Israel Pickholtz Professional genealogist Israel Pickholtz will discuss the challenges of working with information provided by DNA testing in his talk, “Endogamy: Genetic Genealogy — Challenges for Jewish Research,” at the Southern Arizona Jewish Genealogy Society’s meeting on Sunday, Feb. 7 at 2 p.m. at Congregation Bet Shalom. Pickholtz says that… Read more »
The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies will present two free lectures next month by Michael Kagan, associate professor of law at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. The first, “Finding Refuge: Can Non-Jews Seek Asylum in the Jewish State?” will be… Read more »
Donald Lee Baker, 59, died Jan. 18, 2016, in an airplane accident with his wife, Dawn Hunter-Baker, while returning from a conference in Deer Valley, Utah. Mr. Baker moved to Tucson 30 years ago. He was raised in Venice Beach, Calif. He was the co-owner of Larsen Baker LLC,… Read more »
Rabbi Harold Kushner Making good on a desire expressed in 2014 to visit Tucson more often, Rabbi Harold Kushner will discuss his new book, “Nine Essential Things I’ve Learned About Life,” at a Temple Emanu-El event on Saturday, Feb. 13 at 6:30 p.m. A congregational rabbi for 50 years, Kushner is the… Read more »
The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Women’s Philanthropy will hold two events early next month. First up is a new event, “Taste with a Twist,” on Wednesday, Feb. 10 at 7 p.m. in the new multi-purpose room at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Participants will sample mini martinis and… Read more »
The Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona is now accepting applications for the 2016 Goldman Family Israel Scholarship. The deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. on Wednesday, March 9. The Elliot S. Goldman Family Israel Scholarship Fund and the Goldman Family Israel Scholarship Fund (endowment funds held at JCF)… Read more »
Cantor Janece Cohen, left, and Rabbi Thomas Louchheim carry Torah scrolls to Congregation Or Chadash’s new property on Dec. 12, 2004. Founded in 1995, Or Chadash had been known as the “wandering congregation” before it purchased the property on Alvernon Way. (Max Ellentuck)
Congregation Or Chadash held its first Hebrew school classes 20 years ago around Rabbi Thomas Louchheim’s family dining room table. Little more than four wooden legs and a table top were needed to gather together Tucson area students and start planting the seeds of Jewish education. Membership has swelled… Read more »
Marc Schneier NEW YORK (JTA) — Over the past two years, the phrase “Black Lives Matter” has embedded itself into the consciousness — and conscience — of America. The hashtag #BlackLives Matter emerged in 2013 after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin and quickly became… Read more »
Students at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Conservative movement's flagship institution. (Courtesy of JTS)
NEW YORK (JTA) — When I was a law student, I took a course by a renowned professor who warned that if a prosecutor ever told us that our client only had two choices, we should walk away from the bargaining table. His point: There are always more options.… Read more »
From left, Woody Allen, Tony Roberts and Diane Keaton in a 1977 publicity shot from "Annie Hall." (Courtesy of Tony Roberts)
NEW YORK (JTA) — There’s a memorable scene in “Annie Hall” when Woody Allen’s character, Alvy Singer, rants about finding anti-Semites everywhere he goes. “You know, I was having lunch with some guys from NBC and I said, ‘Did you eat yet?’ and said, ‘No, Jew?’ Not, ‘Did… Read more »
Anti-abortion activists rally against federal funding for Planned Parenthood in Washington, D.C., July 28, 2015. (Olivier Douliery/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Forty-three years ago this week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in Roe v. Wade protecting a woman’s right to abortion. Since the 2010 elections, a wave of state laws has aimed at restricting that right, closing clinics and harassing medical providers. No… Read more »
Pope Francis, left, greeting the chief rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, during a papal visit to the city’s synagogue, Jan. 17, 2016. (Franco Origlia/Getty Images)
(JTA) – When Pope Francis crossed the Tiber River to visit the Great Synagogue of Rome on Sunday, he became the third pontiff to do so. But his 1.5-mile journey to the towering Tempio Maggiore showed that what was once unthinkable is now the norm. “According to the juridical… Read more »
The husband and children of Dafna Meir grieve at her funeral in Jerusalem the day after her stabbing death in the West Bank, Jan. 18, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash 90)
(JTA) — A day after witnessing her mother’s brutal murder, Dafna Meir’s teenage daughter spoke before hundreds who had come to mourn her. Dafna Meir, 38, a mother of six, was stabbed to death on Sunday near the entrance of her West Bank home. “It’s hard for me to think… Read more »
SodaStream’s West Bank factory was relocated to the Negev following international criticism. (Nati Shohat/Flash90)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – The collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process a year ago has led to an accelerating war of words over Israeli settlements, with Israel accusing its growing chorus of foreign critics of prejudging the final terms of a peace deal at best – and anti-Semitism at worst.… Read more »
CHICAGO (JTA) — The Conservative movement was once the very embodiment of what it meant to be an “American Jew.” As the 130th anniversary of the founding of its flagship Jewish Theological Seminary approaches in 2016, the centrist movement that historically straddled the polarities of Reform and Orthodox is struggling… Read more »
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin speaks at the 2016 Institute for National Security Studies conference Jan. 18. (Kobi Richter/TPS)
Ramat Aviv (TPS) – Israeli President Reuven Rivlin addressed the significant level of support for Islamic extremism among many Arabs in Israel and discussed various ways to solve the problem at the ninth annual international conference of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) on Monday evening. “The Islamic… Read more »
David Bowie at a news conference at the Cannes Film Festival in France, May 13, 1983. (Ralph Gatti/AFP/Getty Images)
(JTA) — It was clear long before the Internet swelled with heartfelt tributes to David Bowie that the late musician was an artistic legend. The 69-year-old Englishman, who died Jan. 10 after an 18-month battle with cancer, reinvented himself countless times in a music career that spanned more than five… Read more »
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders deliverS a speech on financial reform in New York, Jan. 5, 2016. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Talk of a Bernie Sanders presidency has suddenly become a lot more serious. Recent polling shows the independent Vermont senator and Democratic presidential hopeful dramatically improving his prospects in the first two primary states against front-runner Hillary Clinton. Two polls out last week — by the Des… Read more »
Amna Farooqi COLLEGE PARK, Md. (JTA) — David Bernstein, the new president of the Jewish Council on Public Affairs, wrote in JTA last week about an important phenomenon impacting campus activism and debate around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: intersectionality. Bernstein observed that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, has been… Read more »
Tucsonan Lisa Goldberg’s connections to Camp Ramah in Ojai, Calif., run deep. She’s been a Ramahnik since she first attended camp when she was 8 years old, having “inherited” Ramah from her mother, Mimi Dinin Sisk, who was one of the first campers at the California location, and her… Read more »
