Posts By PHYLLIS BRAUN - AJP Executive Editor

David Graizbord, associate professor of Judaic studies at the University of Arizona, will be the guest speaker at the Tucson Jewish Genealogy and Oral History Group meeting on Sunday, May 13. Graizbord will discuss how Sephardic Jews from the “golden age” of medieval Spanish Jewry, through the Inquisition, to… Read more »

Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging is partnering with Youth Volunteer Corps, a program of Volunteer Southern Arizona, to create an intergenerational program for youth. Participants will engage with the elderly at Handmaker at quarterly events that they will help plan. Handmaker Youth Leadership Team participants who complete the… Read more »

Pima County Supervisor Ray Carroll

Cooperation was on the agenda at the annual legislative breakfast that took place at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on April 20. Republican and Democratic Pima County supervisors and Tucson City Council members started out by voicing opposition to the proposed Rosemont Mine, drawing repeated applause from the audience… Read more »

Tucsonan Paul Rubin with journals written by his mother, Roz Kaufmann, and a copy of his compilation, “In Her Own Words: A Life Well Lived” (Photo: Brenda Stosberg-Rubin)

Imagine Paul Rubin’s surprise when he found a suitcase full of journals penned by his mother, Roz Kaufmann, dating back to 1944. Kaufmann was 79 and suffered from dementia when her son found the journals in 2004. She died two years later at age 81. “All of a sudden… Read more »

The lower part of the Schindler factory next to a demolished 19th century building (Eva Munk)

The windows are smashed, the doors stand agape and the keys in the rusting padlocks have not been turned for years. Still, despite the plaster clinging to the crumbling bricks in leprous sheets, the front looks salvageable. The back, however, tells a different story. Piles of debris block gaping… Read more »

If your mother has never seen your face — if you have never had a face to be seen — if, in a sense, you have never been born — do you have a mother? If your mother has always called you “son,” can you ever really become her… Read more »

Anti-Semitism in Europe and in the Islamic world is a major problem, but we shouldn’t allow the fixations of enemies to divert us from the reality that we do have friends — and that we owe these friends our support when they fall upon dark times. The great Jewish… Read more »

In the eyes of the Zionist Organization of America, the most depraved enemies of the Jewish people are obnoxious college campus loudmouths. As the editor of New Voices, a national magazine by and for Jewish college students, I have a different perspective. The ZOA led the campaign to have… Read more »

Micha Bar-Am

Congregation Anshei Israel’s 10th annual observance of Yom Yerushalayim — celebrating the 45th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem — will feature an exhibition of 10 works by Micha Bar-Am, a renowned Israeli photojournalist. Bar-Am, who is best known for his coverage of the Six-Day War in 1967, has… Read more »

Rabbi Miri Fleiming

The Secular Humanist Jewish Circle will sponsor a lecture, “Torah as Mythology,” by Rabbi Miri Fleming, Ph.D., on Saturday, May 19, from 2-4:30 p.m. at the Dusenberry-River Library, 5605 E. River Road (at Craycroft). Fleming will address the question of what the Torah, or five books of Moses, is… Read more »

Last night, the siren sounded at 8 pm for Yom HaZikaron. I didn’t expect the tears. As the siren sounded, my children got up from the couch where they had been watching a cartoon and all stood at attention. Even as he stood, though, my five year old started… Read more »

It’s been a busy month in Israel. And a busy month or two for me, as I completed a huge work-related milestone in March — organizing and executing a 5-city U.S. Investor Road Show for 13 Israeli hi-tech start-ups. For me, the last few months of winter were intense… Read more »

The weather is perfect today. Blissfully perfect. And by some magical alignment, my family is perfect today, too. Tfoo. Tfoo. Tfoo. We spent the morning together cleaning our yard, which had gotten frightfully ghetto this winter. Miraculously, everyone pitched a hand. Even my 9 year old, whom we hardly… Read more »

When you first travel to Israel, one of the first things you are bound to notice at any youth hostel or hotel is the Israeli breakfast. It can be a bit of a culture shock if you’re used to Lucky Charms or Dunkin Donuts in the morning. On the… Read more »

Once a year, my husband and I used to head to Woodbury Common, a nice outlet mall off the NY Thruway. I remember laughing in bewilderment at the Asian or European tourists who would be bussed in by the dozens to the outlet center and would schlep out with bags and… Read more »

When I really want to feel life, I put on Billy Joel’s “Songs in the Attic” and drive to work. It doesn’t have to be Billy Joel. Jackson Browne also works. Depending on the season, so does Randy Newman or the Beach Boys or Elvis Costello’s and Burt Bacharach’s… Read more »

Harold Bongarten

Harold Bongarten, 89, of Tucson, died April 2, 2012. Born in Warsaw, Poland, Mr. Bongarten received a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Northeastern University, a masters of management from the University of Pittsburgh, and completed the advanced management program at Harvard Business School. During World War… Read more »

Purim and Passover, which both encourage drinking, may be behind us, but every Kiddush, every simcha is another opportunity to raise a glass and say l’chaim. And to seriously overdo things. In reality, abuse doesn’t need an excuse. And the problem doesn’t stop at alcohol. For a long time,… Read more »

Abraham Verghese, M.D.

In this age of high-tech medicine compassion can often be neglected, but the annual Cindy Wool Memorial Seminar helps provide a remedy for healthcare professionals in Tucson. The third seminar and dinner on humanism in medicine, held March 28 at the Marriott University Park Hotel, sought to support physicians… Read more »

Interfaith Community Services will host a conference, “Faith Communities and Mental Illness: Tools for Response and Care,” on Friday, April 27, from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at St. Philips in the Hills Episcopal Church. Created in response to the Jan. 8, 2011 shooting tragedy in Tucson, this “first… Read more »