Posts By PHYLLIS BRAUN - AJP Executive Editor

In Netanya, Israel on Aug. 18 in an events hall, I felt I was living a quintessential Israeli moment. Friends and family were celebrating a Bar Mitzvah with food, music, dance and high spirits. Not exclusively Israeli, one might say. However, the Bar Mitzvah’s uncle, in between bites, kept… Read more »

In July, my husband and I attended the Christians United for Israel Washington Summit. As supporters of interfaith Israel advocacy, we have worked with students from the University of Arizona CUFI on Campus club for two years. CUFI is a non-conversionary, non-proselytizing national organization that seeks to be the… Read more »

Daniel S. Mariaschin

Which nation doesn’t let women drive? Jails dissenters by the thousands? Beheads minors? Attacks civilians living peacefully in a neighboring nation? Persecutes homosexuals? Executes children? Encourages “honor killings”? Unfortunately, quite a few nations can be plugged in as correct answers. But not Israel. Yet Israel was the sole focus… Read more »

Asked why we fast on Yom Kippur, the prophet Isaiah responded, “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry?” (Isaiah 58:6) Each year, the local Jewish community honors Isaiah with the Project Isaiah High Holidays food drive benefiting the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona. This year,… Read more »

After retirement some people say they don’t know how they used to fit work into their busy lives — and understandably so, considering the wide range of adult education classes available in Tucson. The Brandeis National Committee, Tucson Chapter, a non-alumni philanthropic support group of Brandeis University, is offering… Read more »

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and the Weintraub Israel Center are encouraging area residents to sign a “Petition Against a Unilaterally Declared Palestinian State” created by the Israel Action Network, a joint project of the Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. The… Read more »

Richard Albin

Temple Emanu-El will hold a free health awareness seminar, “Prostate Cancer: Every Man Needs a Plan,” with Richard J. Ablin, Ph.D., D.Sc. (Hon.), on Sunday, Sept. 25 at 9:30 a.m. Ablin is a research professor of immunobiology and pathology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and president… Read more »

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (P.K.Weis/southwest photobank.com)

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona has nominated Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and Rabbi Stephanie Aaron for the Third Annual Jewish Community Hero Awards. Created by The Jewish Federations of North America, the awards project uses social media such as Facebook and Twitter to bring national attention to local leaders,… Read more »

Many Holocaust memoirs cross our desks at the Arizona Jewish Post. “Waltzing With the Enemy: A Mother and Daughter Confront the Aftermath of the Holocaust” (Penina Press) has an evocative title and an Arizona connection (Phoenix, not Tucson), but what intrigued me most are the many dualities in this… Read more »

Marine Corps Sgt. Stuart Schulberg, youngest member of the OSS Field Photo-War Crimes unit, later wrote and directed ‘Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today.’ (Courtesy Shulberg family archive­

Stuart Schulberg, a Jew working for the Hollywood director John Ford in the OSS film unit at the end of World War II, was given the mission of finding German-shot footage to be presented at the Nuremberg trial of the top surviving Nazi brass. Speed was essential, as Germans… Read more »

Diamonds are the Oltuski family’s best friends. Although 27-year-old Alicia Oltuski’s only foray into the business was to strap on a chest pack of gems for delivery to other jewelers on New York’s 47th Street, her first book is “Precious Objects: A Story of Diamonds, Family, and a Way… Read more »

Amy Hirshberg Lederman

Exactly 10 years ago this month, I wrote my first column for the Arizona Jewish Post. “Running to Catch Up with Myself” was an attempt to address the confusion, pain and fear I felt after 9/11. I had no idea a decade ago that writing would become such an… Read more »

Rabbi Stefano di Mauro has jump-started a tiny Jewish community in southern Sicily. (Alex Weisler)

On her deathbed, Salvatore Zurzolo’s grandmother confided a long-held secret: Their family was Jewish.… Read more »

Mervyn Danker

To establish its independence, Israel had to win a war against the combined might of the Arab nations in 1948. The Arab failure to destroy the nascent Jewish state became known, in Orwellian Arab vernacular, as “Nakba,” a catastrophe. For the next 20 years, neither Jordan nor any of… Read more »

Michael J. Weil

Israelis and Jews around the world are awaiting the Palestinians’ push at the United Nations for statehood with trepidation. The official response of the government of Israel and American Jewish groups has been to do everything possible to prevent any action at the U.N. and to line up votes… Read more »

Egyptian demonstrators attack Israel's embassy in Cairo, Sept. 9, 2011 (Maggie Osama/Creative Commons)

Retired Israeli Air Force pilot Uri Dromi remembers the day 34 years ago when Egyptian President Anwar Sadat landed in Israel to tell the Israeli people that he was ready to make peace. Dromi, who had flown missions in the 1967 Six-Day War against Egypt, had been assigned to… Read more »

Birthright Israel staff member Jeremy Lichtman, left, with Tucsonan Peter Ruiz at the Western Wall

It wasn’t easy for 24-year-old Peter Ruiz to venture to Israel with other young adults, but it was more difficult for him to leave. Ruiz, who has cerebral palsy, toured Israel from June 13 to 23 on a Taglit- Birthright Israel trip. His parents, Berna­dette and Joaquin Ruiz, were… Read more »

Noam Shalit, right, with Knesset member Michael Eitan during a protest on behalf of Shalit’s captive son Gilad outside the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem on Gilad’s 25th birthday, Aug. 28, 2011. (Miriam Alister/Flash90)

Noam Shalit, the father of captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, wants his son’s plight to be part of the discussion of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations in September. In his view, Shalit’s release should be a precondition of any vote at the United Nations on recognition of a… Read more »

Washington Post reporter Sari Horwitz, center, receives congratulations in the newsroom on learning she won a 1999 Pulitzer Prize for “Deadly Force,” an investigation of D.C. police shootings. She is looking at her then-8-year-old daughter, Rachael. (Photo courtesy Sari Horwitz)

Sari Horwitz is a Pulitzer-Prize winning Washington Post reporter. She shared the 2002 Pulitzer for investigative reporting for her examination of the deaths of children in the D.C. foster care system, co-wrote an investigation of D.C. police shootings that won the 1999 Pulitzer for public service, and was a… Read more »

University of Memphis head basketball coach Josh Pastner, left, with Joe Jackson of the Memphis Tigers at a game against Centenary College on Nov. 12, 2010.

Josh Pastner is the head basketball coach at the University of Memphis. He is a former assistant basketball coach and player at the University of Arizona.… Read more »