Arts and Culture

When I was 18, I was going to Northwestern University night school and looking for day work. One of my courses was marketing and selling, which was taught by Benjamin Bills, a man I will never forget. He told me that I was a born salesman. He said there… Read more »

"Partnership" by Natalie Leonard

Drawings by Natalie Leonard and Zevi Bloomfield are the local winners in an art contest sponsored by the TIPS communities of Tucson, Israel, Phoenix and Seattle. The drawings are printed on note cards the Israel Center will distribute at community events. This is the fourth year of the TIPS… Read more »

‘Fractured Bubble’ by Henry Grosman and Babak Bryan won the Sukkah City architectural competition in Manhattan. (Courtesy of Reboot)

It was a surprise hit on the cultural roster of a city that may be the most culturally busy city in the nation. And even though the Sukkah City architectural competition in New York was being dismantled this week, look for Sukkah City next year in a town near… Read more »

Mandy Patinkin plays a man obsessed with the story of Anne Frank in "Compulsion," opening Sept. 16 in Berkeley, Calif.

BERKELEY, Calif. (JTA) — Mandy Patinkin says he only plays Jewish characters. Che Guevara, his Tony Award-winning role in the 1980 Broadway play, “Evita”? Jewish. Inigo “prepare to die” Montoya in “The Princess Bride”? Also Jewish. “Everything I do is Jewish. It’s who I am. It’s my soul,” said… Read more »

Ivan Gur-Arie

“Jewcentricity:  Why the Jews are Praised, Blamed, and Used to Explain Just About Everything” by Adam M. Garfinkle, a very readable book, encompasses historical, psychological, cultural and sociological themes. It has always intrigued me why Jews throughout history always got the limelight, for good or bad. This book certainly… Read more »

Phyllis Braun

For me, it isn’t any one book, it is books in general — though I have fond memories of reading all of Louisa May Alcott’s works when I was a girl, despite what I see now as her somewhat overbearing preachiness. I can still remember being a pre-reader, at… Read more »

Mark Rubin

I’ve been reading for almost 50 years and will read almost anything. For pure pleasure, though, my favorites are “The Day the Goose Got Loose” by Reeve Lindbergh (Steven Kellogg, Illustrator), “The Digging-Est Dog” by Al Perkins (Eric Gurney, Illustrator) and “The Lorax” by Theodor Seuss Geisel, read aloud… Read more »

Sheila Wilensky

Once upon a time, I owned a children’s bookstore.  My two children grew up at Oz Books in Southwest Harbor, Maine, which I owned from 1982 to 1997. In a way, it seemed that we grew up together reading children’s books. In high school I read a lot of… Read more »

Rabbi Jason Holtz

“As a Driven Leaf,” by Rabbi Milton Steinberg, is a 20th century book that’s a retelling of an ancient rabbinic story.  The protagonist, Elisha ben Avuyah, is a respected rabbinic scholar living in the ancient land of Israel.  Despite his traditional Jewish learning and stature in the community, he… Read more »

Steven Freedman

When I was a young boy, I would go camping with my parents, older brother and younger sister. My mother would read a book aloud as my father drove the station wagon with the camping gear neatly stowed on top. On one trip, mom read short stories by Sholom… Read more »

Rebecca Kunsberg

A friend loaned me “The History of Love,” by Nicole Krauss, and it sat on my night stand for two months. I was in grad school at the time, and didn’t have time to read a book for leisure. I finally had time between semesters, and to this day,… Read more »

Penelope Starr

“The Penelopeiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus” by Margaret Atwood is a book that confirmed what I already believed, an excellent way for a book to get your attention. Atwood was asked to reinterpret an ancient myth as part of the Canongate Myth Series. She takes the story… Read more »

Roni Capin Rivera-Ashford

I grew up in a Jewish family in Nogales, Arizona, on the Mexican border, in a predominantly Mexican-Catholic community.  Since the early ’60s, I have been on a rich journey of embracing interracial/interfaith friendships and marriage.   The wisdom and maturity I gained along the way have served as a… Read more »

Beth Alpert Nakhai

“A Tale of Love and Darkness,” a memoir by Amos Oz (Harcourt, 2003; translated from the Hebrew by Nicholas de Lange) is among the most gorgeous books I have ever read. Oz is a master of words and in this book he crafts them to create the story of… Read more »

Tom Miller

In recent years I have become obsessed with “Don Quixote de La Mancha.” The book, published in two parts some 400 years ago, follows the exploits of Alonso Quijano, who imagines himself a knight-errant dedicated to acts of chivalry and takes on the name Don Quixote as well as… Read more »

Arthur Yavelberg

Chaim Potok’s “The Chosen” came to me at an important time. I already had a passion for baseball— how I wanted the ball hit to ME when it really counted. So when the Hasidic yeshiva student, Danny—at that time the menacing, Darth Vader-like Danny—recognized the spin in Reuven’s curve… Read more »

We call ourselves “People of the Book” because of the commandment that every Jew study Torah. Over generations, this moniker has also come to signify a more general esteem for books and learning.  The metaphor of the book so permeates our identity that during this High Holiday season, we… Read more »

Larry Harlow (Courtesy Tucson Jazz Society)

Salsa star Larry Harlow, known affectionately in the Latin music world as El Judío Maravilloso (“the marvelous Jew”), will headline the Tucson Jazz Society’s Downtown Tucson Latin Jazz Festival on Saturday, Sept. 11 at 8 p.m. at the Tucson Convention Center’s Leo Rich Theatre. Born Lawrence Ira Kahn in… Read more »

(L-R) Tommy Donahue, Tyler McKendrick, Tucson Fire Department Assistant Chief Mike McKendrick (Sean Stuchen)

A photography exhibit by Tucsonan Sean Stuchen, “Firefighters on Film,” celebrates the creation of the Tucson Fire Foundation. The foundation, the result of yearlong discussions between community philanthropists and Tucson Fire Department senior staff, will provide funds to bridge the human services gap between the needs of the fire… Read more »

Cantor Ivor Lichterman of Congregation Anshei Israel, right, and his brother, Cantor Joel Lichterman of Denver, Colo., sing at the Nozyk Synagogue in Warsaw, where their father was the last prewar cantor, in this still from “100 Voices: A Journey Home.”

A documentary based on the historic visit of 100 cantors to Poland last year, “100 Voices: A Journey Home,” will be shown at three movie theatres in Tucson, for one night only, on Tuesday, Sept. 21. The film explores the rich history of Jewish culture in Poland, which is… Read more »