News

(JTA) — On a recent Sunday, eight far-right activists filmed themselves on what they called a “raid” on the Aurora Jewish community center in Budapest. Sporting crewcuts and black clothes, the men affixed posters with a crossed-out picture of the Hungary-born Jewish American billionaire George Soros to the entrance of… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) – Israeli startups are revving their engines ahead of the country’s largest-ever “smart transportation” event. Over 200 local companies working in transportation technology will be at the EcoMotion Conference on Thursday at the Peres Center for Peace in Jaffa. The plan is to give auto industry… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Bill Clinton consulted with folks who came up with him in Arkansas, George W. Bush preferred Texan veterans of his family’s hard-fought political battles and Barack Obama had his Chicago peeps. Who does the first billionaire president go to when he wants real-deal advice? Other billionaires,… Read more »

(JTA) — These days there are smartphone applications for pretty much anything, from ordering food to finding a date to reporting anti-Semitic incidents. But what about tools for living a religious Jewish life? Well, there are apps for that, too. Whereas in the time before smartphones, observant Jews may have… Read more »

(JTA) — Only one religious group in the U.S. has a federally proclaimed month celebrating their history: the Jews. In 2006, President George W. Bush officially declared May as Jewish American Heritage Month. Yet Jewish American Heritage Month, or JAHM, hardly seems a priority — not in the government, not… Read more »

Alma Hernandez is passionate and strives every day to make a difference. People say her values and actions represent the core of Judaism, which is noteworthy because Hernandez didn’t grow up Jewish. At age 24, she has been active in the Jewish community for several years, even before she… Read more »

The immigration crisis in Southern Arizona was the topic of a breakfast forum organized by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona on Friday, April 28. Opening the meeting, which was held at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, JCRC Chair Richard White explained that… Read more »

Avraham “Avi” Alpert’s spiritual journey has led him from Judaism to atheism to being an observant Jew. Now he wants to help other Jews find their own path to Jewish traditions, values and celebrations that bring families closer together. His April 23 talk at the Tucson Jewish Community Center,… Read more »

Three young Jewish athletes from Tucson will compete in the elite Maccabiah Games in Israel. Held every four years, the games are the world’s third-largest international sporting event, with more than 9,000 athletes from over 80 countries. Sam Beskind, Tamara Statman and Brett Miller will be part of Team… Read more »

The Navajo cradleboard at Tucson’s Jewish History Museum held Cantor Janece Cohen when she was a baby. It continues to hold many stories for her and her father, Dr. Seneca Erman, 88, who gave a gallery chat at the museum on Feb. 3. Erman had done a two-month internship… Read more »

Tracing Roots and Building Trees, an intergenerational program that brings together residents of Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging with students from Tucson Hebrew High, wrapped up its second year with a reception at Handmaker on Sunday, April 30.  Fifteen Handmaker residents and 13 teens participated in the program,… Read more »

When Lilian Spieth bought Roma Imports in 1999, she had never run a business or worked in a restaurant. But her kids were in college and she was bored. “I was a little bit intimidated at starting something from scratch,” she says, but she figured she could take an… Read more »

Tucson’s Main Gate Square sports a chic new bakery called Woops! The Woops! phenomenon got its start in 2012 with a pop-up holiday kiosk in New York’s Bryant Square Park selling nothing but macarons, the petite, colorful French sandwich cookies (as opposed to macaroons, the chewy coconut cookies often… Read more »

(L-R) Rabbi Yossie Shemtov, Rabbi Thomas Louchheim and Rabbi Robert Eisen

Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging will continue its Rabbi Lecture Series with “Finding G-d (in the) Every Day,” featuring Rabbis Yossie Shemtov, Robert Eisen and Thomas Louchheim, on Sunday, May 21 at 3:30 p.m. “The Baal Shem Tov taught us that everything you see or hear can serve… Read more »

The Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona has launched “Bikes Without Borders” to distribute bicycles to newly arrived refugees through local refugee resettlement agencies. “Bikes Without Borders” is seeking donations of new or used adult and child-sized bicycles and helmets, locks, lights and other… Read more »

The Jewish History Museum will host “Hidden Ones: A Veil of Memories,” a book signing and talk with novelist Marcia Fine, as part of its exhibition from the New Mexico History Museum, “Fluid Identities: New Mexican Crypto-Jews in the Late 20th Century.” The free talk will be held Tuesday,… Read more »

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — “You make us better,” James Comey told the Anti-Defamation League in his final public speech as FBI director. Judging from the applause in the conference room at the venerable Mayflower Hotel here, the feeling was mutual. Mired in investigations of the scandals of 2016 (Hillary… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Ten days before Donald Trump was inaugurated, Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked visited the Jewish settlement in Hebron. A community of several hundred ensconced in a city of 150,000 Palestinians, Hebron’s Jewish residents are considered to be among the most extremist and controversial Israeli settlers.… Read more »

PARIS (JTA) — French Jews may have voted en masse for Emmanuel Macron in the final round of France’s presidential elections, but that doesn’t make him their dream president. Like many other supporters of the 39-year-old former investment banker, who on Sunday became the youngest French president in recent… Read more »

  (JTA) — Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year-old  former investment banker and political centrist, handily defeated the far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen in France’s presidential election. Exit polls showed Macron winning Sunday’s vote by a margin of 65 percent to 34 percent. Although her bid to lead the country failed, Le Pen’s divisive campaign against Macron achieved some of… Read more »