Yevgenia Kiseleva, who learned gymnastics in an orphanage in Latvia, displays her agility at age 77. (Courtesy Sharon Arkin)
Searching for a program that helps people with memory loss stay physically and mentally active, Natalija Kuznecova had one very specific requirement: she needed to find a program with a Russian speaker for mother, 77-year-old Yevgenia Kiseleva, who has been in the United States only four months and speaks… Read more »
Claire Johnson, left, at her cafe in Catalina with customers Scott McGowen (in cowboy hat) and Wayne and Bernadette Olsen (Korene Charnofsky Cohen/AJP)
Haimish, Yiddish for friendly or homey, sums up Claire’s Cafe and Art Gallery in Catalina. Good food also figures into the picture, but the warm atmosphere created by owners Claire and Steve Johnson keeps drawing loyal customers. The cafe was awarded the 2016 Better Business Bureau Good Neighbor Award… Read more »
The Tucson Jewish Community Center is currently recruiting Jewish teenage athletes between ages 13 and 16 to attend the JCC Maccabi Games next summer. The annual tournament runs from July 30 to Aug. 4 in Birmingham, Ala., and offers students competitive sporting events, social activities, social action projects and… Read more »
Ringu Tulku Rinpoche
Tibetan Buddhist Monk Ringu Tulku Rinpoche will speak on “The Power of Gratitude to Heal” at Temple Emanu-El’s Chardonnay Shabbat service on Friday, Nov. 25 at 5:45 p.m. Following the service, Rinpoche will continue the discussion with Rabbis Samuel M. Cohon and Batsheva Appel and guests at a Shabbat… Read more »
A groundbreaking ceremony for a new building that will house the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and the Jewish Community Foundation will be held Sunday, Dec. 4 at 4 p.m. in the northwest corner of the Tucson Jewish Community Center parking lot at River and Dodge Roads. The project,… Read more »
The mini-mission, an annual behind the scenes bus tour of programs supported by the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, will be held Friday, Dec 2, 8:30 a.m.-2 p.m. The tour is sponsored by JFSA Women’s Philanthropy but is open to men and women. New this year is an exclusive… Read more »
Wearing a traditional Ethiopian dress and shawl, Leah Avuno displays a tunic that would be worn by a Kes, an Ethiopian spiritual leader. Avuno, who immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia as a toddler, is spending a year in Tucson as a volunteer. (David J. Del Grande/AJP)
Leah Avuno, one of Tucson’s two Shinshinim (teen ambassadors from Israel) brought more than just her abundant youthful energy when she came to Tucson — she also brought the rich culture of her Ethiopian heritage. This year, the Tucson Jewish community will join Avuno in celebrating the Jewish Ethiopian… Read more »
Yossi Klein Halevi, left, and Abdullah Antepli are co-directors of the Muslim Leadership Initiative. (Netanel Tobias/Shalom Hartman Institute)
(JTA) — For years, whenever Jews and Muslims engaged in dialogue and activism, it usually concerned one issue: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With Donald Trump’s ascent to the presidency, that appears to be changing. Regardless of what’s happening across the ocean, Jews and Muslims in the United States are… Read more »
From left to right: Matt Brooks, director of the Republican Jewish Coalition; Noam Neusner, former speechwriter for President George W. Bush; Tevi Troy, deputy health secretary under President George W. Bush, and Jeff Berkowitz, former research director of the Republican National Committee, at the Jewish Federations of North America's General Assembly in Washington, D.C., Nov. 14, 2016. (Ron Sachs)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Offer an open hand or a closed fist — or maybe both. Name names. Don’t name names, hint. Quietly adjust wording. Welcome to the second week of the World of Trump, Jewish organizational edition. Week 1 was fraught enough, with Jewish statements marking Donald Trump’s… Read more »
(JTA) — Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Independent, has joined the Senate Democratic leadership. Sanders was named chair of outreach for the party on Wednesday, according to reports on the closed-door Senate Democratic caucus meeting. As an Independent, Sanders was an outsider to the Democratic Party until he ran… Read more »
