Arts and Culture

A new PBS documentary, “Viral: Antisemitism in Four Mutations” will premiere May 26. The film, which will air at 9 p.m. on Arizona Public Media’s channel 6, explores the rise and spread of anti-Semitism in the United States and Europe in recent years. The project has been underway for more than… Read more »

(JTA) — Hoping to improve your culinary skills while in quarantine? There’s an online Jewish food festival for you. Jewish culinary talents like Michael Solomonov, Joan Nathan and Michael Twitty are coming together to partake in the inaugural Great Big Jewish Food Fest from May 19 to 28. The… Read more »

Maestro Laszlo Veres isn’t allowing the cancellation of the spring season of Tucson Pops Concerts to get in the way of his celebrating Mother’s Day.  Traditionally, the orchestra performs ‘My Yiddishe Momme” each year as part of the special concert celebrating mothers.  The poignant piece written in the early 1900s… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Designer Yoav Gati was walking around his south Tel Aviv block in March when he saw a discarded latex glove on the street. A few meters later he spotted another one, and then another. By the time he looped back home he had collected over… Read more »

Social distancing and staying inside is hard. Thankfully, accessing good things to watch during this time is not. This is the sixth installation of a weekly column on Jewish movies and TV shows that you should stream in quarantine. Liberty Heights Streams for free on: YouTube Available to rent on:… Read more »

The Tucson Festival of Books will hold a Facebook Live session with author Jennifer Rosner today, April 22 at 3 p.m.MST. Rosner will speak about her recently released novel “The Yellow Bird Sings,” To participate, follow Tucson Festival of Books on Facebook.  Once you are on the page, make… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — This time of year — the convergence of Passover, Easter and Ramadan — is peak tourism time for this city. This year is the first time since 1992 that all three festivals fall in the same month. But traveling as a tourist to Jerusalem right now… Read more »

(JTA) — I wasn’t expecting HBO’s “The Plot Against America,” David Simon’s miniseries adaptation of the Philip Roth novel, to scar me the way it has. I work with news about the rise of anti-Semitism and hate crimes around the world on a daily basis. As an editor focused… Read more »

“What You Do Matters: Lessons from the Holocaust” is an educational partnership initiated in early 2017 between the Jewish History Museum/Holocaust History Center and law enforcement in Arizona. The program parallels the “Law Enforcement and Society: The Lessons of the Holocaust” initiative launched by the Jewish Community Foundation of… Read more »

Editor’s note (April 20): A fourth round of Downtown Tucson Partnership gift cards, worth $35 but costing $25, will go on sale here on Wednesday, April 22 at 6 a.m. HSL Properties helped fund the third round, which sold out in less than 15 minutes, and is also sponsoring… Read more »

(JTA) — With its glittering assembly of stars, jokes that worked and attendees who could, well, sing, it was the Zoom Seder you wished you had. The Saturday Night Passover Seder that aired on YouTube over the weekend brought together dozens of celebrities and raised $2.6 million for the… Read more »

(JTA) — Fresh off his Super Bowl win in February, Kansas City Chiefs lineman Mitchell Schwartz took a vacation with his wife, Brooke, to St. Lucia. Little did they know that when they returned, they would be spending the next few months holed up at home because of the… Read more »

(JTA) — A Brazilian television anchor was fired after proposing on air that a concentration camp be created to house patients diagnosed with the coronavirus. Marcao do Povo made the comment during Wednesday’s edition of Primeiro Impacto newscast, the second most-watched program on Brazilian television in the morning hours, reported Veja… Read more »

(JTA) — An all-star team of Jewish celebrities (and some non-Jewish ones) are putting on a virtual Passover Seder — which is sure to include plenty of music and comedy — on Saturday night to raise money for a Center for Disease Control fund for first responders working during… Read more »

Editor’s note: To allow for the implementation of enhanced security protections, the registration links have been updated to. Visit  https://www.jewishhistorymuseum.org/yomhashoah2020 In accordance with social distancing to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Southern Arizona’s community-wide Yom HaShoah commemoration this year will take place online at www.jewishhistorymuseum.org between the hours… Read more »

In 1910, a time capsule filled with ephemera was placed in the cornerstone of the historic temple that now serves as the flagship building of the Jewish History Museum. The capsule was buried in the building as part of the inaugural set of projects, services, and celebrations that surrounded… Read more »

Miriam the Prophetess, Elijah the Prophet, and the Four Questions take center stage among this spring’s crop of new Passover books for kids penned by some of today’s best writers. The sparkling assortment includes stories by Jane Yolen, known as America’s Hans Christian Anderson; Leslea Newman, who garnered a Sydney… Read more »

RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — Daniel Azulay, one of Brazil’s most prominent children’s artists and educators, died March 27 at 72 in Rio de Janeiro. Azulay was being treated for leukemia when he contracted the coronavirus. Azulay was the creator of “Turma do Lambe-Lambe,” a group of children’s characters… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The National Library of Israel has created an archive to document the impact of the coronavirus on Jewish communities around the world. The Jewish Community COVID-19 Archive will be made up of “ephemera items” — materials not generally intended for long-term preservation. Such items often help… Read more »

Longtime Tucson resident Jennifer Schneider donated “Der Rebbe,” a painting by local artist David Montefiore of the late Chabad-Lubavich leader Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, to Chabad of Oro Valley on Monday, March 9, the eve of Purim. Schneider, who was born in Israel, is a physician certified in internal… Read more »