Posts By PHYLLIS BRAUN - AJP Executive Editor

On, Monday, May 2, more than 10,000 high school students and Holocaust survivors from around the world will take part in the 2011 March of the Living, walking three kilometers from Auschwitz to Birkenau. The event will air live at 9 a.m. on Jewish Life Television on cable and… Read more »

In conjunction with this year’s Tucson community Yom HaShoah memorials, the Temple Emanu-El Readers Theater, members of the Adult Education Academy’s “So You Think You Can Act” class, will present a staged reading of “Ani Maamin” (“I Believe”) on Saturday, April 30 at 8 p.m. One of Maimonides’ Thirteen… Read more »

History is not static. As years pass new information becomes available, new archives are opened and new interpretive lenses reshape our understanding of what once was. In 2008, Mariette Job’s decades-long drive to share her aunt Hélène Berr’s journal reached the English speaking world, and we were given a… Read more »

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu grandiloquently proclaimed recently that, “If the world is on fire, Turkey is the firefighter. Turkey is assuming the leading role for stability in the Middle East.” Such ambition is new for Ankara. In the 1990s, it contentedly fulfilled its NATO obligations and followed Washington’s… Read more »

Unless Israel acts fast, when the Arab Spring comes to full bloom, the Jewish state will be left out in the cold. That was the essence of the dire warnings issued earlier this month by the high-profile backers of a new Israeli peace push who say they seek to… Read more »

Earlier this week, we joined 10 or so other families in the Chader Ochel* on the kibbutz for a potluck communal dinner.  I got really excited when the invitation arrived in my inbox; for one, I understood the Hebrew flyer almost in its entirety without the assistance of my part-time translator (who also… Read more »

When you live in the States, unless you work for an American Jewish communal organization, an American Jewish newspaper (like I did at one point), or a synagogue, you are less than aware of the back-and-forth between terrorists in Israel and the IDF. Unless there is a bus bombing.… Read more »

I find myself in an odd predicament now that I live in Israel. To touch or not to touch. I like to think I’m a fairly affectionate person; though some would argue I’m a cold, aloof, you-know-what that starts with a B and ends in an itch. Nevertheless, I… Read more »

Spring is often used as a metaphor for rebirth. Combine this with the Jewish tradition of cleaning house before Passover and you’ve got yourself a good season for change here in Israel. And so it is for our family. Changes abound that are already impacting our immigrant experience…and more… Read more »

I could be wrong, but I have a feeling that Israelis missed out on the pop culture icon that is The Grinch, the anti-Christmas, anti-fun Dr. Seuss character who ruins the holiday season for the people of Whoville. Whether or not there is an Israeli equivalent of the mean,… Read more »

Ishmael Khaldi

Middle Eastern countries want to learn from Israel, the region’s only democracy, Israel’s first Arab Bedouin diplomat, Ishmael Khaldi, told an audience of around 65 people at an April 15 breakfast at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. “We’re ready to speak with Iran or anybody who wants to speak… Read more »

David Abraham and his mother, Marlene, in Israel

David Abraham, a former Tucsonan who made aliyah in 2008 after graduating from the University of Arizona and spent two years in the Israel Defense Forces, where he was a tank commander, has joined with other “lone soldiers” and native Israelis to launch a website that provides information, in… Read more »

Artist’s rendering of proposed Hillel renovation

After more than three years in the planning, the University of Arizona Hillel Foundation is ready to begin work on renovating and expanding its current building. Hillel will hold a ceremonial groundbreaking at the site (1245 E. Second Street) at 8 a.m. on Thursday, May 5. Hillel serves as… Read more »

Bill Kugelman talks to Hebrew High students. (Jonathan Vanballenberghe)

Picture a room full of teenagers, uncharacteristically still, hang­ing on to every word spoken by an 86-year-old man, who looks easily 10 years younger, with bushy eyebrows and salt-and-pepper hair, a yarmulke perched stubbornly on his head. “How long after liberation and after the war did it take you… Read more »

JFSA Man of the Year Jim Whitehill

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona will hold its own “gem show” to honor its 2011 award winners at its annual meeting and awards celebration on Thursday, May 12 at 7 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Heading the list of community gems are Man of the Year… Read more »

Ellie and Si Schorr [Julie Glaser Ray)

The idea that mental illness is a shanda (shame) or horrific secret has changed significantly — but not enough, say Si and Ellie Schorr. In the 1970s, when they were raising a child who showed signs of mental illness, people didn’t talk about such things. “The stigma was not… Read more »

Can someone who is a lot more informed than I am explain to me what’s the problem with socialized medicine? Because so far, it’s working out for us. Please don’t forward me links to good articles in The Washington Post or transcripts of speeches from well-spoken congressmen. I just… Read more »

Rabbi Yossie Shemtov

On Wednesday, March 30, we went to the 2nd Annual Cindy Wool Memorial Seminar on Humanism in Medicine, held in memory of our dear friend, at the Marriott University Park in Tucson. The speaker, Rachel Naomi Remen, bestselling author of “Kitchen Table Wisdom,” recalled her grandfather telling her that… Read more »

Guy Gelbart

In June 2010 Peter Beinart published his famous article in The New York Review of Books, “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment,” in which he concludes that young American Jews have checked their Zionism at the door of liberalism. Based on Beinart’s assessment, I arrived in the United… Read more »

What woman has changed your life? My toddler intuited his answer when he said to me, “Thank you ima for making me.” That’s right folks, mothers, hands down, have probably had the single biggest impact on our lives. Giving birth to children is probably one of the most courageous… Read more »