Posts By PHYLLIS BRAUN - AJP Executive Editor

Irving “Stanley” Cooper, 73, died Nov. 9, 2011. Survivors include his wife Harriet “Susie” Cooper; children, Rose Leslie Smith of Memphis, Tenn., Aimee Bennett of Tucson, and Martin Daniel Cooper of Dallas, Texas; brother Joseph Glenn Cooper of Memphis, Tenn.; and five grandchildren. Services were held at Evergreen Mortuary… Read more »

Jonathan Beck

Jonathan Hershey Beck, 35, died Oct. 12, 2011. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Mr. Beck lived in Tucson before moving to Orlando, Fla., to pursue a career in computer assisted drafting. Survivors include his mother, Meryl Hershey Beck of Tucson; father, Lenny (Susan) Beck of Pepper Pike, Ohio; sister, Alison… Read more »

A haredi Orthodox woman taking part in one of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s technical training programs. (Courtesy JDC)

At Israel’s first college for the haredi Orthodox, lectures on social work and computer programming are conducted just down the hall from a pair of classrooms transformed into a nursery for the students’ babies. The average female student here — women comprise a majority of the 1,100 student body… Read more »

Silvio Berlusconi (left) toasts with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem in February 2010. (Photo: Miriam Alster/FLASH90/JTA)

Crowds on the streets of Rome jeered and cheered when their long-serving, scandal-plagued prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, stepped down earlier this month. A choir even sang Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” in front of the presidential palace as he handed in his resignation. Italian Jews don’t expect Berlusconi’s ouster to have… Read more »

Regarding the article “New York exhibit on ‘Deadly Medicine’ plumbs Nazi ‘science’ of master race” (AJP, 11/11/11), your readers may be interested to learn that the exhibit will be in Tucson Jan. 18-March 31, 2013. The Arizona Health Sciences Library at the University of Arizona will host “Deadly Medicine”… Read more »

I would like to commend Bob Cohen, director of the Tucson Jewish Community Library; the Coalition for Jewish Education; and all the people involved in presenting the touching and well-organized “The Night of the Broken Glass” with Kristallnacht survivors speaking at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on Nov. 10.… Read more »

These days, the word “fascism” is used here in Israel almost casually. It is spoken sometimes with glee, often in sorrow. Yet while it is fair (and painful) to say that a crop of laws, recent and prospective, are anti-democratic, the word “fascism” simply does not fit the Israeli… Read more »

The Arab upheavals of 2011 have inspired wildly inconsistent Western responses. How, for example, can one justify abiding the suppression of dissidents in Bahrain while celebrating dissidents in Egypt? Or protect Libyan rebels from government attacks but not their Syrian counterparts? Oppose Islamists taking over in Yemen but not… Read more »

Madeline Dreyfus Heineman Berger, founder of the Temple of Music and Art

David Ira Goldstein has been artistic director of the Arizona Theatre Company for 20 years. But the ATC’s Jewish legacy in Tucson goes back much further — all the way to the founding of the ATC’s Tucson home, the Temple of Music and Art, by Madeline Dreyfus Heineman Berger,… Read more »

Steve Solomon

Steve Solomon, star and creator of one of the longest running one-man comedy shows in history, “My Mother’s Italian, My Father’s Jewish & I’m in Therapy,” presents a new show next month at the Invisible Theatre. In “My Mother’s Italian, My Father’s Jewish and I’m Home for the Holidays:… Read more »

Their effort may be coming on the heels of “Black Friday,” but organizers of a new nationwide campaign are hoping that consumers will hold on to some of their shopping dollars to show support for Israel. Jewish newspapers, pro-Israel groups, Israeli companies and retailers are joining together to launch… Read more »

Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz

The Rabbi Samuel S. and A. Irma Cohon Memorial Foundation will award the Cohon Foundation Award for 2011 to Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz, founder of Jews for Judaism International, which has helped young people resist the pull of cults and missionaries and has reunited more than a thousand young Jews… Read more »

The University of Arizona Hillel Foundation will formally dedicate the Meyer Agron Center for Jewish Life on the Harvey & Deanna Evenchik Campus at the University of Arizona on Sunday, Dec. 11 at 3:30 p.m. A capital campaign that began in the fall of 2010 raised funds to renovate… Read more »

With new measures tightening sanctions on Iran, the United States moved one step further toward effectively cutting off the Islamic Republic’s economy from the West. President Obama issued the measures Monday in the form of an executive order. At a news conference the same day, Secretary of State Hillary… Read more »

An innovative figure emerged in my youth who inspired me in a way that was so different from many others — a rabbi with a guitar and amazing stories who reached into the inner depths of my soul. It was Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, who became known as the “sweet… Read more »

The Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona is accepting applications from nonprofit organizations for the Goldman Family Israel Scholarship Grant, which provides up to $2,500 for one trip to Israel. Previously, the Jewish Federation’s Coalition for Jewish Education and Tucson Hebrew Academy were awarded this grant and each used… Read more »

Children of all ages and their parents are invited to celebrate at Shalom Tucson’s Hanukkah Mall Madness on Sunday, Dec. 4, from 1 to 3 p.m. at Park Place, near the food court. Local synagogues, organizations, and Jewish agencies will present arts and crafts activities, including holiday cards and… Read more »

(L-R) Itamar Rabinovich, Alon Pinkas, Beth Nakhai (symposium organizer and associate professor, Arizona Center for Judaic Studies), David Makovsky, Gil Riback, Steven Spiegel and Peter Beinart at the University of Arizona’s “Symposium on the U.S.-Israel Relationship” Nov. 9. (Farzad Nakhai)

Middle East experts from the East Coast to the West Coast landed in Tucson to air their views at a “Symposium on the U.S.-Israel Relationship: On the Verge of a Paradigmatic Shift?” on Nov. 9, sponsored by the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Arizona. “There’s… Read more »

J. Edward Wright

The Weintraub Israel Center and Congregation Or Chadash will hold an adult education series, “Israel and Our Jewish Roots,” with nine sessions from Nov. 30 through March 22, 2012. The series will present different aspects of the Jewish connection to the land and country of Israel. J. Edward Wright,… Read more »

A new kosher cookbook, “Havurah Cooks! A Collection of Recipes by Sun City Vistoso Havurah Club” was conceived by board members Ester Leutenberg and Bebe Lewis as a way to fight “activity fatigue” in the club, which was founded in 1993 and now boasts some 160 members. The club’s… Read more »