Posts By PHYLLIS BRAUN - AJP Executive Editor

A son, CALEB RICHARD BROWN, was born July 30, 2015 to Kristina and Benjamin Brown of Phoenix. Grandparents are Patrice and Ronald Janoff-Brown of Tucson and Casey and Richard Ravenkamp of Los Angeles. Great-grandparents are Barbara Janoff-Kaplan of Tucson, Margie Brown-Simon of Florida, Kola Janoff of Tucson and Richard… Read more »

THE JEWISH FEDERATION OF SOUTHERN ARIZONA has hired DANIELLE LARCOM as director of Women’s Philanthropy. Larcom recently moved from Boston to Tucson with her husband and two sons. She was the marketing communications specialist at Temple Emanuel in Andover, Mass., where she also was active in the preschool and… Read more »

Sydney Ruskin, daughter of Amy and Seth Ruskin, will celebrate becoming a bat mitzvah on Sept. 12 at Temple Emanu-El. She is the granddaughter of Robert and the late Monica Schumann of Window Rock, Ariz., and Laurie and Harvey Ruskin of Albuquerque, N.M. Sydney attends Ida Flood Dodge Traditional… Read more »

Betty Desberg Friedlander, 96, died Aug. 30, 2015. Mrs. Friedlander and her first husband, Ira Desberg, vacationed in Arizona during the 1940s, and after his death, she remarried and retired to Tucson in the 1970s. Mrs. Friedlander was preceded in death by her first husband, Ira Desberg, and her… Read more »

Debra Sue Simon, 60, died Aug. 23, 2015. Born at Tucson Medical Center in 1954, she was featured in the Arizona Daily Star as Perky Little Debra Sue. Mrs. Simon lived her entire life in Tucson. She graduated from Catalina High School, where she was a varsity gymnast. After… Read more »

There were three rabbis who deeply influenced me as a young man: my director at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, my Hillel director at Washington University and the rabbi of my hometown synagogue. All three were marvelous role models, learned men and righteous Jews. My hometown family rabbi, Rav Bill… Read more »

My aspiration to become a rabbi and lead a Jewish community dates back to my childhood years in New York, having been raised in the Grand Central Station. I am not referring to the landmark train station in midtown Manhattan. “Grand Central” is what we called my parents’ home… Read more »

A Reform rabbi and an Orthodox rabbi were my mentors, my guides and my inspirations to become a rabbi. Rabbi Joseph Weizenbaum, z’l, the Reform rabbi of my youth, my bat mitzvah, and my teenage understanding of Judaism, was certainly the rabbi who led the way, who motivated me… Read more »

I grew up in South Africa in a vibrant Jewish community. As a child I was encouraged to join Jewish youth groups. I loved the activities and discussions. However, about Judaism I had many unanswered questions. Then it all unraveled. There was a youth Shabbaton in Johannesburg. It was… Read more »

The spacious room was lined up with green cushioned chairs ready for another session of “Chat with Rabbi Yudi” at a retirement community in Tucson. As I walk in, I found a single person sitting there. “It’s just me …” she sheepishly said. “Will you still stay?” “Of course!”… Read more »

I always wanted to be a lawyer. As a project in elementary school, we were asked to determine what classes in high school and college we would need to take to prepare us for our chosen professions. I interviewed one lawyer, sent letters to a few law schools and… Read more »

It was either astronaut or rabbi. As a fifth grade student, the homework assignment was to prepare a drawing about what we would like to be when we grew up, and I handed in two very different drawings. One of me as an astronaut and the other of me… Read more »

How I became a rabbi is easy to describe: I went to undergraduate school and rabbinic school; spent the requisite number of hours studying, writing papers and preparing for exams; and had a student pulpit for three years of “hands-on training.” But why I became a rabbi is something… Read more »

I grew up in Chicago, number seven in a family of 11 children. Being that I was born into a Chabad family, I was involved in Jewish outreach since I was in elementary school. My first experiences were when my father used to take me with him to the… Read more »

My grandfather was an important Reform rabbi — he wrote one of the four platforms the movement has ever produced — and my father is a prominent cantor and rabbi, but I never thought about becoming a rabbi growing up. When I began singing in my teens I did… Read more »

I grew up in a secular but Jewishly identified home. Once I left for college, and later married a man who wasn’t Jewish, my connection to Judaism was limited to occasional family seders. Years later, single again and on a business trip in New England, I decided on a… Read more »

The triumph of my parents’ survival from the Holocaust was to raise a Jewish family and live a vibrant Jewish life. Their deep love of Judaism, their understanding of the need to protect it and their joy in sharing it proved to be formative influences in ways that I… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Now that enactment of the Iran nuclear deal appears to be a sure thing, the profound and often personal disagreement between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Iran is not about to go away. In the contemplative spirit of the Days of Awe, we canvassed… Read more »

Jay Ruderman

  (JTA) — With the High Holidays just around the corner, Jews all over the world will be asking themselves how they can lead more meaningful and moral lives. Synagogue communities, too, will be asking themselves how they can become more holy and inclusive communities. In my years of involvement with disability inclusion,… Read more »

Editor’s note: For the local response, see JFSA facilitates gift for Syrian refugee aid (JTA) — When he looks into the tired eyes of the Syrian refugees now flooding Europe’s borders, Guy Sorman is reminded of his father, Nathan, who fled Germany for France just months before Adolf Hitler… Read more »