(JTA) — The upset victory by Donald Trump in the 2016 elections stunned a Jewish activist and leadership class that is at times as divided as the electorate at large. JTA asked some of those leaders to describe their concerns and expectations in a series of brief essays titled… Read more »
Stephen Bannon at a Donald Trump rally at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center in Reno, Nev., Nov. 5, 2016. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
(JTA) — On Sunday, President-elect Donald Trump appointed Stephen Bannon to be his chief strategist. Before joining Trump’s campaign, Bannon was the chairman of Breitbart News, a site steeped in conspiracy theories that has featured the white supremacist, anti-Semitic ideologies of the so-called alt-right. Bannon has also been accused of… Read more »
Researcher Emily Landau making an appearance at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, Nov. 9, 2016. (Andrew Tobin)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Right-wing Israeli politicians welcomed the election of Donald Trump with open arms. On Wednesday, Education Minister Naftali Bennett said Trump becoming the president-elect of the United States was a chance for Israel to “retract the notion of a Palestinian state.” Several politicians, including Jerusalem Mayor… Read more »
Bernie Sanders at a campaign rally at Bronx Community College in New York City, April 9, 2016. (Eric Thayer/Getty Images)
(JTA) — At the start of his campaign, he was dismissed as a fringe protest candidate, an old man with messy hair whose ideas were too extreme to win a national election. But now that Democratic mainstay Hillary Clinton has lost the election to Donald Trump, it’s worth… Read more »
Eric Greitens as a Navy SEAL in Iraq. (Courtesy of Rubenstein Public Relations)
(JTA) — Eric Greitens, a former Navy SEAL whose seven military awards include the Bronze Star, has become the first Jewish governor of Missouri. Greitens, 42, a Republican, also is a former Rhodes scholar and the founder of The Mission Continues, a nonprofit that helps veterans integrate themselves back… Read more »
cohen in 1973.jpg
Leonard Cohen, center, performing with Matti Caspi, on guitar, for Ariel Sharon, with arms crossed, and other Israeli troops in the Sinai in 1973. (Courtesy of Maariv)
(JTA) — Using his M-16 assault rifle as a pillow, my father awoke abruptly from a dreamless sleep by the pleading voice of a young woman outside his tent in the Sinai. The woman, a uniformed volunteer, was urging reservists like him to forego shuteye to hear a musician… Read more »
Beth-El Congregation in Fort Worth, Texas (Courtesy of Beth-El Congregation)
(JTA) — At 6:30 Wednesday morning, Oklahoma City Rabbi Abby Jacobson received a text from one of her teenage congregants expressing sadness at the presidential election results — and fear. “She said, ‘I’m sorry for texting you, rabbi, but I can’t say any of this at school,’” related Jacobson,… Read more »
Leonard Cohen during a concert in Ramat Gan, Israel, Sept. 24, 2009. (Marko/Flash90)
(JTA) — Leonard Cohen, the Canadian singer-songwriter whose Jewish-infused work became a soundtrack for melancholy, has died. He was 82. “It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter and artist Leonard Cohen has passed away,” his Facebook page said late Thursday. “We have lost one… Read more »
Donald Trump at a campaign event in Sarasota, Fla., Nov. 7, 2016. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – In forging an unprecedented and stunning path to the presidency, Donald Trump claimed to represent Americans who were anxious, resentful and ready to make radical changes. Their electoral strength blindsided pollsters and pundits — and flabbergasted many Jews, for whom the Trump base was once largely… Read more »
President-elect Donald Trump delivers his acceptance speech at the New York Hilton Midtown in New York City, Nov. 9, 2016. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Donald Trump will be the next U.S. president, having swept to victory in at least 29 states with 288 electoral votes and jolted a Jewish community made increasingly anxious as his rough-edged nativist rhetoric emboldened the far right and amplified a strain of anti-Semitic invective not heard… Read more »
