Posts By PHYLLIS BRAUN - AJP Executive Editor

OXFORD, England (JTA) — For a city that has made headlines recently for its anti-Semitism problem, Oxford has a pretty laid back Jewish scene. On a recent Friday night, dozens of recognizably Jewish families and students wearing kippahs were enjoying the afternoon sun as they strolled to one of Oxford’s two… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A bill unanimously approved by the U.S. House of Representatives would extend religious protections to advocates of circumcision and ritual slaughter as well as atheists, addressing what its sponsors describe as an increase in religious persecution in recent years. The bill, passed Monday, would broaden the definition of… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — “There’s no such thing as a bad date — there’s just a funny story,” says Jessica Schechter, a 28-year-old modern Orthodox woman who teaches acting in New York City and lives on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. There’s the guy who took her to the action… Read more »

  TEL AVIV (JTA) — He was an outspoken politician with little military experience, appointed by a rival and promising to bring a new approach. Current and former officials at the Defense Ministry called his appointment an “enigma,” fretting that “it will take some time until he understands how things work”… Read more »

(JTA) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sissi to discuss how to revive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, along with other shared concerns. Meeting in Cairo Wednesday, Kerry “expressed his appreciation for recent statement of strong support for advancing Arab-Israeli peace,” State Department spokesman… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — The unity government was about to form: Likud and Labor, right and left, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Isaac Herzog. Then, according to media reports, Netanyahu swung to the right and instead embraced an old partner: Avigdor Liberman, head of the hard-line… Read more »

Washington, D.C. – Today,  people from diverse spiritual backgrounds will call, email, and tweet congressional representatives and senators, urging them to close a dangerous loophole in current gun laws. This call to action was spearheaded by Jewish Women International’s Interfaith Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence — a group of 36 faiths… Read more »

Poster contest winner Sophie Bergantino, an eighth grade student at The Gregory School, won the City of Tucson Environmental Service’s “Do More Blue” recycling poster contest, which was open to students in the fourth through eighth grades, citywide. More than 150 entries were received. The winning poster, with the… Read more »

Marian Lupu

Nonagenarian MARIAN LUPU, founder of the Pima Council on Aging, was honored with the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona 2016 Buddy Amos Founders Award at the foundation’s annual event April 27 at Hacienda del Sol. The agency, which Lupu began with a group of volunteers, got its start in… Read more »

THE WESTIN LA PALOMA RESORT AND SPA has appointed MARIA ELENA ARMENTA and MARC VAN DAM as group account directors and DEBORAH WEISS as group sales manager. Armenta previously served as the regional director at the Preferred Hotel Group in Miami. Van Dam, who will be based in Dallas,… Read more »

Katherine Marguerite Zinn, daughter of Erin Samuels, will celebrate becoming a bat mitzvah on May 14 at Temple Emanu-El. She is the granddaughter of Elizabeth Samuels of Tucson and Douglas Woods of Shepardsville, Ky. Katie attends Pistor Middle School where she is in honors classes, on the yearbook committee,… Read more »

They killed us — just because we were Jews. It didn’t matter if we were babies, or children, mothers or fathers; it didn’t matter if we were secular or religious, observant or not; they killed us — in camps, in forced labor, in resistance. They killed us because we… Read more »

“For me, it all came together when we were sitting in Sen. Cruz’s office, speaking to his chief of staff, and I realize that it’s this clash of strong opinions, this is why solutions to our most pressing social problems are so hard to find.” Strong words coming from… Read more »

Carolynn Scherer Katz

Hadassah Southern Arizona will celebrate Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day) with “A Taste of Gold,” a kosher wine tasting with snacks on Sunday, June 5, 4-6 p.m. at Catavinos, 3063 N. Alvernon Way. Carolynn Scherer Katz, regional advisor for Hadassah, will speak on the recent Iran nuclear agreement and its… Read more »

On a recent Sunday afternoon, 15-year-old Erika Spivack sat next to 93-year-old Betty Light, searching online for any information she could find about Light. First stop: ancestry.com, where she unearthed an item as valuable as any buried treasure. “Did you go to East High School in Denver?” Spivack asked… Read more »

In June 2014, 89-year-old Johann Breyer appeared before a Philadelphia federal judge charged with complicity in the gassing of 216,000 Jews at Auschwitz. American and German investigators presented the court with documents that proved that Breyer, a dedicated SS officer, was a willing participant in the Nazi death camp’s… Read more »

(Family Features) — Staying well-hydrated is especially important during the summer months, particularly in hot climates like the Sonoran Desert. Consciously replacing your fluid content becomes essential for overall health. “Every system in your body — from reproduction and digestion to circulation, mood and memory — depends on water,”… Read more »

RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — A Dutch Christian organization is planning to sail a “replica” of Noah’s Ark to reach Brazil during the Summer Olympics and the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Longer than an official soccer field, the vessel was built following the biblical measurements given in… Read more »

Almost every person can recall the myths they accepted as fact as a child, until a knowledgeable adult, dictionary or Google has proved them otherwise. I used to believe that bats are blind. (While they do use echolocation at night, they still have functioning eyes.) Another myth I believed… Read more »

Lawrence Edward Berg, 86, died in Myrtle Beach, S.C., April 25, 2016. Mr. Berg was born in Mount Vernon, N.Y. He served in the U.S. Army from 1948-1952 in Okinawa, Tokyo and Germany.  Afterward, he attended Ohio State University, where he met his first wife, Edith. He headed a… Read more »