Lola Lieber “A World After This” will be the focus of the Women’s Academy of Jewish Studies eighth annual High Holy Days season book brunch with Esther Becker on Sunday, Sept. 20 at Congregation Chofetz Chayim. A memoir by Holocaust survivor Lola Lieber, “A World After This” spans 91 years, moving… Read more »
Iris-folded pomegranate card by Anne Lowe Jewish Tucson will hold a bagel brunch on Sunday, Aug. 30, 10:30 a.m. to noon at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. The event will allow newcomers, and those looking for a deeper connection within the Jewish community, to meet representatives of synagogues and local Jewish agencies and organizations and… Read more »
The Jewish History Museum, which reopens Aug. 15, will present “Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Postcards from the Permanent Collection,” Aug. 19-Dec. 20. The collection of handwritten cards shows Southern Arizona from the early 1900s through the 1960s. Visitors will have the opportunity to write their own postcards and send them… Read more »
RABBI BENZION SHEMTOV was recently featured in the Sierra Vista Herald, which reported on his 10-day visit to Jews in Southern Arizona communities including Sierra Vista, Bisbee and Green Valley (http:// svherald.com/content/sierra-vista-news/2015/07/27/397799). Shemtov, the son of Rabbi Yossie and Chanie Shemtov of Chabad of Tucson, grew up in Tucson… Read more »
Tucson Jewish Montessori, Tucson’s first Jewish Montessori preschool, founded by Rabbi Israel and Esther Becker, will open Monday, Aug. 31. Classes are aimed at 3- to 6-year-olds, and will run from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday through Friday, with childcare available before and after classes. “Our focus is honoring the… Read more »
TUCSON HEBREW ACADEMY has hired several new teachers. JENNIFER GOULD will fill the new position of mathematics department chair and teach middle school mathematics. Gould received her Bachelor of Arts and Masters of Education degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles. She comes to THA from Fay School… Read more »
Stephen Shore For some students who have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder or Asperger’s syndrome, the start of a new school year can be especially difficult. Adjusting to new teachers, schedules, classmates and rules can be hard for all children, but for children with ASD or Asperger’s syndrome, changes in… Read more »
At a stop on the drive back to Jerusalem from Masada and the Dead Sea, Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona leadership mission participants, from left, Dinah Lucas, Roe Callahan, Linda Immerman-Stoffers, Ellen Freeman and Priscilla Storm prepare to ride a camel — an activity, says JFSA President and CEO Stuart Mellan, that was “strictly optional.”
“Israel is an inspirational and complicated place,” Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild said upon returning from the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona interfaith community leadership mission last month. “Visiting Israel teaches that one must have great resolve and still, at the same time, be very open to hear competing views.”… Read more »
Tu Nidito is reaching out to college students and other young adults who may need support as they cope with the death of a loved one. More than 31,600 students will be returning to the University of Arizona this month, and odds are more than 6,300 of them will… Read more »
Alina Adams (Kveller via JTA) — A Christian inspirational romance novel that retells the Book of Esther, setting it in a Nazi concentration camp with the main characters being a German guard and his Jewish prisoner, was nominated for two industry awards by the Romance Writers of America, or RWA. Adding… Read more »
Sen. Charles Schumer was the subject of a cartoon that some saw as questioning his loyalty to the United States. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Congress and the American people are focused on what everyone agrees is a historic, serious and consequential foreign policy decision — the fate of the nuclear deal with Iran. While we all hope for a debate based on substance and conducted with civility, the truth… Read more »
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (Wikimedia Commons)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — This month, there is one question concerning the future safety and security of the United States and Israel: the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreed upon between the six world powers and Iran. We must decide what costs and risks are acceptable in order to avert… Read more »
Jason Segel visits "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" in New York City, July 29, 2015. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images) (JTA) — Actor Jason Segel — best known as the star of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “How I Met Your Mother” — opened up on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast this week about growing up with one Jewish parent and as a complete outsider. Segel sat down for the July 27… Read more »
(Kveller via JTA) — In less than four months my two mini-humans, Aviv, 4, and Maya, 2, have gone through some incredible changes. Four months ago they thought they lived with Elsa and Anna in Arendelle, everything covered in white as far as the eye could see. In just… Read more »
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, center, meeting a six-person delegation from the American Jewish Committee, July 2015. (Courtesy of Ken Bandler)
CAIRO (JTA) — It’s been a particularly challenging summer for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi. Within one week in late June and early July, his attorney general was assassinated in the upscale Cairo suburb of Heliopolis and an Islamic State affiliate launched a two-day siege in the North Sinai town of Sheikh… Read more »
U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, left, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee about the Iran nuclear deal, July 29, 2015. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Congress has until mid- to late September to consider whether to reject the nuclear restrictions for the sanctions rollback deal reached by Iran and six major powers on July 14. Some of the debate is over the meaning of certain provisions in the accord. Here’s a breakdown… Read more »
Family members of Ali Saad Dawabsheh outside their home in a West Bank Palestinian village after an arson attack that killed the 18-month-old boy, July 31, 2015. Jewish extremists are suspected of setting the fire. (Oren Ziv/Getty Images)
(JTA) – There are some striking similarities between last week’s arson attack on a Palestinian home that killed an 18-month-old boy and last summer’s kidnapping and immolation of a 16-year-old Palestinian, Mohammed Abu Khdeir. Then, as now, Jewish extremists were the prime suspects in the attack. Then, as now, the murder… Read more »
(JTA) — Got questions about the Iran nuclear deal? Too bad, if you were an AIPAC activist at a briefing this week with top Obama administration officials. At the briefing Wednesday, Howard Kohr, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s director, stopped the proceedings before his activists could ask questions. The… Read more »
President Barack Obama talks with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran during a phone call in the Oval Office, Sept. 27, 2013. (Pete Souza/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — In a phone call with supporters on Thursday, President Barack Obama characterized opponents of the Iran deal as being backed by “billionaires” and urged those listening in to win over “squishy” lawmakers considering opposing the deal. Opponents “would be opposed to any deal with Iran,” Obama told… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visiting the hospitalized family of a West Bank Palestinian baby killed in an arson attack, July 31, 2015. (Flash90)
Updated 8.5.15 WASHINGTON (JTA) – Ahead of what may be the toughest diplomatic battle of his career, a final bid to kill the Iran nuclear deal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has suddenly found himself facing down a terrorist threat – apparently from Jews. The flow of Iran… Read more »
