Posts By PHYLLIS BRAUN - AJP Executive Editor

Learning to read is part of any school curriculum but loving to read is another story. For the past two years, Tucson Hebrew Academy has been using the Great Books Foundation K-12 program from the University of Chicago, an established literature curriculum that promotes outstanding reading choices and shared-inquiry… Read more »

“A Small Act,” an award-winning documentary about a Holocaust survivor’s $15 a month contribution to educate a child in Kenya, will be screened Sunday, April 10 at 2 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. In the 1930s, Hilde Back’s parents sent her from Germany to Sweden to escape… Read more »

Rain Borchardt, CUFI at UA president, with Irving Roth

Holocaust survivor Irving Roth will be the keynote speaker when Christians United for Israel at the University of Arizona hosts its second Night to Honor Israel. The dinner event will take place on Monday, April 11, the 66th anniversary of Roth’s liberation from the Buchenwald concentration camp. It will… Read more »

The Jewish History Museum will exhibit “Discrimination Yesterday & Today: A Look at the Cause of the Holocaust,” April 3 through May 14. The exhibit will feature the FBI’s “Enduring Eyes” Holocaust posters and anti-Semitic literature and artifacts from the JHM permanent collection, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the… Read more »

Hadar Susskind

J Street, a pro-peace, pro-Israel lobbying group and political action committee, is often presented in the media as a left-wing counterweight to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. But that’s not J Street’s mission, Hadar Susskind, J Street policy and strategic planning director, told a lunch crowd of about… Read more »

Shari Gootter with her retired guide dog, Harper

Tucsonan Shari Gootter recently sent an e-mail to friends and colleagues promoting Harper Appreciation Day — a celebration of her retired guide dog on his 14th birthday on March 8. Gootter, whose sight is limited due to uveitis and secondary glaucoma, works as a clinician at Emerge! Center Against… Read more »

Rabbi Helen T. Cohn

Impenetrable, irrelevant, boring. These are some of the descriptions I’ve heard about the Book of Leviticus, which we begin reading this week during the annual Torah cycle. Even the great Israeli teacher Nehama Leibowitz called the laws of Leviticus a “closed book to us” — which did not prevent… Read more »

Chaim Potok’s widow, Adena Potok, center, advised the Arizona Jewish Theatre Company production of ‘My Name is Asher Lev.’ From left: Andrea Dovner, Layne Racowsky (director), Michael Kary, Ben Tyler (Mark Gluckman)

The Arizona Jewish Theatre Company in Phoenix will present the Arizona premiere of “My Name is Asher Lev,” written by Aaron Posner, and based on the novel by Chaim Potok, March 24-April 3. “My Name is Asher Lev” had its world premiere in Philadelphia in January 2009. Set in… Read more »

Women’s Philanthropy of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona is organizing a team for the 13th Annual Southern Arizona Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, which will be held Sunday, April 10 at Reid Park. The event includes a one-mile walk at 7 a.m. and a five-mile walk/run… Read more »

Founded in 1912 by Henrietta Szold, Hadassah is celebrating its upcoming centennial by offering community members the opportunity to become a life member or male associate at a special price of $100. Hadassah is the largest women’s Zionist volunteer organization in the United States and has members in more… Read more »

Young Judaea, the national Zionist youth group of Hadassah, will hold its West Merchav Spring Convention for grades 3-8 at the Triangle Y Camp in Oracle, Ariz., April 1-3. Hosted by the Tucson Young Judaea youth group, it will feature a chocolate Seder, games, hiking, Shabbat services, songs and… Read more »

Congregation Or Chadash will host “An Affair to Remember,” an evening of dinner and dancing, on Saturday, March 26 from 7 to 11 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Klezmerkaba will provide the music, along with the debut of Quintessence, a new band fronted by Or Chadash’s Cantor… Read more »

The detractors of J Street, the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobbying organization, like to portray the organization’s leader, Jeremy Ben-Ami, as so far to the left of mainstream American Jewish opinion as to be out of bounds. If they think Ben-Ami is too much of a lefty on Israel, just wait… Read more »

Although the 10-month moratorium on building in Jewish settlements in the West Bank was lifted last September, settler leaders complain that no construction is being allowed in the large urban areas and warn that a de facto freeze on all Jewish building in the West Bank is looming. The… Read more »

The favorite word of Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, appears to be “accountability.” Yet with her own agency tainted by its longtime disregard of Libyan human rights violations — and by apologists for Libyan strongman Muammar Gadhafi occupying key U.N. positions — it’s high time… Read more »

The Tucson Jewish Community Center will send a delegation to the inaugural Junior Maccabi Games for ages 11-13, to be held in Chicago May 27-31. Tucson plans to take a boys basketball team, a girls basketball team and several swimmers, says Stu Epstein, head of the Tucson delegation. For… Read more »

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and the Desert Caucus will lead a “Focus on Israel” mission, Oct. 23 to Nov. 2, 2011. The joint mission will offer an insider’s view of Israeli-U.S. politics “with extraordinary access to Israeli leaders and insiders from all sides of the political spectrum,”… Read more »

Leonard Joffe, M.D.

Dr. Leonard Joffe, ophthalmologist and retina specialist, will present “Age-Related Macular Degeneration and Recent Advances in the Management of this Condition” at a Hadassah education meeting and brunch later this month. Macular degeneration is one of the hottest research topics in ophthalmology and many advances in its treatment have… Read more »

CBS fired actor Charlie Sheen from the sitcom "Two and a Half Men" following a series of bizarre outbursts that started wtih a tirade referring to Chuck Lorre, his Jewish boss, as Chaim Levine. (Angela George/Creative Commons)

Expressions of anti-Semitism by public figures generally follow a certain script in the media. The politician/actor/public figure says something construed as offensive/hostile/ insensitive to Jews. Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, issues a condemnatory statement demanding penance. The offender expresses regret. If he deems it sufficient,… Read more »

Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.

Doctors should have a comforting bedside manner, but the subject has often been neglected in medical school curricula. Today, however, Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen’s award-winning course on humanism in medicine, “The Healer’s Art,” is taught in more than 50 percent of U.S. medical schools. Remen, the New York Times… Read more »