(L-R) Nancy Mellan, Diane Weintraub, Israeli artist Tzameret Zamir, Stuart Mellan and Ron Weintraub at Zamir’s mosaic of peace project on the anti-sniper wall at Netiv Ha’asara. The mosaic will spell the world ‘shalom.’ At my age (closing in on 60), I often tell myself, in a reassuring tone, that “age is just a state of mind.” Now that the State of Israel is turning a ripe old 65, I wonder, what is Israel’s state of mind? And how do we, American Jews,… Read more »
Israeli flags fly high at a recent Israel Festival in Tucson. (Marty Johnston/TJCC) “Israel’s Incredible Innovations” — 65 years’ worth of remarkable achievements in computing, medicine, agriculture, biotechnology, renewable energy and many other fields — will be front and center at the Israel 65 Festival on Sunday, April 21, which will be held from noon to 6 p.m. on the Jewish community… Read more »
All Jewish holidays, outside of fast days, entail big, festive meals. Passover is, in many respects, the ultimate example of this, despite having a more restricted diet. Not only must we eat matzah and maror at the seder meals, but we must eat matzah and refrain from all chametz… Read more »
THE 2013 SCHORR FAMILY AWARD will be presented to U.S. Rep. Ron Barber “for his distinguished contribution in furthering public understanding of mental illness.” The free public event will be held April 4 at 3 p.m. at the Berger Performing Arts Center, 1200 W. Speedway. Neal Cash, president and… Read more »
PATRICIA C. BISCHOF will exhibit her art, consisting of assemblage, mixed media and painting, at Unity of Tucson, 3617 N. Camino Blanco, April 7 -28. An artist’s reception will be held April 7, 10 a.m.-11 a.m.… Read more »
Rabbi Lee Avram Kivel, 80, died March 13, 2013. A graduate of New York University and rabbinical school, Rabbi Kivel served as a rabbi for 17 years before retiring to Tucson, where he was involved in the family business of commercial real estate. Rabbi Kivel was a supporter of… Read more »
Ahh … Passover: • Chag HaMatzot — The Festival of Matzah • Chag HaPesach — The Festival of the Passover Offering • Chag HaAviv — The Spring Festival • Z’man Cheiruteinu — The Time of Our Freedom Z’man Cheiruteinu — The Time of Our Freedom. This is freedom? Cleaning… Read more »
The families surround long tables covered by white tablecloths. Festive decorations line the walls, and the kitchen is free of chametz, the leavened foods forbidden on Passover. Seder plates sit in front of hungry participants. But instead of someone reading the Haggadah or reciting the kiddush over wine,… Read more »
My Passover column last year featured a translation of my teacher Rabbi Lior Engelman’s thoughts on the Wicked Child. Here is what Rabbi Engelman has to say about the last of the Seder’s four sons, the one who doesn’t know how to ask. A child made to order Nothing… Read more »
Tucson’s Israel 65 Festival next month will celebrate “Israel’s Incredible Innovations,” such as: Computers • MinDesktop, a thought-controlled, hands-free computer for the disabled that could be used without a keyboard or mouse. Developed by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev students under the supervision of professor Rami Puzis, it features… Read more »
The annual Mimuna concert, a Moroccan-style end-of-Passover celebration sponsored by the Weintraub Israel Center and Temple Emanu-El, will be held Tuesday, April 2 at 6 p.m. at Temple Emanu-El. “We will host two very special musicians for a live performance of the MoroMore group, with Bulgarian musician Anton Shekerjiev… Read more »
Howard J. Schwartz, M.D., will speak on “Ethical Issues for Jewish Doctors” at a Hadassah Southern Arizona lunch on Thursday, April 18 at noon at Skyline Country Club. Born in New York City, Schwartz attended yeshiva and received his B.A. from Brooklyn College and his M.D. from the Einstein… Read more »
Elinor and Yale Palchick both served in the Philippines during World War II. (Courtesy Yale Palchick) During World War II, Tucsonan Yale Palchick, now 91, helped liberate a Japanese war camp holding American POWs, was at Okinawa at the war’s end and in Tokyo a few days after the United States dropped its third atomic bomb on Aug. 19, 1945. But mostly, “I was trying… Read more »
Around 50 people attended a panel discussion, “Jewish Responses to the Border,” at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on March 14. Three of the four panelists, including Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon and Bob Feinman, are Jewish. The event, sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council of… Read more »
A Tucson Walking Tour in Women’s History, presented by the Arizona Women’s Heritage Trail, draws from the significant involvement of Jewish women in the city’s history. Take the former residence of Theresa Marx Ferrin at the corner of Meyer and Cushing Streets. Ferrin and her family lived in the… Read more »
The annual community-wide Yom HaShoah commemoration, sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council and the Coalition for Jewish Education of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, will be held Sunday, April 7 at 2 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. This year, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum… Read more »
(L-R) Liesel (Nele Trebs), Lore (Saskia Rosendahl), Jürgen (Mika Seidel) and Günther (André Frid) in Lore. (Music Box Films) Set during the fall of Germany in April 1945, Cate Shortland’s “Lore” evokes and filters the moral weight of history through a single adolescent girl. Experiential rather than informational, subjective without being reductive, the German-language film is a parable of the end of innocence —the naive innocence of girlhood… Read more »
Probably no more than the top 10 percent of Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jews will ever shop at Pomegranate, the luxury kosher supermarket recently featured by The New York Times columnist David Brooks in a column titled “The Orthodox Surge.” Brooks chose the upscale kosher version of Whole Foods as the… Read more »
Israeli peace activist Roni Keidar speaks in Tucson (Guy Gelbart) It’s not easy living 500 yards from the Gaza border. Roni Keidar, who lives in Netiv Ha’asara — the closest community in Israel to the Gaza Strip — is an Israeli educator and active member of Other Voice, a non-partisan group promoting peace and encouraging dialogue between Israelis and… Read more »
Stumbling stones honoring Jill Ranucci's great-grandparents, Rudolf and Laura Lowenthal, who died in the Sobibor death camp. (Courtesy Jill Ranucci) In October, I attended a Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) ceremony in Magdeburg, in the former East Germany, to honor my great-grandparents, Rudolph and Laura Lowenthal, who died in the Holocaust. My sister and two cousins, the other surviving family members, accompanied me. The first Stolpersteine were created by German artist… Read more »
