Arts and Culture

The Tucson International Jewish Film Festival is presenting three pre-festival screenings in advance of its January lineup for the 30th annual festival. The festival is using the Eventive platform to screen films that viewers can watch on a computer, mobile device, or smart TV, and Zoom for post-film programs.… Read more »

The Tucson Jewish Community Center will hold a physically distanced opening for its Sculpture Garden on Sunday, Oct. 25, from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. The Sculpture Garden, created in 2009, includes new and established artists and is a cornerstone of the J’s arts programming. The opening will feature nine new… Read more »

This month, the Tucson Jewish Community Center will launch Amplifying Voices, a six-part virtual series designed to help explore the intersectional relationship between Black and Jewish identity and community. The series will begin Oct. 18 at 4 p.m. with Professors Marc Dollinger of San Francisco State University and Jerome… Read more »

The University of Arizona Poetry Center, part of the College of Humanities, is launching a new, virtual Institute for Inquiry and Poetics. The inaugural convening, offered in partnership with the Hurand Connection Fund, will feature U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo and poets Jennifer Foerster and LeAnne Howe, editors of… Read more »

The Fred Fox School of Music at the University of Arizona College of Fine Arts will present its 13th annual Music+Festival, featuring the music of George Gershwin (1898-1937), Steve Reich (b. 1936), and William Bolcom (b. 1938), from Oct. 9-12. All festival events will be online, with free admission.… Read more »

The Jewish History Museum and Holocaust History Center is hosting “Clamor en el Desierto/Clamor in the Desert,” a new work from artist Mirta Kupferminc. The sukkah installation is imbued with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights presented in dozens of languages, and invite the community into active care of… Read more »

This article originally appeared in The Nosher. (JTA) — I know the holidays will look, and taste, different than most years. I also know many families cherish the big brisket, standing rib roast or pot roast that graces their table each year. Traditions are important, and food imparts its… Read more »

(JTA) — Yeshiva University rejected the formation of a campus group for queer students but said it was putting in place new policies to help LGBTQ students feel safe. The flagship Modern Orthodox college in New York sent a statement to students Thursday addressing a yearlong battle over whether… Read more »

(JTA) — A Jewish day school in Oakland, California, is committing to making changes this week after a local family said the school had declined to accept their gender-fluid child. Meg Keene, an Oakland mother who runs a prominent wedding planning website, encouraged her thousands of Instagram followers to… Read more »

(JTA) — It was only a matter of time: A Jewish Netflix has arrived. That moniker is probably the best description of ChaiFlicks, a film and TV streaming platform focused on Jewish-themed movies that launches Wednesday. It helps that its creators were once in business with the real Netflix.… Read more »

(J. the Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — When Berkeley resident Sarah Lefton awoke on Tuesday morning, her phone was lit up with notifications. While she was sleeping, President Trump had signed the Great American Outdoors Act, a piece of legislation that will protect the nation’s parks… Read more »

(JTA) — In a new interview, Seth Rogen said his comments about Israel being a bad idea for a state were made in jest but affirmed that he found his childhood education about the country, which he received through Jewish schools and camps, to be problematic. “I don’t want… Read more »

(J. the Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — While the ballpark Tuesday night at the San Francisco Giants’ home opener may not have been filled with fans because of COVID-19 restrictions, nearby McCovey Cove had a familiar guest. Standing on a 75-foot yacht docked in a part… Read more »

(JTA) — If you keep kosher in Seattle — whose metro area is home to more than 60,000 Jews — you now have to head to the suburbs for a restaurant meal you can eat. The city’s only freestanding, certified kosher restaurant, Bamboo Garden, is serving its last meals… Read more »

Social distancing and staying inside is hard. Thankfully, accessing good things to watch during this time is not. This is the latest installation of a weekly column on Jewish movies and TV shows that you should stream in quarantine. The Good Place Streams on: Seasons 1-3 are on Netflix, Season… Read more »

(JTA) — Days after a small corner of the internet erupted with criticism of how the Metropolitan Museum of Art labeled a Jewish ritual object in its collection, the New York museum has quietly revised the description. Where its website had previously called tefillin, the leather boxes and straps… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israelis who don’t want to see racy content have a new streaming service that allows them to skip the immodest parts. The Tov TV service, dubbed the “kosher Netflix” by the Israeli daily Haaretz, is geared toward observant Jews who follow the religious laws of modesty.… Read more »

(JTA) — After their vocal calls for Twitter to take down rapper Wiley’s spree of anti-Semitic tweets went unanswered, Jews in the United Kingdom are taking another approach: silence. British Jewish activists and their allies — including high-profile celebrities, both Jewish and non-Jewish — are staging a 48-hour boycott… Read more »

(JTA) — Israeli poetry scholar Rachel Korazim had been thinking about cutting back on travel when the coronavirus pandemic made the decision for her. “I said I really want to shift my teaching to distance learning because, you know, I’m not getting any younger. Travel is tiring,” she said… Read more »

With all the chaos and uncertainty in the outside world in recent months, many people are looking for ways to stabilize their inner lives. Tucson-based authors Shari Gootter, MA, LPC, CRC, and Tejpal, MA, MBA, have written a book, “Way to Be: 40 Insights and Transformative Practices in the… Read more »