock.com)

Contingency plans are the order of the day as Tucson’s synagogue religious schools and Tucson Hebrew Academy look ahead to the first day of school next month. On June 29, Gov. Doug Ducey announced that the target date for Arizona schools to open with in-person instruction had been pushed back… Read more »

Senior gets airport to take steps to fly right

Barbara Russek

With great trepidation I headed to the Tucson International Airport on June 8. Several friends had told me they would not even set foot on a plane during the COVID-19 crisis and here I was going forward on a trip that would take me through three different airports within… Read more »

Phyllis Becker

Phyllis (Weinberg) Becker, 78, died June 28, 2020. Mrs. Becker was born May 26, 1942 in Bronx, New York, to Aaron and Eva Weinberg. She graduated from Columbus High School. She completed a three-year nursing program at Beth Israel Hospital where she met her husband of 54 years, Burt.… Read more »

Business briefs 7.17.20

Arizona native Chanel Bragg has been named associate artistic director at Arizona Theatre Company. A graduate of Northern Arizona University and Cortez High School, Bragg is a producer, director, teaching artist, and performer, and a passionate advocate for equity, diversity, and inclusion. Bragg holds a Master of Arts degree with… Read more »

Rush-Lappitt

Devyn Rush and Jeremy Lappitt were married on June 28, 2020 at the home of Susie and Bob Rush in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Rabbi Denise Eger officiated the service via Zoom from Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood. Nancy and Marc Lappitt participated via Zoom from their home in… Read more »

Audrey Simon

Audrey Faye Rubenstein Simon, 97, died July 3, 2020. Born in St. Louis on June 29, 1923, Mrs. Simon grew up in, Steubenville, Ohio, where she graduated high school. She earned her bachelor of arts degree at University of Michigan in 1944 and moved with her family (parents, Lew… Read more »

Susan Tobin

Susan (“Sue”) Rae Tobin, 89, died July 1, 2020. Born in Hackensack to Adeline and Sam Cohen, and raised in Passaic, Mrs. Tobin was proud of her New Jersey roots. She delighted in being a kindergarten/first grade teacher until she switched careers to full-time mother. As young parents, she… Read more »

Walter Feiger

Walter Feiger, 92, died June 25, 2020. Born in Krakow, Poland, Mr. Feiger was a Holocaust survivor. He moved to Tucson in 1970 and shared the story of his experiences with numerous audiences, including readers of the AJP (see https://azjewishpost.com/2019/walter-feiger). Mr. Feiger was preceded in death by his daughter,… Read more »

Frances Silver

Frances Silver, 94, died June 23, 2020. Mrs. Silver was born in Brooklyn, New York, on May 8, 1926 to Charles and Minnie Granat. She moved to Tucson in 1966. She had a long career as a teacher at Whitmore Elementary school. She was a member of Hadassah, which… Read more »

Harriet Gillman

Harriet Natalie Gillman, 93, of Chicago, died June 23, 2020. Mrs. Gillman was predeceased by her husband of 67 years, Charles Gillman. Together they spent many winters in Tucson. Known for her patience and commitment to family, she taught them how to be a mensch. Survivors include her children,… Read more »

Charles Gillman

Charles “Eddie” Gillman, 93, of Chicago, died June 13, 2020. Mr. Gillman, known as “Fast Eddie,” was a Navy war veteran of World War II who enlisted at age 17. Taught by his Uncle Joe Peven, he started a company in 1955 that remains a family business that serves… Read more »

Southern Poverty Law Center identifies Stephen Miller as an extremist

(JTA) — The Southern Poverty Law Center has added White House adviser Stephen Miller to its Extremist Files, a database of extremists that includes former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and Nation of Islam head Louis Farrakhan. Miller, who helps design much of the administration’s immigration policy, was… Read more »

Deluged by pandemic needs, Israeli doctors get help from unlikely source: robots

Surgeons doing knee surgery at Hadassah hospital's Mount Scopus campus use the ROSA robot, made possible with a grant from USAID's Office of American Schools and Hospitals Abroad. (Gurion Rivkin)

JERUSALEM — Orthopedic surgeons at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center on Mount Scopus recently welcomed a newcomer to their team. She’s incredibly efficient, never needs a coffee break, doesn’t complain about the long hours and isn’t worried about catching COVID-19. That’s because she’s a robot. Called ROSA, short for Robotic… Read more »

In significant meetings with Jewish leaders, Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez condemns the AMIA bombing

Argentina's President Alberto Fernandez, right, met with the head of the AMIA Jewish group and the father of an AMIA bombing victim in Buenos Aires, July 14, 2020. (Courtesy of AMIA)

BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — In the days before the 26th anniversary of the Buenos Aires AMIA Jewish center bombing that killed 85 in 1994, Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez has conveyed to Jewish leaders his desire to end the decades-long legal case that followed the attack, which has been complicated… Read more »

A new ‘Dirty Dancing’ film could be in the works

(JTA) — Jennifer Grey, the Jewish actress who starred in the original “Dirty Dancing” film, is collaborating with Lionsgate on an untitled dance movie in which she will star and executive produce, Deadline first reported Tuesday. Lionsgate holds distribution rights to the original “Dirty Dancing” films, which include the 2004… Read more »