Posts By PHYLLIS BRAUN - AJP Executive Editor

Maddie Garfinkle, 4, plays the drum at a Yad b’Yad session at the Rose Schnitzer Manor at Cedar Sinai Park in Portland, Ore., as her mom, Ali, looks on and her brother, Ian, 2, shares an instrument with his grandmother, Annette Gerard. Other Rose Schnitzer Manor residents look on. ( Peter Korchnak, Cedar Sinai Park)

Nearly two dozen senior citizens in their 70s, 80s and 90s sit in a circle. Seated on mats within that ring are babies and toddlers with their parents or caregivers. Kim Palumbis joins in, strumming her guitar, singing and calling out instructions. Participants — young and old — clap… Read more »

Sarah (Sue) Raizes, a resident of The Fountains who will turn 100 in May, rolls dough for hamantaschen at the Saddlebrooke home of her daughter, Sharon Triester. Raizes, whose mother was also a prolific baker, favors traditional fillings such as lekvar (prune) but also “branched out to cherry,” says Triester.

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Despite living in an area under constant rocket fire from Gaza, Israeli Roni Keidar helps Palestinians from Gaza get emergency health care in Israel. Keidar will present “Nurturing Peace on the Gaza Border” on Thursday, March 7 at 6:30 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. The free Heartbeat… Read more »

In response to Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012, the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) joined with the Union for Reform Judaism and several other Jewish organizations to create one coordinated campaign to raise relief funds for Israel. To date, the JFNA Terror Relief Fund has… Read more »

Operation Elijah, a community effort to ensure that every Jew in Southern Arizona has a seat at a Seder table for Pass­over, is seeking participants, both guest and hosts. If you are new to the community, single, a student, have no family in the area or are alone for… Read more »

Naomi Benaron

An acclaimed first-time novelist, an award-winning mystery writer, an internationally best-selling author and the reporter who wrote “A Safeway in Arizona: What the Gabrielle Giffords Shooting Tells Us About the Grand Canyon State” will highlight the Brandeis National Committee’s 17th Annual Book & Author Events. The committee’s Tucson chapter… Read more »

Irving Olson, 99, with one of his water drop photographs (Renee Claire)

Irving Olson has been capturing photographic images for nearly 90 years. He continues to create pictures in a dark room, just not the “dark room” one typically associates with photo development. In a specially outfitted kitchenette in his Oro Valley home, Olson shuts out all light and digitally captures… Read more »

The Book of Esther may be a completely invented melodrama, yet under the buffoonery we find a deeply human challenge. The heart of the story — both physically and emotionally — comes at the moment that Mordecai asks Esther to approach the king and plead on behalf of the… Read more »

Foodies across America are coming up with variations on hamantaschen, Purim's traditional triangle-shaped cookie. (Beryl Shereshewsky)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Just because they’re the same shape doesn’t mean they have the same soul. Hamantaschen, the Purim season’s traditional triangle-shaped cookie, are conventionally filled with jam, but the pastry has come a long way since its namesake ruled in ancient Persia. From New Orleans, where hamantaschen… Read more »

In a scene from the Oscar-nominated documentary "5 Broken Cameras," co-director Emad Burnat inspects his cameras. (Alegria Productions)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — It’s hard to imagine two more divergent perspectives on Israeli-Palestinian relations: that of a Palestinian farmer whose village is resisting the encroachment of a nearby Jewish settlement and of the security service chiefs responsible for maintaining order in the Palestinian territories. Surprisingly, however, these protagonists… Read more »

David Siegel, consul general of Israel in Los Angeles, speaks at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, Jan. 30. (Kathryn L. Unger)

David Siegel, consul general of Israel in Los Angeles, gave a briefing to more than 40 Jewish community leaders on Wednesday, Jan. 30 at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona. Siegel became consul general in 2011, serving the Southwestern United States. Most recently, he’d served as chief of staff… Read more »

President Obama, shown visiting the Western Wall in ­July 2008, when he was a presidential candidate. (Photo: Avi Hayon/Flash 90/JTA)

Is President Obama’s plan to visit Israel a sign that he’s ready to take another shot at Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking? The White House announced Tuesday that Obama would visit Israel in the spring, his first trip there as president. He did visit in 2008, when he was a candidate for… Read more »

The Jewish Federation-Northwest will offer Healthy-Steps chair exercise classes on Tuesday mornings from 9 to 10 a.m., beginning Feb. 12. The gentle whole body workout is set to big band, jazz and swing era music. Based on the Lebed Method, it includes deep breathing, slow stretching and therapeutic exercises.… Read more »

Holocaust survivor Klara Swimmer tells her story to a group of Tucson area high school students during the Air National Guard 162nd Fighter Wing’s Holocaust Remembrance event, March 17, 2009. (Photo: Staff Sgt. Jordan Jones)

Tucsonan Klara Swimmer was a 14-year-old schoolgirl in Hungary when she read a book about Madame Curie that set the course of her life. “I decided that I wanted to do something similar she did and that was medicine.” Swimmer, 88, didn’t allow the Holocaust to knock… Read more »

Joanne Caras, author of “The Holocaust Survivor Cookbook” and “Miracles & Meals”

Chabad of Tucson will host an evening with cookbook author Joanne Caras on Sunday, Feb. 17 at 7 p.m. at Congregation Young Israel. Caras’ cookbooks, “The Holocaust Survivor Cookbook” and its sequel, “Miracles & Meals,” memorialize lives lost in the Holocaust. The Port St Lucie, Fla., resident collected more… Read more »

Three years ago, transportation programs for Jewish seniors (60+) and adults with disabilities were begun through grants from the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s Task Force for Seniors and Adults with Disabilities to Congregations Or Chadash and Bet Shalom. Last year Congregations Anshei Israel, Chaverim and M’kor Hayim and… Read more »

Joe Pasternack (University of Arizona)

University of Arizona Assistant Basketball Coach Joe Pasternack will talk about this year’s top-10 Wildcats team at the UA Hillel Foundation alumni and friends’ dinner on Wednesday, Feb. 20 at 6:45 p.m. Pasternack is in his second year as UA assistant coach under Coach Sean Miller. The event, which… Read more »

Robert Klein will headline a live radio broadcast celebrating the 10th anniversary of "Too Jewish" (Courtesy Temple Emanu-El)

The “Too Jewish” radio show with Rabbi Sam Cohon and Friends will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a live radio variety show broadcast from the Fox Theatre on March 2 at 7:45 p.m., featuring comedian Robert Klein along with Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, U.S. Rep. Ron Barber, Amy Hirshberg Lederman,… Read more »

Eran, a gay Israeli-Frenchman, with his son, Elai-Gabriel, attending a demonstration in Paris in favor of allowing same-sex marriage, January 2013. (Courtesy Eran)

(JTA) — Wide-eyed and smiley, Elay-Gabriel seems utterly unaffected by the French media’s sudden interest in him. A dozen French journalists have visited the 18-month-old in recent months because he is trapped in a sort of legal limbo: He cannot obtain citizenship because the state does not recognize children… Read more »

A chart said to belong to SEBIN, Venezuela's secret service, implicating Rabbi Pynchas Brener as the Mossad's top spymaster in the country. (Analises24)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Espacio Anna Frank says its goal is to promote tolerance by teaching the life story of the teenage diarist murdered by the Nazis. But is there something sinister lurking behind the Venezuelan organization’s benevolent facade? SEBIN, the Venezuelan intelligence service, seems to believe so. According… Read more »