President Donald Trump speaks at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in
Jerusalem, May 23, 2017. (Issac Harari/Flash90)
SAN FRANCISCO (J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — A San Francisco teacher hired to translate into Hebrew President Trump’s “not very eloquent” (as she puts it) speeches last week in Saudi Arabia and Jerusalem said she isn’t proud to be working for this administration and… Read more »
Liron Lavi Turkenich compares produce in a video for her Aravit writing system. (Screenshot from YouTube)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Middle East peace may remain out of reach, but at least the Hebrew and Arabic languages have found a compromise. Israeli typography designer Liron Lavi Turkenich has created a stylized writing system that merges the two ancient alphabets, allowing Hebrew and Arabic speakers to… Read more »
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C., March 7, 2017. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Until this year, Rod Rosenstein was an unassuming U.S. attorney with a reputation for fairness. Now he’s at the center of the controversy over President Donald Trump’s snap firing of James Comey, the FBI director. Rosenstein, 52, whose appointment by Trump as deputy attorney general was confirmed… Read more »
Jared Kushner at a luncheon with President Mauricio Macri of Argentina at the White House, April 27, 2017. (Olivier Douliery/Pool/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Jared Kushner was once hailed as the key to Donald Trump’s surprise election victory. Now Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser is at the center of the biggest controversy plaguing the administration: its ties to Russia. Kushner is facing heat following reports of two meetings with figures… Read more »
On June 6, Jewish communities across the country will hold candlelight vigils to commemorate the anniversary of the day that the MS St. Louis began its return journey to Europe, with over 900 Jewish refugees on board after being denied entry to the United States. The Jewish History Museum will… Read more »
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump with Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, second from right, at the inauguration ceremony of the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 21, 2017. (Bandar Algaloud/Saudi Royal Council/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – The year was 1981 and the director of AIPAC was calling for a “showdown” with the Reagan administration, saying “This country is being held hostage to the whims of the Saudis.” At issue was the sale to Saudi Arabia of AWACS, aircraft with radar-enabled surveillance capabilities that… Read more »
TUCSON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA has named KIMBERLY D. ELY as vice president of development. Before joining TSO in 2015 as director of charitable giving, she spent 20 years in Nashville, Tenn., where she served as vice president of development for Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art, director of development… Read more »
Devy Wolff served in the Israel Defense Forces after the Six-Day War. This photo is from December 1967. Devy Wolff served in the Israel Defense Forces after the Six-Day War. This photo is from December 1967.
Fifty years ago Israel won a war that no one expected it to win. The Six-Day War took place from June 5-10, 1967 when Israel fought against Egypt, Syria and Jordan, and captured the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank, Old City of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. For… Read more »
The border fence separating Nogales, Ariz., from Nogales, Mexico (Michael Zaccaria)
Twenty-seven people joined the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona for a tour of Arizona’s border with Mexico on May 3. The day included a visit to the site of a Humane Borders water station in Arivaca, a speaker’s session at the Fresh Produce… Read more »
Margo Gray, a member of Hadassah Southern Arizona, wrote the following recollection of the Six-Day War period for Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America: I was 18, had completed my first university semester and had just returned to Chicago. I am a first-generation American whose father had escaped… Read more »
B’nai B’rith Covenant House of Tucson is a low-income HUD housing community for seniors that provides safe, affordable housing for 120 older adults in mid-town. Early in the morning on Sunday, May 14, which was Mother’s Day, 40 residents living in building one were awoken to a blaring fire… Read more »
The Tucson Jewish Community Center will hold a weeklong day camp for adults, “Around the World,” June 12-16. The camp will explore the languages, cultures, and cuisines of Mexico, China, Italy, France and Israel, with each day devoted to a different country. Participants can register for the entire week… Read more »
The Mosaic Outdoor Club is planning a hike on Thumb Butte in Prescott during its Labor Day weekend ‘escape.’ (Courtesy Mosaic Outdoor Clubs of America)
The Mosaic Outdoor Clubs of America, the nation’s oldest and largest Jewish organization dedicated to fun and adventure in the outdoors, will hold its annual five-day international event in Prescott, Ariz., Aug. 31-Sept. 4. . The 27th annual Jewish Outdoor Escape, dubbed “r-AZ-ma-t’AZ: An Arizona Adventure,” will be based… Read more »
The Tucson March of the Living delegation marches from Auschwitz to Birkenau on April 24. [Courtesy Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona)
It takes a special kind of courage to revisit your worst memories. When Holocaust survivor Pawel Lichter of Tucson accompanied a group of Jewish teens on the 29th annual March of the Living, April 19-May 3, he stepped back to 1939. In a basement on Warszawska Street, in his… Read more »
(Illustration by Lior Zaltzman)
(JTA) — The festival of Shavuot, which begins at sundown May 30, focuses on Moses receiving the tablets of the law. But an even more fascinating part of the story is when he shatters them. In an astounding midrash, or rabbinic commentary, Moses’ act is portrayed as the epitome of loyalty… Read more »
The Rooftop Restaurant at Mamilla Hotel, a modern eatery just outside Jerusalem's Old City, is leading the city's fine dining charge. (Courtesy of Mamilla Hotel)
JERUSALEM — There’s something delicious afoot in Jerusalem, a city long known not only for its interwoven layers of history and religion, but winding souks perfumed by fragrant spices, sun-ripened fruit and sizzling oil. Now more than ever, Jerusalem is attracting flavor-seeking innovators who see it at a culinary… Read more »
Protesters in Paris demonstrating against a new Israeli settlement in the West Bank, April 1, 2017. (Thomas Samson/AFP/Getty Images)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Shortly after the outbreak of the Six-Day War in 1967, Ronny Naftaniel was soliciting donations on the street and putting a lot of money into a box emblazoned with the words “for Israel.” An Amsterdam Jew who was 19 that year, Naftaniel was one of… Read more »
Laurence Kotler-Berkowitz (Courtesy of Kotler-Berkowitz)
(JTA) — In a recent analysis of U.S. religious groups, the Pew Research Center reported that the most educated American Jews are also the least religious. In considering these findings, it’s tempting to think that secular education leads to assimilation among American Jews (I want to be clear that Pew, a… Read more »
Ariel Sharon, third from left, meets with his officers a week before the start of the Six-Day War, May 29, 1967. at their headquarters somewhere in southern Israel. (Micha Han/GPO via Getty Images)
Five days before the Six-Day War broke out in June 1967, the American reporter Abraham Rabinovich arrived in Jerusalem. When the war ended, he decided to remain and write an account of Israel’s lightning victory. Over the next two years he interviewed close to 300 soldiers and civilians. In this excerpt from the 50th… Read more »
Emergency responders arrive at the Manchester Arena following a bomb attack at an Ariana Grande concert, May 22, 2017. (Dave Thompson/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Britain’s bloodiest terrorist attack in over a decade occurred Monday just two miles from Rabbi Yisroel Cohen’s synagogue. Yet one day after the deadly bombing in Manchester, Cohen told JTA he has no intention of changing security arrangements at his congregation. In fact Cohen, a Chabad… Read more »
