Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in a photo from Aug. 23, 1978. (CBS via Getty Images)
(JTA) — Carrie Fisher, the actress best known for playing Princess Leia in the original “Star Wars” films, died days after suffering a heart attack on an airplane. She was 60. Fisher’s family spokesman Simon Halls confirmed to multiple publications that she passed away Tuesday morning. Fisher had been… Read more »
Album cover for "Dreidel I Shall Play" by composer Samuel E. Goldfarb. (Courtesy of Myron Gordon)
(JTA) — Within the Jewish musical canon are several songs that seem to have always existed — tunes we all know and pass down from one generation to the next. One example is the Hanukkah favorite “I Have a Little Dreidel” — chances are most everyone reading this can… Read more »
Launched in 2012, Geltfiend was an innovator in the Hanukkah sweater scene. (Jay Diebel/Carin Agiman/Geltfiend)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Ever since I moved here from Israel, every late November felt like the beginning of a month-long assault. Every store, business and doctor’s office blared Christmas songs, streets were decorated with ostentatious light shows and seemingly everything became green and red — which, as an… Read more »
(JTA) — From a new audio version of “Hanukkah Bear” — a holiday favorite by National Jewish Book Award winner Eric A. Kimmel — to a novel for young teens set during the Festival of Lights, there is a fresh crop of Hanukkah books that are sure to delight… Read more »
A scene from ‘The Pickle Recipe’
The 26th annual Tucson Jewish International Film Festival will present more than 20 films from around the world, Jan. 12-22. All films will be screened at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, with two exceptions: a pre-festival kickoff in SaddleBrooke and the opening night film at the Loft Cinema, 3233… Read more »
Adam Nimoy with his father, Leonard Nimoy, in a scene from the film “For the Love of Spock”
When Leonard Nimoy announced in 1949 that he wanted to be an actor, and was leaving Boston for Hollywood, his Russian-Jewish parents were stunned. “My grandfather said that he should take up the accordion,” says Adam Nimoy, Leonard’s son and the director of the new documentary “For the Love… Read more »
Clockwise from left: Anthony Rosenthal, Betsy Wolfe, Tracie Thoms, Christian Borle, Andrew Rannells, Brandon Uranowitz and Stephanie J. Block performing in the musical "Falsettos." (Joan Marcus)
NEW YORK (JTA) — The opening number in the Broadway musical “Falsettos” — currently being revived on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre — is called “Four Jews in a Room Bitching.” Featuring sample lyrics like “I’m neurotic, he’s neurotic, they’re neurotic, we’re neurotic. Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch,” it… Read more »
THA fifth grade students Omer Ron, left, and Aiden Goldberg
Chen Shterenbach, a teacher at Tucson Hebrew Academy, recently held a Hebrew poetry contest for his students. The students had the liberty of choosing any topic. The judges were Rabbi Billy Lewkowicz and Windy Jones. Lewkowicz was the representative for THA’s Hebrew and Judaics department and Jones, THA’s middle school… Read more »
Author and behavioral scientist Jon Levy gets out of his comfort zone in Antarctica. (Courtesy of Jon Levy)
(JTA) — To give you an idea of how uncool Jon Levy was as a kid, know this: His first kiss was in first grade, when he was a student at the Abraham Joshua Heschel School on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. His second kiss? Well, that happened during his freshman… Read more »
Jake Goodman in ‘Kaddish', a one-person theatrical adaptation of Imre Kertész's Nobel Prize-winning novel, will run on Thursday, Dec. 8 at the Tucson Museum of Art.
The Jewish History Museum in partnership with the Tucson Museum of Art will present “Kaddish,” a one-person theatrical adaptation of a novel by Nobel Prize-winner and Auschwitz survivor Imre Kertész, on Thursday, Dec. 8 at the Tucson Museum of Art., with performances at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. “This… Read more »
Rabbi Stephanie Aaron teaches at the Jewish Culture Shuk Nov 20.
Tucson’s Jewish Culture Shuk, a night of classes and discussions led by local rabbis and Jewish educators, is something Debbie Gubernick looks forward to every year. Gubernick, founder of Agents of STEAM, a local organization that helps facilitate events and literacy in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, has attended… Read more »
‘Gates of Tsfat,” 36” x 28” photograph, by Lynn Rae Lowe
For more than two decades, Lynn Rae Lowe, an awarding-winning local artist, has strived to empower people through her symbolic work. “Ancient symbols give us access into the collective unconscious, and through that we can raise up ourselves,” says Lowe. And the arts can help communities make sense of… Read more »
As Arizona Theatre Company celebrates its 50th anniversary with its largest production ever, “Fiddler on the Roof,” two Jewish University of Arizona seniors are making their ATC debuts in the iconic musical, under the direction of ATC artistic director David Ira Goldstein. For Shira Elena Maas (Rivka) and Taylor… Read more »
On “Younger,” Maggie (Debi Mazar), left, hosts a Shabbat dinner for her love interest, Malkie (Sally Pressman), and her friends. (Courtesy of TV Land)
(JTA) — TV Land’s “Younger” is a fun sitcom about Liza (Sutton Foster), a recently divorced 40-year-old mother who passes herself off as 26 after having a tough time landing a job in the publishing industry. The show — created by Darren Star, of “Sex and the City” and “Beverly Hills,… Read more »
A man examining a comic book for sale at the inaugural Jewish Comic Con, held at Congregation Kol Israel, a Brooklyn synagogue, Nov. 13, 2016. (Ben Sales)
NEW YORK (JTA) — After Brett Parker’s great-grandfather fled the pogroms in Europe and came to the United States, he opened a drug store where he sold comic books. Each week he would give his grandson, Parker’s father, five comic books to take home. Growing up during the early… Read more »
A scene from 'A Children's Song'
The Tucson International Jewish Film Festival will hold a FAST (First Annual Short Topics) & Fun! evening to announce the schedule for the festival on Wednesday, Dec. 7 at 7 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. The festival, which will run from Jan. 12-22, will feature more than… Read more »
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Leonard Cohen, center, performing with Matti Caspi, on guitar, for Ariel Sharon, with arms crossed, and other Israeli troops in the Sinai in 1973. (Courtesy of Maariv)
(JTA) — Using his M-16 assault rifle as a pillow, my father awoke abruptly from a dreamless sleep by the pleading voice of a young woman outside his tent in the Sinai. The woman, a uniformed volunteer, was urging reservists like him to forego shuteye to hear a musician… Read more »
Leonard Cohen during a concert in Ramat Gan, Israel, Sept. 24, 2009. (Marko/Flash90)
(JTA) — Leonard Cohen, the Canadian singer-songwriter whose Jewish-infused work became a soundtrack for melancholy, has died. He was 82. “It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter and artist Leonard Cohen has passed away,” his Facebook page said late Thursday. “We have lost one… Read more »
The stars of "Good Girls Revolt," a new series on Amazon inspired by Lynn Povich's memoir. (Courtesy of Amazon Studios)
(JTA) — Men were writers and women were researchers. That’s the way it was when Lynn Povich and 45 of her colleagues at Newsweek decided to take a stand. In 1970, the women banded together and became the first women in the media to file a lawsuit on… Read more »
